No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [102]
“Penny! Penny! Wake up!” This is insane. “Christ, we need to get someone here who knows what they’re doing!” she cried, battling encroaching vertigo.
Sam placed his hand on Penny’s wrist. “She’s got a strong pulse,” he said, then went back to the car and pulled out his and Mary’s jackets. “We need to cover her.” He laid them over her.
A second or two passed before she moved.
“Don’t move!” Mary barked.
Penny ignored her and turned over. “I’m OK,” she slurred, as blood streamed from a cut on her forehead. The gash was deep and fleshy. The current of blood masked broken teeth, a split lip and a badly broken nose, but when Penny moved her head, the damage became all too apparent.
“Oh, Jesus!” Mary gasped. Her friend’s face was pulverized.
Sam took off his shirt and handed it to Penny who, until then, hadn’t noticed him. She took it from him and buried her face in it.
When Ivan arrived, the deer was breathing its last.
Penny lifted her hand to its head and stroked it gently as its eyes lost all expression. “I’m so sorry!” she cried, spitting broken teeth. “I’m so, so sorry!”
Ivan took over. His previous incarnation as a commercial diver had ensured he had sufficient first-aid skills to confirm that his friend had no bone or spinal injuries. Her face concerned him most. He carried her to his car and laid her on the back seat. He wrapped her in Sam’s and Mary’s jackets and rested her head on a Barbie pillow from the boot that Justine had insisted on bringing home, only to forget about it when they arrived. He took ice from the cooler he had filled before he set off – he often used it when he was fishing. He wrapped some in a towel and handed it to her. “It’ll slow the blood flow and curb the swelling,” he said.
“What about shock?” Mary asked.
“She’s drunk enough for shock not to be our biggest problem.”
He closed the door on Penny, who was mumbling something about killing Bambi. He went back to his car and got out the jack. He returned to Penny’s car and, with one blow, smashed the glass on the driver’s side.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sam asked.
“We need to make it look like the car was stolen. That, or Penny goes down for drink-driving. Not to mention that the red deer she killed is a protected species.”
“Oh,” Sam said.
Mary was mesmerized by the dead animal, horrified by the suffering it had endured. Her nose was running. She wiped it with her hand. She felt faint.
“Follow me,” Ivan said.
“Where are we going?” Mary asked, wondering what the hell her cousin was doing.
“Cork. Adam’s meeting us in the Regional.”
Sam and Mary went to their car, Sam supporting Mary who had now succumbed to a combination of vertigo and fright. Ivan took off, with Sam following. Mary tried to control her breathing as Sam sped around the bend that had once nearly claimed her.
“We’ll be OK,” he said.
“I know.”
“I’m a good driver.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Even when she was struggling with terror Mary could make him smile. Once they were off the mountain and driving on the Cork road, Mary took several deep breaths. She called Ivan on her mobile – she knew he had a hands-free set in his car – and he assured her that their friend was OK. At one point she’d actually attempted to sing the chorus of Phil Collins’s “Against All Odds”.
Mary hung up and Sam asked how Penny was.
“She’s singing.”
“Anything I’d like?”
“Phil Collins.”
“‘Can’t Hurry Love’?”
“‘Against All Odds.’”
“Apt,” he said and, despite the desperate situation, they burst into laughter.
A few minutes passed in silence.
Mary couldn’t help herself. “Did you have a good night with Mia?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “It was nice.”
“Right,