back to the car. Gavin followed, feeling like the chauffeur. His whole world seemed to have been turned upside down that day, and the strangest thing of all was having to rely on his ten-year-old son to guide him, and realizing that in Peter’s hands he was perfectly safe.
On the way home he said, “You’ll have to tell me the way to the vet.”
“There’s no need,” came Peter’s quiet voice. “I can do this.”
Gavin jumped and clutched the wheel. His son had spoken to him for the second time that day. “You mean you can actually set a bird’s wing?” he asked, less in disbelief than a desire to hear Peter’s voice again.
But it didn’t work. Peter had said what was necessary and was obviously prepared to say no more. When Gavin ventured to glance down at him, he found him staring straight ahead. He sighed. It was painful to be offered scraps of hope, only to see them snatched away.
Back at the sanctuary Peter got to work without fuss, putting a splint on the tiny wing, his childish hands moving with the ease and confidence of a surgeon. At last the splint was on and the bird settled on some straw in the box.
“I wasn’t necessary at all,” Gavin thought sadly. “He could have done it all without me, except for driving the car.”
But something had changed for the better. It was there in the atmosphere as Peter went purposefully to the stove where the ruin of supper was rapidly drying out. Gavin produced the plates and Peter ladled food onto them.
“We’re a team,” Gavin thought. “If only it could always be like this.”
He ate the dried-out food without even knowing what he was eating. His mind was preoccupied with trying to find something to say to his son, words that would express his new sense of closeness without causing the boy to hastily back away from an unwanted intimacy.
But the words wouldn’t come. A lifetime of leaving feelings unexpressed had left him helpless now. The harder he fought for inspiration, the emptier his mind became.
“Peter,” he said at last, speaking desperately. The boy looked up. “Don’t you think-I mean, couldn’t we…?” It was no use. His heart was full, but inside his head there was only a vast trace of emptiness. “Why don’t you make me a cup of cocoa?”
Before going to bed that night Gavin took a flashlight and wandered around the sanctuary. Many of the animals had vanished into their hideaways, but there were still some, on trees or in water, who raised curious heads to regard him. It might be fanciful, but he had the strange sensation that they, too, were watching him expectantly, wanting him to do something for her. He remembered how sure Norah had been that they’d known about the fatal accident before anyone else. Perhaps they knew this, too; not in detail, only that she wasn’t here and that she was in trouble.
Buster ambled slowly over to the fence and nuzzled Gavin with his soft nose, something he’d never done before. Almost against his will he put out a hand to stroke the rough hide of the old donkey. Two bright eyes peering at him from the branches of a tree told him that Mack was also alert and watchful. He moved on, and heard the sound of faint pattering behind him. Looking back he saw Osbert, quiet for once, standing there, looking up at him.
Gavin gave himself a shake. It was just a goose, for heaven’s sake! But as he moved on he could hear the soft pattering immediately behind him.
At last he’d been around the whole sanctuary, and he felt strangely better for it. He was ready to go in now, but something stopped him.
He’d made a promise to his son. It was ridiculous to think he need make it to anyone else. Yet some inexplicable instinct made Gavin do a very uncharacteristic thing. He stood and looked around him. Here and there he could hear the soft sound of animals moving and see the faint gleam of eyes peering at him out of the darkness. But beyond what he could hear and see he was conscious of something that wasn’t many animals, but one overwhelming animal presence, and it was this he addressed. “I’m doing my best,” he said aloud. “And I’ll bring her back to you. Do you hear? I’m going to bring her home.”
As the words died away he could hear only silence, and he felt slightly foolish, wondering what he’d expected. Turning, he went slowly back to the house, with Osbert waddling a few steps behind him. And a hundred pairs of eyes watched them go.
Gavin had always prided himself on being able to sleep through a crisis. Let others fret through the night wondering if the dawn would bring the collapse of their shares or a hostile takeover. He slept the sleep of the just.
But tonight the sleep of the just was destroyed by his worries about the unjust. It was all very well to argue that the unjust had brought her problems on herself, but somehow this thought didn’t ease the torment of thinking of Norah in a police cell. Her bed was probably narrow and hard, which would be painful to her ribs. But worst of all would be the cold walls and the barred window. Sweat stood out on his brow as he thought of her suffering.
At last he got up, put on his robe and went downstairs, meaning to make himself a hot drink. But when he reached the bottom step he saw a faint light coming from under the door to the back room. Quietly he stepped across and opened it a crack.
The room was dark except for one small table lamp, by whose light he could just make out the shadowy form of Peter, sitting on the sofa. He had his arms around something that Gavin couldn’t at first discern. But then the other creature moved and he saw that it was Rex, Norah’s dog. He waited, listening, hoping to hear the sound of his son’s voice. But Peter wasn’t talking to Rex, merely burying his face in the rough coat and holding him tight, as though by this means he could get closer to the person he really wanted. And that person wasn’t himself, Gavin reflected sadly.
He was barely conscious of having changed through having lived close to the sanctuary, but he knew that he wasn’t going to order Peter back to bed as he would once have done. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, until Peter looked up suddenly and saw him. Even in the semidarkness Gavin was aware of the flicker of tension in his son. He moved quickly to dispel it, seating himself on the sofa on the other side of Rex.
“I couldn’t sleep, either,” he admitted. “How can we sleep while she’s in there?”
After a moment Peter nodded. His arms were still about Rex, but his eyes were fixed on his father.
“Actually, it’s not really such a bad place,” Gavin went on, saying what he didn’t feel, in an attempt to make Peter feel better. “It’s not a real prison, just a police cell, and they’re treating her decently.”
Peter nodded. He might have been smiling. In that light it was hard to be sure. Gavin hesitated a long time before saying the next words, but some instinct that was new to him told him they had to be said. “I went out to see the animals before I went to bed,” he told Peter. “I promised them that I’d bring her back tomorrow. They trust me. You must, too.”
This time Peter didn’t nod or smile, and Gavin had a sinking sense of disappointment. But then he felt it, his son’s hand searching for him in the darkness. He took hold of the childish hand in his own large one and gave it a squeeze. To his joy, he felt a definite squeeze back.
“I think you should go back to bed, now,” he said. But at once Peter freed his hand and used it to hold onto Rex more tightly. “Take him with you,” Gavin said gently. “He probably needs your company as much as you need his.”
He went with them as far as the front of the stairs, and stood watching as boy and dog went up together. At the turn Peter looked back and down at his father and Gavin smiled at him, hoping he looked confident. But inside he was praying that he could deliver his promise. Because if he failed he knew his son would never trust him again.
Chapter Eleven
Gavin was up with the dawn. Still in his pajamas, he made himself some coffee and settled
