The message was delivered but no answer came.
Amanda pulled on sneakers and a cardigan over her pyjamas and went into the garden.
Simon wasn’t anywhere that she could see, so she walked over to his house, wishing she had worn sunglasses.
As she came to the house, she saw his motorbike was gone.
Where was he? She peered through the window and tried the door. It opened and she stepped inside.
The house was empty of anything belonging to Simon. He was gone.
She called his phone again but this time it didn’t ring through. He was really gone.
Amanda sat on the bed and looked at the empty room.
Last night’s kiss clearly meant nothing to him, and now he had left her with a garden to manage and a huge house and a lying grandmother in the gatehouse.
You couldn’t even write something as outrageous as this, Amanda thought, and the more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
How dare he leave? How dare he not say goodbye to her?
And Diana had lied all this time. She couldn’t trust anyone.
Amanda didn’t often allow anger to consume her; in fact, she had never felt as enraged as she did at this moment. Her hangover was gone and replaced by the sort of spitting fury that was both foreign and thrilling.
If Simon had gone without a word, then she would confront Diana about all the rubbish and subterfuge and then she would pack up and head back to New York.
That was it – she’d had it. She would rather struggle in New York than stay here and deal with all the drama. She could stay with Lainie until she got on her feet and she would never speak to Diana or Simon again.
She pushed open the gate and walked up to Diana’s door. Just about to knock, she saw it was already ajar. Trotsky came around to the front of the garden and pushed past her to go inside.
‘Trotsky, why are you outside?’ Amanda asked the dog as he walked inside and then she saw Diana on the floor, still in her nightgown.
‘Shit, God, oh God!’ she said and ran to Diana’s side.
She was unconscious but breathing as Amanda called 999 for an ambulance and texted Carole while she was on the phone.
Diana is unconscious, have called an ambulance.
Within moments a text came back.
On my way.
Amanda listened to the operator talk her through the process of putting Diana into the recovery position while she waited.
Amanda stroked Diana’s thick, grey hair. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, someone’s coming,’ she said over and over, like a mantra.
It felt like hours before Carole arrived but Amanda knew it had only been a few minutes and Carole had likely broken the speed limit by quite a bit to get there in the time she did.
Carole dropped to her knees, checking Diana’s pulse and then listening to her heart through her stethoscope.
She lifted an eyelid and shone a small torch into it and then the other.
‘What’s happened to her?’ Amanda asked.
‘I don’t know, love, could be a stroke. How far away is the ambulance?’
‘I rang them when I texted you but they have to come from Newcastle, don’t they?’
