“Mayweather,” snapped Ollie, who was dragging his mum out of her chair with Lottie still giggling too much to help. “We’re going, mate. Jimbo’s about to lose his shit.”
So I stood up with Vicky in my arms, dead asleep now. “Bullshit, I’m not for you,” I muttered in a firm voice.
When we made it outside the pub, the cold air hit us like a brick wall, and it was enough to wake Vicky up.
When her eyelids fluttered open, the cold must have sobered her up a little, and she stiffened.
“Put me down,” she said.
“Vicky, I?—”
“Put medown.” Her voice rose enough that the motley crew around us fell silent to look at us. “I mean it, Mike.”
I had no choice but to lower her to her feet.
She swayed for a moment, and I reached out for her elbow to steady her, but she flinched away.
“No,” she semi-shouted.
I put up both my hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, love. I won’t touch you.”
“It hurts too much,” she said in a broken voice, and I felt that chest tightness again. She shook her head.
“I’m hurting too, baby. I miss you too. If you’d just…”
“No!” she was nearly screaming now. She staggered back and nearly fell, but that small fat pony was behind her. Her hand went into his fur, and then she sank down, wrapping her arms around the pony’s neck and shoving her face into the deep fur.
Legolas snorted softly and nuzzled her with his nose.
“Mike,” Ollie said, stepping in front of me to block my view of Vicky wrapped around Legolas. “Leave it for tonight, mate. I’ll see her back to the Manor. She’s in no state for this now. And anyway, you need to help Felix.”
I glanced over at Felix, who was struggling to guide both his mother and mine to his car whilst Lucy happily hung off hisneck. I sighed in frustration as I acknowledged the truth of his words.
Love it. Love you.
“Look.” Ollie cut into my thoughts. “I’m no stranger to a good grovel. But you’ve got to pick your moments. This is the first time Vicky’s ever been drunk in her life. Now is not the time to pick her up caveman style and take her home with you.”
“She’s miserable, Ollie,” I said in a pained voice. “She’s making herself miserable, and I know I can make her happy. IknowI can. She’s lost weight again. I don’t think she’s sleeping. I’m worried.”
“She’s fine. We’ve?—”
“She’s not fine,” I snapped. “Look, I’ve been doing my research, and Autistic women are more likely to suffer from depression and…” I broke off as my eyes started to sting. I couldn’t bring myself to repeat the terrifying statistics I’d found. “If I lost her, I’d––”
“Mike,” Ollie said firmly, one of his hands going to the back of my neck, and the other, to my shoulder. “We’re looking after her, I promise. When she’s not with Mum at the Manor, she’s under twenty-four-hour surveillance in London. And we’re not letting her hide away when she’s hurt anymore. We’ve let her down as a family, but that’s over now. So she’s not alone.”
“Okay,” I said in a broken voice.
“You’ll get your chance,” Ollie told me before he gave my back a slap and moved away. “But it won’t be tonight.”
I sniffed, took a deep breath in and out, and squared my shoulders. It took all I had to walk away from Vicky, letting Ollie untangle her from the pony.
“Come on, Jimbo,” I heard Mum slur at Jimbo as he emerged from the pub, glowering at her and everyone around her. “How’s about it, love?”
Then my mother threw her arms around the pub landlord and kissed him on the cheek.
What I could see of Jimbo’s face under his thick beard went bright pink, and his eyes flew wide.
“Er… Hetty,” he said, his arms going out to the side. “I think you might be a bit worse for wear. Maybe when you’re sober andponyless,we could?—”
