Tell Me, Darling Page 14

  Chapter 30

  Sadie turned around and counted to six for about the one thousandth time that day. All six Italian kids she was responsible for were still there, still in her sights, still safe and not lost somewhere on the teeming streets of London on a warm Saturday afternoon. Luigi had bought himself an enormous fluffy Union Jack hat which had made him at least easy to keep an eye on. For the last two hours she had been walking around London with her six boys while they looked at the sights, but all they had really wanted to do was spend their money. They had spent a good hour at Hamley’s at least. Now at last it was almost two and time to meet up with the other groups at a long grass embankment where the coach waited for them. Sadie was exhausted with the effort of keeping track of the excited boys, and was longing to be on the way back to camp. She wondered how on earth mothers managed it.

  As she approached the coach she saw that they were not the first group to return. Sam, Caitlin, Gabriel, Raj, Emma, Adam and some of the others were all there with their groups, who were sitting around on the lawn waiting until everyone arrived. As she got closer she saw Joe leaning on the fence next to Jonesy, clipboard in one hand and the other in his pocket. Her heart skipped a beat and she felt a lump in her throat. Only one more week and camp would be over; they would all go their separate ways and she might never see him again. It made her want to cry.

  “Nursie’s back!” said Jonesy, poking Joe in the side. He looked up and smiled.

  “Brilliant,” he said, marking it off on his list. “Now we are only waiting for Ingrid, Leon, Mitch and Richard.”

  “I’m here,” said Mitch, appearing behind Sadie. “And I see Richard and Leon now.”

  “Just Ingrid then,” said Joe, looking at his clipboard again. “She has the Spanish boys, right?”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Jonesy. “I see her now.”

  “She’s running,” said Sadie. “Not a good sign.”

  Sadie was right. Ingrid ran up with three Spanish boys out of the five she had left with. She was beside herself, crying and shouting and fuming all at the same time. They had all been together outside a music shop that two of the five, Paco and his friend Angelo, did not want to go into. They wanted to go to a take-away place across the street to buy a pizza. Ingrid had insisted that they all stay together and they had all gone into the music shop, but a minute later she had realised that the two had left the shop without telling her. She had told the other three to stay put and had run to the take-away place, but they weren’t there. She had been searching for them for the last forty minutes, dragging the other three along with her, with no luck. She was hysterical and exhausted and spitting mad.

  Joe listened to the story calmly, the familiar frown that Sadie had not seen much of for the past week or two returning. By the time he realised that the boys had been missing for forty minutes already, the frown was deeper that ever and Sadie could see the familiar expression of deep stress all over his face. She put her hand on his arm. “We’ll find them, Joe,” she said, hoping it was the truth.

  “We must,” he said, simply.

  Jonesy made the hysterical Ingrid sit down on the low stone wall and drink some water. Sadie couldn’t believe how stupid she had been to run around looking for them for so long without telling anyone. She could have called Joe or Jonesy to help – they had been waiting with the coach all the time. Now even if the boys went back to where they had been separated they would find no one. “Ingrid,” she said, “do you mean the music shop down that way, next to that place with the silver jewellery?” asked Sadie.

  “Yes, yes!” said Ingrid, clutching the water bottle. “Do you know it?”

  “Someone needs to go there right away,” said Joe, “in case they go back there.”

  “Then we split up and search block by block around the music shop,” said Sadie. “But I’m guessing they are probably sitting somewhere eating pizza and will appear on their own.”

  Ingrid pulled herself together and said she would wait at the music shop, and the other staff were quickly divided into those who would go and look for the boys and those who would stay with Jonesy and the rest of the kids.

  “Twenty minutes,” said Joe. “That’s all we’re going to take before we call the police. It’s already been too long. I have my phone, guys, call as soon as you know anything.”

  Please, God, help us find them, prayed Sadie, as she walked briskly down the street with Sam, behind Joe and a group of the other guys. Please, no police. She thought hard about Paco and Angelo and where they would go.

  “What does Paco like, Sam? Do you know? And Angelo? Maybe we can figure out where they went.”

  “Paco’s mad about guns,” said Sam. “And ammunition and armies and things like that. “I doubt there are any gun shops around here, though. This isn’t Texas.”

  They reached the street with the music shop. Sadie hurried into a shop and was out again in a minute. “There’s a gun shop around the corner!” she said to Sam, as she dashed out. The two pushed their way through the crowds, passing Ingrid who was waiting anxiously outside the music shop. It didn’t take long to find it – an old-fashioned looking shop with models of soldiers in the window. And they didn’t even have to go in – Paco and Angelo were standing at the window, staring inside, pointing and chatting away in Spanish as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Sadie’s first thought when she saw them was relief, not for herself or for Ingrid, but for Joe.

