The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,155
his old, practised charm around him. ‘I can’t imagine what stories Marnie’s been telling you, but she was always a convincing liar. I could tell you a few—’
That was as far as he got before Ned, without any warning at all, punched him straight on the nose.
Mike didn’t so much fall as folded up onto the cobbles and lay there, making gibbering noises, so I knew he wasn’t dead.
It must have relieved Ned, too, because he said ruefully, ‘Whoops! I don’t often lose my temper like that.’
Lancelot and Guinevere walked slowly through the arch and approached Mike, looking down at him in a puzzled way. Guinevere pecked experimentally at his jacket, as if she hoped he was concealing something edible in the pockets and he pushed her aside and staggered to his feet, his nose bleeding copiously.
‘I’ll sue you for assault! You’ll be sorry for this,’ he threatened Ned, thickly.
‘What, because you weren’t looking where you were going and walked into that notice board by the arch?’ said Steve. ‘We all saw you.’
‘Yes, what an unfortunate accident,’ agreed Roddy in his frightfully posh voice and Mike swung round to look at him.
‘It’s a conspiracy!’ he yelled.
‘I do think, you know, that you might find a charge of assault difficult to prove,’ Ned said. ‘However …’ he looked at the results of his handiwork, and said reluctantly, ‘you need a bit of first aid before you leave. You’d better come into the office so we can stop that nosebleed. You can’t walk about like a bloody Niagara.’
‘Nicely phrased,’ I said as he put a hand under Mike’s arm and propelled him, willing or not, up the office steps.
I followed and Roddy suggested Mike sit down and put his head back, then pinch the bridge of his nose.
‘That usually works.’
I passed Mike a wad of tissues and he leaned back with a theatrical groan, though the flow of blood had already begun to cease.
‘Sorry about your accident,’ said Ned. ‘But you shouldn’t have said that about Marnie.’
‘He got off a lot lighter than he’d have done if I’d had my butter paddles handy,’ I said, and he grinned at me.
‘Did you say “butter paddles”?’ Mike said. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I’ve got a pair of giant wooden butter paddles and I’ve had this fantasy that if you turned up, I’d clap your head between them as hard as I could,’ I explained.
‘You’re mad!’ he said, but cringed back slightly as if he thought I might whip them out from somewhere and actually do it.
I wish.
‘Have you really got giant wooden butter paddles?’ asked Roddy with interest.
‘Oh, yes, I brought them back from France and they’re unusually big. I thought they might look nice in the garden museum.’
Mike was now edging away along the sofa as if he was thinking of making a run for the door. I dampened a bit of kitchen towel and handed it to him.
‘I’d clean your face a bit, if you’re thinking of leaving, but otherwise, hasta la vista, baby.’
‘Yeah, stay not upon the order of your going, or whatever it was Shakespeare said,’ agreed Ned. ‘And if I were you, I wouldn’t come back, or make any more attempts to communicate with my fiancée, because I wouldn’t take it very well.’
‘Fiancée?’ Mike looked as surprised as I felt – until I realized Ned had just said it to protect me.
He put his arm around me and said, ‘Yes, but don’t bother congratulating us – just go.’
‘You were the one who insisted I come in here!’ Mike got up, throwing the smeared damp wad of kitchen paper on the floor. ‘You totally misjudged my intentions. I only wanted to make sure that my wife – ex-wife – was all right and to give you a friendly warning—’
‘I really wouldn’t say anything else, if I was you,’ Ned advised him, dangerously, and Mike backed towards the door – which suddenly burst open, sending him flying back into the room again.
I expected to find a tornado had struck but no, it was just a skinny teenage boy.
He was pursued by Steve, who was shouting, ‘Come back, you!’
The boy ignored him and, fixing a pair of glowering blue eyes on Ned, flung out a dramatically pointing hand and demanded: ‘Are you my father?’
‘Oh God, that’s all we need, the Bloody Child,’ said Ned wearily, ‘though it’s clearly Melodrama Week, not Shakespeare. Who are you and why on earth should you think I’m your father?’