Pedigree Crush With a Twist of Passion Chapter ten

Chapter Ten

A two pound deficit and eight pound gain were jointly to blame for Julie’s bad mood. The two pounds was the couple of quid she was short on the fantastic jeans she’d just tried on, and the eight pounds was the half a stone—at least—that she had gained which prevented her doing the buggers up. What’s a girl to do when trauma as gigantic as that blight’s her life? She might be getting fatter but she wasn’t bloody stupid; the answer was obvious. She had no alternative but to go to Salvanna’s for the lunchtime special. Of course, once her diet was broken enough to indulge in spaghetti bolognaise drowned in melted cheese, what harm would a full-fat latte on the side do? It took her half a minute to talk herself into it and half of that was spent asking herself if she had the guts to eat alone. She decided that once she got in there, she’d ring her sister and offer to treat her to lunch, if she was up for providing a bit of pig-out moral support.
The restaurant was busy but not oppressively so. Wimmin-what-lunch and the business exec crowd filled three quarters of the clientele capacity. Julie was gratified to see another woman sitting alone, until her companion came back from the toilet. What the hell, she thought. She was hungry, they served food, and it was less shameful than throwing herself off the dock’s bridge and expecting the recovery divers to lift her, and her extra half stone of weight, out of the slimy green water.
She squeezed herself between one of the close tables and a pushchair, pausing only to glare at the child with the mitt-full of deep pan Margarita. His wide blue eyes a striking contrast to the tomato red of the rest of his face. He looked as though he’d been massacred—a self-proclaiming prophesy if the brat touched her camel-coloured jacket with either of those filthy hands. She caught the mother’s eye and quickly changed her expression into one of those sickly ones, reserved for the parents of young children, the one that said she’d probably like one of those too, one day.
She felt as though she had shot from a size fourteen to a sixteen overnight and there was no way that she was going to go from a sixteen to a size oh-my-god-how-did-that kid-get-in-there.
The bloke at the next table was eating alone. As she sat down he looked up from his newspaper with a half-interested glance of curiosity. He didn’t actually look at her and they certainly didn’t make eye contact so she had no need to smile or say anything. A weary waitress was manoeuvring through the tables towards her. She had menus tucked under one arm, pencil and jotter at the ready. Julie ordered her latte to fight away the afternoon chill and the weight gain depression. She said that she would order food when her friend arrived.
Emma, her sister, declined the offer of a free lunch. She had a man coming to fit blinds. Julie was going to plead desperation due to the gained weight and tragic demise of the jeans that had never been hers. But she was well aware that the man at the next table was within earshot of their conversation, hell she could lean over and snog him without lifting more than her left butt cheek if she had a mind to. Vanity demanded that she only suggested once that Emma leave the blind man to it, and go AWOL. After using precious phone credit, she resigned herself to eating alone.
The man at the opposite table was causing her some problems. Apart from an initial glance he hadn’t once lifted his head from his paper, but even so, he was causing her to moderate her choices. If he hadn’t been sitting there she could have put the hard word on Emma and she could have had spaghetti bolognaise for lunch. However, there was no chance of eating that in public now. She opted for the safer risotto; it still came smothered in melted cheese, so that was good. Her mood demanded heaps of melted cheese today.
The table was getting on her nerves. Every time she shifted position the short leg rocked to the floor. Maybe leprechauns escaped from Ireland and roamed restaurants in the night cutting an inch of every fourth table leg. Julie came to the conclusion that it was the grand plan the Irish had to overthrow the British. Boi jimminy, we’ll bring them down boi way of their toibles so we will, Paddy. She was smiling as the waitress returned with her lunch.
The food looked good, but it was no use, the damned table was driving her nuts. She folded a cardboard coaster and, being careful not to dangle her hair in the food, she leaned over the table to put the coaster under the wobbly leg to balance it.
As she bent down she accidentally caught the edge of the table with her elbow. It caused it to slew towards her. She was aware of the plate of hot food sliding forwards, but couldn’t get up quickly enough to stop it.
She watched horrified as the dish slid towards her face. At the last second, instinct drove her to drop her head. The food emptied into her hair. She was aware that she was screaming as she brought herself upright in the chair.
The man at the next table also saw what was going to happen. He leaped up from his seat and less than a second after the contents of the dish spilled out all over Julie’s head he emptied his pint of lager on top of it. He let the glass go and it dropped to the floor, shattering in a ricochet of broken glass. Still less than a second had passed since the first splash of hot food hit her. He was in with his hands, clearing the mess from the top of her head before the burning reached through her thick hair and on to her scalp.