  On the way home, Sadie sat next to Sam in the front seats right behind the driver, her feet aching from all the walking around, her head aching a little from the heat and the close atmosphere in the coach. Sam was absorbed in messaging Gregory on her phone, and behind them the bus buzzed with talking, laughing and rustling of bags as the kids showed off their day’s loot. She looked across at Joe, sitting on his own in the front row of seats. He was leaning back against the headrest, his brow furrowed. He put up a hand and rubbed his forehead. Another headache, thought Sadie. She reached down and took a couple of painkillers out of the first aid kit. She only had one more week to do this, to take care of him. There was no point being shy about it.

  “Hey,” she said quietly, taking the seat beside him and handing him the pills and a bottle of water. “Next week you won’t need these anymore.”

  He opened his eyes. “Thanks, Sadie,” he said, taking the pills and the water. “It feels as if you saved the day again.”

  “It was a team effort,” she said. “Sam knew about the gun thing. I just got directions.”

  “Ingrid’s not doing so well,” he said, looking towards where Ingrid sat slumped in a seat, her face tear-stained and still furious. “I think I was a little harsh with her.”

  “Maybe,” said Sadie, deciding to be brave and bring it up, “what you think of her matters more to her than you think.”

  Joe looked aghast. “Oh no,” he said. “I hope not. I really, really hope not.”

  “She’ll be all right,” said Sadie. “Maybe just a kind word or two when we get home would be a good idea.”

  “I can do that, if you think it would help.” He shook his head. “You think she … likes me?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “Another example of my pathetically low EQ,” he said. “I am hopeless at things like that. Absolute basket case.”

  Sadie laughed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Joe, “that I am rubbish at picking up signals. I have no idea how to know what girls are thinking. And I am probably just as rubbish at the other way around – I probably went and encouraged her without suspecting a thing.”

  “I don’t think you encouraged her,” said Sadie. “She doesn’t expect anything from you. She just really likes you and she’s bummed that she disappointed you.”

  “So you think I should just say something nice when we get back and it will be all right?”

  “I think so,” said Sadie.

  Joe leant back and sighed. “You are so good at this kind of thing, Sadie. You understand
people so well. You just instinctively know what they need.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Don’t worry about Ingrid. Can I ask you something personal?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “You’re not interested in Ingrid – is that just because you aren’t, or because you’re not available?” She was surprised at her own boldness, but she wanted to know. She didn’t think it would make a difference to anything, but still. She hoped he wouldn’t be offended.

  “That is personal,” he said. “But I don’t mind answering. I said I was useless at these kinds of things, and I meant it. I can count the serious relationships I have had in my life on one finger.”

  “Joe!” said Sadie, laughing. “Did you just make a joke?”

  “Not much of one,” he said, grinning. “Getting romantic with Ingrid didn’t cross my mind for a second, to be honest. As far as I can tell, she’s an atheist. I don’t think we’d be a good match.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Sadie.

  He nodded. “Sometimes I hate this job so much,” he said. “It has been more stressful than anything I have ever done. It doesn’t matter what I do, how prepared I am, things just go wrong, constantly. Big things.”

  “None of them has been your fault, Joe. Only one more week. It hasn’t been all bad, has it?”

  “Not at all. Some of it has been all right.”

  “Only some?”

  “Only some. I’ve mostly just wished I was back at Uni working on my thesis, which is beautifully theoretical and never gets into trouble. Or even at home with my odd family.”

  “I don’t even know where you live.”

  He paused. “I suppose you don’t. That’s what’s weird about camp – you see people every day, get used to them being around all the time, almost as if they are family, and then suddenly it’s over. It’s like a bubble.”

  “Like a dream, and then you wake up.”

  “Exactly. I live in Bristol. Well that’s where Mum and Robert and the sisters live, and where I grew up. But I share a flat in Birmingham near the University most of the time. Now you know.”

  “Now I know.”

  There was a pause. Joe drank some more water. Sadie looked out of the window and willed herself not to get teary. Joe had a life outside of camp, and she was unlikely ever to be a part of it. It made her sad. It made her think that perhaps it was even silly to think you could spend a year overseas and then just leave and slot in back home again. She had never imagined finding something she loved that she had to leave behind.

  “Will you miss us, Sadie? When you go back home?”

  What could she say to that? That maybe it was a little extreme but right now she felt that she would miss him all her life? That she would never forget him in a million years? That she felt as if she would never meet anyone who compared to him?

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “It’s okay, Nursie,” he said, giving her knee a friendly pat. “I am sure you have more adventures waiting for you. And we can stay in touch.”

  She nodded again. “Sure,” she said. “Maybe you’ll come to South Africa one day.”

