“If you’d just give him a chance…listen to him…” I plead.
“No, Beth, no way. Never.”
“Please don’t make me choose between you!”
“Beth, don’t be silly,” says Mum in a panic. I have flipped open my mobile and am texting Sinclair. “NO GD, THEY DON’T WANT 2 KNO, I AM ON WAY 2 C U.”
“You aren’t leaving this house to go back to him!” booms Dad. “Over my dead body!”
“I am going back to him,” I cry. “I love him and that’s all there is to it.” The phone beeps. “DON’T YOU SPEAK ENGLISH? I AM COMING TO TALK TO THEM.” Argh!
Dad leaps out of the chair (second time today; that’s more leaping than I’ve ever seen him do in his life), thrashing around for my arm, but I elude his grasp and head for the front door, desperate to keep Sinclair away from this scene of carnage.
“Beth, darling, please stay, you don’t have to go back to him!” sobs my mother. I open the front door, oh God, he is walking up the road and there appears to be a couple of people with cameras in his wake.
“Sinclair!” I yell, “Go back!”
My Dad, by now in the final stages of apoplexy, is bawling, “NO WAY IS THAT MAN CROSSING MY THRESHOLD!” and I can hear him rummaging for something in the cupboard under the stairs.
“John, no!” gasps my mum and I glance back to find him brandishing a weapon.
“Dad, that’s a nail gun!” I shout. “What are you going to do? Nail him to the front door? Put it away, for Christ’s sake. SINCLAIR, HE’S GOT A GUN!”
Sinclair is turning into the drive now, his stride as purposeful and unstoppable as that of the Terminator. I run over towards him, intent on shielding him from the nail assault. He bundles me aside and continues his walk towards doom, attached to one of my wrists but otherwise ahead of me, staring down my father who is waving the nail gun around and yelling incoherently.
“Put the weapon down, Mr Newland,” he says, icily calm. Dad bellows again, Mum catches hold of his arm, trying to wrest the thing away from him, there is a moment of confusion and then a loud discharge into the air, and it is pointing straight at me and I scream and then Sinclair….pushes me on to the grass and…oh God! He’s been hit! In the shoulder, I think.
“SINCLAIR!” I scream, flailing around in front of him as he crumples to the ground, clutching his wound and moaning.
A white-faced Dad races over. “Beth! Beth! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to shoot you, I really didn’t…oh my God…what was I doing? Oh my God.” He raves on like that for a while but I am not listening, totally focused on Sinclair’s injury.
“Mum, call the ambulance!” I order. “Oh God, are you badly hurt? Oh Christ, you’re bleeding really badly. Oh God, should I try and pull the nail out? Oh God…”
“Beth, stop fussing,” he says weakly, then he passes out.
*
Two hours later, once the nail has been extracted and the wound cleaned and sewn up, I am admitted to the A&E bed he has been assigned for overnight observation.
He looks pale but otherwise perfectly composed, reading a newspaper with a gathering frown.
“Sinclair,” I say tentatively. “I’m so sorry about Dad. He feels dreadful.” I go to sit down at his bedside, but he takes my hand and pulls me on to the mattress with his good arm.
“I thought that went well, for a first meeting,” he says with casual irony. “Don’t worry, Beth. They’ll come round.”
“Well, actually, they already have. And you’re being very…forgiving. You could prosecute Dad. But I hope you don’t, of course.”
Sinclair smiles and kisses me. “Just what I need at the moment, Beth – more publicity.”
“Uh, no, suppose not. Are you in dreadful pain? I thought you might die.”
“The painkillers are good,” he says. “I’m much better at inflicting pain than tolerating it, I must admit.” He shifts position, wincing.
“Hmm, yes. I’m not sure my parents will ever really get their heads around that. But mum has persuaded dad that the way you took that bullet, I mean nail, indicated that you must really care for me. And I think dad would just be relieved not to be up in court for assault. They want you to go round for dinner when you’re out of here.”
“Really? How much does your mother know about poisons?”
“Oh, ha ha. No, I think she’s genuine. She wants to try and approve of you, at least.”