The Secrets of Sunshine. Phaedra Patrick

crooked one knee, then frowned in pain. Her head slumped back against his chest. ‘Not yet.’ She looked up at him, and again he felt a tug of something for her. It caused more memories of Anita to trickle back and he didn’t want to think of her, not here and now. The shame he often felt could bury him like an avalanche.

      ‘I do know you, don’t I?’ she said.

      Mitchell looked away. ‘I don’t think we’ve met before.’ He wondered if her fall was causing her confusion, but as he opened his mouth to reply, a hand clamped down on his shoulder. A man with a thin moustache and horn-rimmed glasses stood above him.

      ‘I’m a doctor. Can I help?’ the man said.

      Mitchell nodded gratefully, and he slipped his fingers away from the woman’s hand. He cradled her head and helped her to lie down flat on the grass, then he shuffled backwards out of the way.

      The doctor crouched down. ‘What happened?’

      The woman swallowed but didn’t reply.

      ‘She fell into the river, and I jumped in to help her,’ Mitchell said.

      ‘How long was she in for?’

      ‘Ten or fifteen minutes, I think. I don’t really know.’ His sense of time had flown and his stomach plunged when his watch showed 5.40 p.m.

      His attention snapped back to Poppy. She was at school and he was very late. He’d also left his toolbox on the bridge. ‘Sorry, I have to go,’ he said to the doctor and the woman.

      Mitchell stood up and took a few unsteady steps along the grass verge in his soggy socked feet. He hunched away from the well-meaning pats that rained down on his back. When a couple of mobile phones appeared, he resisted the impulse to bat them away.

      He told himself the woman would be fine. She was with a doctor.

      Heart thumping, Mitchell thrust a hand into his trouser pocket and tugged out his own phone to call the school. But the screen was blank and tiny bubbles emerged from the camera hole.

      He limped to where the grass verge ended, made his way back up onto the street and headed towards Redford to quickly look for his toolbox. When he reached midway along the bridge, he stood in the rough spot the woman in the yellow dress had fallen.

      He searched frantically around for his tools and his shoulders sagged when he realized they’d gone, perhaps stolen.

      When he looked back over the railing, he saw the woman and doctor were heading in his direction. The sun made her wet dress shine like gold, and a thought struck Mitchell like a lightning bolt.

       I don’t even know her name.

      He looked at her again and his pull towards her was magnetic. But she was over thirty metres away from him, and he had to get to the school.

      He would rush past and ask what her name was.

      He had to know.

      He turned and saw a cyclist whizzing along the pavement towards him at great speed. Pizza boxes were piled high on the handlebars. Mitchell tried to jump out of the way, but the bicycle smashed into him, knocking him to the ground.

      As boxes went flying in the air, Mitchell heard the thwack of his own head on the pavement. Pain bloomed and his vision blurred. Someone shouted for an ambulance, and legs surrounded him like trees in a forest.

      When he strained to raise his head, a hand pressed his shoulders back down.

      Mitchell wasn’t sure how long he lay there for, but through a set of fleshy knees in long khaki shorts, he thought he saw the swish of a yellow dress.

      Then he closed his eyes and everything went blank.

       3

       Small Shoes

      While he was out cold, Mitchell dreamed.

      It was another kiln-hot summer day where the air shimmered and people gathered in the pub for shelter from the sun. A woman with copper curls pushed in next to him at the bar.

      ‘A pint of cider, please,’ she said, even though it was Mitchell’s turn to be served. She glanced at him and pressed a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, sorry, you were next?’

      He shrugged, a little irritated. ‘It’s fine.’

      ‘No, it’s not. Really. The barman was cutting into a lime and the smell always reminds me of this holiday I went on to Ibiza in my early twenties. It was supposedly cool to drink beer from a bottle with a slice of lime sticking out of the neck. Even though I didn’t like the taste, I drank it for a whole week and…’

      Mitchell laughed despite himself. ‘I once forced myself to drink the same thing at a barbecue because my friends liked it.’

      She returned his smile. ‘Anyway, what I’m trying to say is sorry, and can I get you a drink?’ When he started to protest against her offer, she jokingly placed her elbow in front of him. ‘I’ll get this,’ she said to the barman.

      She wasn’t his usual type, with a round face and messy red hair when he was usually attracted to brunettes. But when she grinned at him, he liked how her eyes crinkled at the corners in a fan shape.

      Mitchell asked for a cider, too, and they carried their drinks outside together, grumbling about the hot weather, and sat down at the only free table. She told him her name was Anita and she was waiting for a friend who was always late.

      She raised her glass at him. ‘Cheers.’

      ‘Cheers.’ He clinked his in return.

      When Anita pressed her lips against the glass, she savoured every sip of the fizzy amber liquid as if it was the finest champagne, and Mitchell realized he actually fancied her. She was the kind of person who could find adventure in the simplest of things.

      A delicious sensation tingled in his chest as he thought about where their conversation might take them both.

      Mitchell closed his eyes as he drank his cider. However, when he opened them again, his glass had vanished from his hand. The table and the pub were no longer there. Anita had gone, too.

      He woke up and found himself woozy and sore, lying on a hospital bed. There was an electronic beeping sound to his right, and a cannula tube taped to the back of his hand. He wore a starchy, patterned gown and a wristband with his name on it.

      He forgot about his dream and tried to sit up. ‘Poppy,’ he cried out.

      A bag with an Upchester Hospital logo sat on a chair beside his bed and he could see his clothes were folded inside it. On top of the small table next to him, his keys, wallet and mobile phone were sealed inside a plastic bag that was foggy with condensation. He stretched to reach for it, but realized a nurse was pointing a finger at him from the end of the bed.

      ‘Leave that alone,’ she ordered.

      Mitchell tried to sit up again. ‘You don’t understand—yow!’ A pain shot down his spine and he screwed his eyes shut.

      ‘What do you think you’re doing, sweetheart?’

      Mitchell opened one eye and took in the nurse’s blue uniform, tight black curls and steely brown eyes. ‘Sorry, but I need to get out of here,’ he said. ‘I’m late to get my daughter from school. She’ll be worried…’

      ‘Even if you have a dinner date with the queen, I’m not letting you go anywhere.’ Her name badge said Hello My Name is Samantha and it made her sound friendlier