  “Maybe I will,” he said. “I’d really like to.” He put his head back again and closed his eyes. Sadie did too. That pat on the knee had hurt, so badly – it meant that to Joe she was still just a blue-haired schoolgirl, just Sadie who could charm people on the phone and figure out where to find missing kids – but she knew he didn’t intend to be cruel. That was just how it worked when you had a thing for your boss. She wondered if there really were more adventures waiting for her in England. She wasn’t sure she wanted them anymore.

  Chapter 31

  The last week on camp flew by so fast that when Sadie woke up on Friday morning she stared at the date on her phone for a few seconds, hardly believing the day had actually come. One more day of English lessons and sport, one more day of the kids, one more night in Room 11, then a whole lot of packing and cleaning up and getting kids off to the airport and it would all be over. Oh, and there was a Karaoke party to look forward to that night.

  She and Caitlin got ready for the day, putting on their red T-shirts one last time, and went off to the office with their Bibles. Last one of these too, thought Sadie. After camp she would have to find an actual church – or rather, she wanted to find an actual church. Meeting with the group every second day had been awkward and emotional at first, but she had felt more and more comfortable every time, and had left each one feeling stronger and more confident in what she knew she believed. Praying with the group had made her braver to pray on her own, and since then she had spent time talking to God, asking him to forgive her for her doubt and rebellion, and thanking him over and over again for his love for her and his faithfulness in bringing her back.

  “Richard wants to start going to church when camp is over,” said Caitlin, as they walked along the passage towards the office. “He says maybe we can look for one together.”

  “Wow,” said Sadie. “It sounds as if Richard is really serious about this. I think God has been working in his heart.”

  “That’s what he says,” said Caitlin. “Yesterday he said he’s given his life to Jesus.”

  “And you, Tennis Bird?” asked Sadie, gently. “What do you think of all this?”

  “It’s so strange, Sadie,” said Caitlin. “I have hardly thought about church and God my whole life. And I only went along in the first place because of Richard. But in all the times we have sat there reading the Bible and talking about it, I have never heard one thing that didn’t sound like the truth. And every time I’ve been confused and not understood something, then Joe or Adam or even Richard has been able to give me an answer. I feel as if I opened a box and found a whole lot of treasure. I believe it all, Sadie, it’s so weird.”

  “It’s not weird, Caitlin. It’s like looking in a mirror and recognising yourself. I have been praying for you and if you believe, then God is answering my prayers.”

  “That’s what Richard said too,” said Caitlin, stopping in the passage outside the office. She gave Sadie a hug, and when she let her go there were tears in her eyes that she hastily wiped away.

  This time after they had finished reading, talking and praying together, Joe reached behind him and took something off the desk. It was a small pile of envelopes. “I just wanted to give you each one of these,” he said. “I have been so encouraged by you all since we started meeting together. I found this camp really hard, as you all know.” Sadie smiled, and so did the others. That was an understatement, she thought. “But knowing that somehow through it all, I could be a small part of God working has made it all worthwhile. So this is just a little note and a verse for each of you to encourage you. I hope.”

  “Thank you, Joe,” said Richard. “You took the time to tell me the gospel and you’ve changed my life. I might never have heard it otherwise.”

  “What a pleasure, Rich,” said Joe. “Your heart was ready to hear it.”

  “I have learnt a lot,” said Juan, putting his envelope in his pocket. “Some of this things I have never heard, even after going to church my whole life. I think I am going to have some interesting talks with my priest when I get home. And read the Bible a lot more.”

  “I hope you do, Juan,” said Joe, clasping him on his shoulder.

  “It was great to join you guys,” said Canadian Adam. “Thanks for the opportunity.”

  It was time to put the chairs away and go to breakfast. Sadie didn’t say anything more than a brief thank you when Caitlin did. She held the white envelope in her hand, staring at her name written in Joe’s neat narrow handwriting in blue ball point pen. She would wait until she was alone to open it. Joe had sat at his desk, and thought of her for the time it had taken to write this note. She was afraid to read it, afraid that it would be too kind and lovely and that it would just make her love him more, but also afraid that it could be like that pat on the knee in the coach – so casual and friendly that it would hurt her just f
or what it wasn’t.

  She slipped up to her Room 13 before breakfast, sat at the desk and opened it.

  Dear Sadie

  It was hard to think of a verse for you, but I have chosen Isaiah because I think that to remember that God has called you by name, that he knows you and that you belong to him, will be encouraging to you. Don’t forget that, Sadie, and I hope and pray that in your future there are people who respect and love you and take care of you the way you take care of everyone else.

  Thank you for everything, for being a friend and a help when I needed it, and I hope we meet again one day.

  Joe

  Isaiah 43:1

  But now, this is what the Lord says—

  he who created you, Jacob,

  he who formed you, Israel:

  “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;