The Garden Party by Wendy Clarke

Author:Wendy Clarke [Clarke, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

OWEN

The air is cold against Owen’s skin. The ground hard. He forces his eyes to open against the bright glare, realising it’s the security light above the sliding patio doors that’s blinding him.

‘Oh, my God, Owen. What happened? Are you all right?’

Rachel is bending over him, the wind flattening her dressing gown to her body. Without his glasses, he can’t see the fear in her eyes, but he can hear it.

There’s a sharp pain in his side. Something sticky at the side of his face. He reaches up a hand to touch it, wincing as his fingertips make contact with the split skin. He’s bleeding.

Taking a handkerchief from her dressing-gown pocket, Rachel attempts to wipe it, but he pushes her hand away.

‘I’m all right.’

But he isn’t. With one hand clutching his side, he rolls over, a groan escaping his lips. He takes the handkerchief from her and wipes the trail of blood that’s run down his cheek and mingled with his beard. Accepts the glasses Rachel is holding out to him.

‘Did someone do this to you?’ In the bright light, her pupils have shrunk to pinpricks. ‘Should we call the police?’

Owen looks around him, his eyes sweeping the long stretch of lawn the estate agent had earmarked for a trampoline before realising it would only be the two of them living there. Sees nothing. The garden is still, the only sound the wind in the Leylandii.

‘You haven’t answered me, Owen. Did someone do this to you?’ She looks behind her as though expecting someone to jump out at her, and he knows he must reassure her.

‘Of course not. I tripped, that’s all. Hit my face on the patio step. Something woke me, and I wasn’t sure what it was, but the garden shed had blown open, was banging against the bin. That’s what I’d heard.’

He struggles to his feet, trying not to wince. He’s not going to tell her that the person had come at him with full force, his fist meeting with his kidneys. The blow knocking him off his feet. He hadn’t seen who it was – hadn’t had the chance to. It had all happened so quickly. Like that time at university. He screws up his eyes remembering how he’d been jumped on during Freshers’ Week. A sack placed over his head, his body pushed up against the wall of the student accommodation. No fists or punches that time. The blows coming from his assailants’ words. Creep. Fucking weirdo.

He couldn’t say for sure it had been Kevin and his newly formed clique, but he’d be happy to lay a bet on it. They hadn’t known Owen then, not properly, but it was as though they’d seen something in him. Something he didn’t see in himself when he looked in the mirror. Something that set him apart from the others.

Anna had been the one who’d found him, sitting pale and shaken on the pavement, as she’d walked home from a fancy-dress night at the Student Union Bar. She’d been dressed in a Where’s Wally? outfit she’d thrown together.

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