‘Keep still,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m a first aider,’ he said to Julie before addressing the room in general. ‘Get me water. I need to cool her head.’
When the food dropped, the place had erupted into activity. Waitresses hovered and people vacated their seats at the tables nearby as glass and food splashed towards them. As if to add to the humiliation, a second drink was thrown over Julie’s head. This one smelled like Cola. In the melee and madness, she took a moment to consider the affect lager and cola would have on the condition of her hair. She stopped screaming, there was no heat or pain only plenty of fluid and mess. She peered at her world through two strands of lank, dripping cheese as the man, with a penchant for drowning strangers in restaurants, pulled lengths of stringy mess from her hair.
She was embarrassed, humiliated and pathetic and, at a loss for what else to do, she began to cry.
The restaurant, presumably worried about legal suits, was wonderful. They helped mop up the debris, waived the bill and gave her complimentary vouchers for dinner for two, with wine, on the house. The man, not satisfied with initiating the first public drowning in Barrow for a hundred years insisted, despite all of her protestations, on taking her to the hospital to be checked over. ‘Head burns are serious things,’ he said several times. ‘You can’t be too careful.’ Julie just wanted to escape from all the curious eyes and was too upset to argue. She allowed herself to be led out into the street, looking like hell and still snivelling into a Salvanna’s paper serviette. If the child wearing the pizza mask was impressed that a grown-up could get more food on them than he could, she didn’t notice.
People looked at them as they walked the short distance to his car. He had his arm protectively around her shoulders, the taboo of intimacy between strangers broken down in the Age of the New Samaritan.
He insisted on going in with her when she got to the hospital. Worse, he insisted on staying until she had been seen and given the all clear. ‘Might as well see the job through to the end,’ he said.
Who the hell does he think he is?
Julie was grateful to him for what he’d done, but was still smarting with indignation about the way he’d done it.
When she went in to see the registrar on A&E duty she found out exactly how lucky she’d been. He told her that if it hadn’t been for two intervening factors she would be left very seriously burned indeed. She had long, very thick hair, which had protected her head from the scalding. The Samaritan’s quick-witted reaction stopped the food from burning through the hair to her scalp. If it hadn’t been for these two saving graces, she would have been horrendously scarred for life and would never have been able to grow hair over the scar again. As it was, she walked away from the incident humiliated but, apart from being wet and dressed in risotto and cheese, completely unharmed. The enormity of what could have happened hit her and she began to tremble.
The man, who had introduced himself as Philip Woods, said that he would see Miss Spencer home safely and insisted that she had a calming brandy to steady her nerves. Despite being commended vigorously by the doctor and nurses he was surprisingly self-effacing. He said anybody would have done the same thing in a similar situation.
He saw her into the house and insisted she shower and change into her night-clothes immediately even though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. ‘You’ve had a nasty shock and need to rest,’ he told her, still playing his role of medical competent to the hilt. Here was a complete stranger fussing around making coffee in her kitchen and opening the bottle of brandy he’d bought on the way over, as though it was all perfectly normal. She felt uncomfortable showering with him in the house. He could be anyone. And here she was at her most vulnerable, naked and covered in soapsuds. He didn’t seem the type to be anything but a gentleman, but then what type is an axe murderer or pervert? Although she didn’t feel at risk, nonetheless, she locked the bathroom door and didn’t linger. Normally, she wore a short silk dressing gown for lounging, but despite the mild weather, she chose her heavy, hooded velour gown and made sure it was firmly belted over her Pooh-Bear pyjamas.
Julie didn’t have any brandy glasses. In fact, she’d had a few disasters with glasses over the previous months and the option was one half pint glass, or coffee mugs. Philip was appalled that they were drinking brandy from chipped mugs and for some reason that set Julie off into peals of irrational giggles. Philip saw nothing funny about the situation and put her silly giggling down to delayed shock setting in. He’d only had the tiniest drop of brandy because he was driving. He was uptight, but he was also kind and considerate. She was grateful to him for all that he’d done for her that day.
It seemed only right and proper that she invite him to join her for the complimentary meal and that was how their relationship began. No fireworks or love at first sight. No wild palpitating heartbeats. Just risotto awash with lager, and brandy out of chipped Easter bunny mugs.