The Secrets of Love Story Bridge - Phaedra Patrick Page 0,5
avalanche.
“I do know you, don’t I?” she said.
Mitchell looked away. “I don’t think we’ve met before.” He wondered if her fall was causing her confusion, but as he opened his mouth to reply, a hand clamped down on his shoulder. A man with a thin mustache and horn-rimmed glasses stood above him.
“I’m a doctor. Can I help?” the man said.
Mitchell nodded gratefully, and he slipped his fingers away from the woman’s hand. He cradled her head and helped her to lie down flat on the grass, then he shuffled backward out of the way.
The doctor crouched down. “What happened?”
The woman swallowed but didn’t reply.
“She fell into the river, and I jumped in to help her,” Mitchell said.
“How long was she in for?”
“Ten or fifteen minutes, I think. I don’t really know.” His sense of time had flown and his stomach plunged when his watch showed 5:40 p.m.
His attention snapped back to Poppy. She was at school and he was very late. He’d also left his toolbox on the bridge. “Sorry, I have to go,” he said to the doctor and the woman.
Mitchell stood up and took a few unsteady steps along the grass verge in his soggy socked feet. He hunched away from the well-meaning pats that rained down on his back. When a couple of mobile phones appeared, he resisted the impulse to bat them away.
He told himself the woman would be fine. She was with a doctor.
Heart thumping, Mitchell thrust a hand into his trouser pocket and tugged out his own phone to call the school. But the screen was blank and tiny bubbles emerged from the camera hole.
He limped to where the grass verge ended, made his way back up onto the street and headed toward Redford to quickly look for his toolbox. When he reached midway along the bridge, he stood in the rough spot the woman in the yellow dress had fallen.
He searched frantically around for his tools and his shoulders sagged when he realized they’d gone, perhaps stolen.
When he looked back over the railing, he saw the woman and doctor were heading in his direction. The sun made her wet dress shine like gold, and a thought struck Mitchell like a lightning bolt.
I don’t even know her name.
He looked at her again and his pull toward her was magnetic. But she was over thirty meters away from him, and he had to get to the school.
He would rush past and ask what her name was.
He had to know.
He turned and saw a cyclist whizzing along the pavement toward him at great speed. Pizza boxes were piled high on the handlebars. Mitchell tried to jump out of the way, but the bicycle smashed into him, knocking him to the ground.
As boxes went flying in the air, Mitchell heard the thwack of his own head on the pavement. Pain bloomed and his vision blurred. Someone shouted for an ambulance, and legs surrounded him like trees in a forest.
When he strained to raise his head, a hand pressed his shoulders back down.
Mitchell wasn’t sure how long he lay there for, but through a set of fleshy knees in long khaki shorts, he thought he saw the swish of a yellow dress.
Then he closed his eyes and everything went blank.
3
SMALL SHOES
While he was out cold, Mitchell dreamed.
It was another kiln-hot summer day where the air shimmered and people gathered in the pub for shelter from the sun. A woman with copper curls pushed in next to him at the bar.
“A pint of cider, please,” she said, even though it was Mitchell’s turn to be served. She glanced at him and pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, sorry, you were next?”
He shrugged, a little irritated. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. Really. The barman was cutting into a lime and the smell always reminds me of this holiday I went on to Ibiza in my early twenties. It was supposedly cool to drink beer from a bottle with a slice of lime sticking out of the neck. Even though I didn’t like the taste, I drank it for a whole week and...”
Mitchell laughed despite himself. “I once forced myself to drink the same thing at a barbecue because my friends liked it.”
She returned his smile. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is sorry, and can I get you a drink?” When he started to protest against her offer, she jokingly placed her elbow in front of him. “I’ll get this,” she said to the barman.