Without waiting for an answer, Leo raced back through the rhododendrons and into the main garden. As he ran across the lawn, past the privet bushes, the brick planters, he could see Chani dressed in his old clothes sitting, sobbing on the edge of the patio. When he reached her, without speaking, and as frail as he felt, he bore Chani quickly up in a fireman's lift and carried her inside. She did not struggle, did not cry out at being manhandled in this way. He bore her through the kitchen and lowered her upright by the stool, her stool, and grasped her by the shoulders.
"Chani, it's only the vet," he said quietly. "You remember, I told you last night that he might come through the kitchen to get in. What in the world possessed you to go outside dressed like that?"
"Leo, I am so sorry," she whispered, her cheeks still wet from the crying which had started almost immediately after Roy had left her, alone on the patio but which had now, thankfully, stopped. "I completely forgot about the vet and I was so scared, I panicked. My brain isn't working too well this morning, I think that I am more than a little hung over, all those gin and its and the wine yesterday and I didn't know how to work the coffee machine; that's why I went outside, to call you. Please forgive me. I hope that the vet is alright. I suppose that I gave him as much of a scare as he did me." She did not, could not, tell him about the whistling and how it had called to her like an old Anglo-Saxon Pied Piper; how beckoning, how welcoming its sound had appeared to her.
"Roy will be ok," he said. "When he thinks about it some more, I think he will be flattered to think that you mistook him for a rampant, sexual predator." He laughed.
"It's no joke," Chani replied. "I was really frightened." She paused. "Where did you learn to do that? That fireman's lift? I was so shocked that I couldn't speak, couldn't move; I couldn't do anything except lie there across you shoulder."
"Symi," he said. "That Dodecanese island from the book. It's difficult to get much equipment or building materials up to the buildings, hoists, jack-hammers, cement and the like, because there are no roads, just stairs up the hillside, from the new village to the old, and everything comes up by donkey. Hefting bags of sand and cement from the donkey to the cement mixer is made easier once you master the fireman's lift. Take a seat, calm yourself down and I will make you some espresso."
She settled herself into the stool and tried not to look as embarrassed as she felt. She was at a loss to understand how she could have forgotten about the vet, even if she were mildly hung over. She puzzled briefly over the whistling that had led her out onto the patio. As hung over as she might be, to be lured in such a way did not seem to her to be rational, comprehensible even. She could not have thought the whistling was meant for her, no-one except Leo knew that she was there, and Leo would have called her by name surely; perhaps it might become clearer after some caffeine, she thought.
"Coffee is served," he said, appearing suddenly and placing the steaming espresso on the counter in front of her together with a small bottle. "There's some ibuprofen in the bottle in case you have a headache to accompany your hangover."
As she raised the cup to her lips, Roy entered through the French doors. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, her neck. She continued to hold the cup to her mouth, although there was no need, she had already taken a mouthful of coffee. It was as though its scant size could somehow obscure the red tinge which, she felt sure, was now making her glow with all of the incandescence of an electric fire. Roy strode to the counter where Leo stood.
"Do I detect espresso in the air?" He said. "Yes please, Leo. That will be most kind; doppio, one sugar. So good of you to ask. Do I have the time for breakfast? Of course. Pancakes and maple syrup? Absolutely. Happy to share anything you have, even muesli! The bill for looking at Rory? Breakfast will pay for all!"
Chani was surprised at this one-sided banter but, as Leo marched off to the Gaggia machine with a shrug of his shoulders, she assumed that it was a, somehow, normal exchange between the two friends. Roy moved so that he was standing opposite her, on the other side of the island, and proffered his outstretched hand.
"Chani, I am pleased to meet you," he said without a tinge of embarrassment. "Again!"
She put down her cup and grasped his hand and shook it weakly,
"I am so sorry, Roy," she said. "I do not know what came over me. Leo had said that you were coming but......"
She quickly took up her cup of espresso and took a small sip as Leo arrived with the one for Roy.
"No, the fault is mine," Leo said. "If I had told you that the back, secret way into the garden was to crawl on your hands and knees through two, what shall I say, optical illusions, that might not have made the fright that you experienced so bad. Besides, anything that transpires in my house is my fault, no matter what the circumstances."
Chani finished her espresso and said that she should be getting dressed and would be it alright if she had a bath instead of a shower; she was in need of a soak and a bath would avoid her getting her hair wet. Leo made some sweeping movements with his hands as though ushering her from the room and she got up, nodded to the 'odd couple' opposite, one a good twelve inches taller than the other, and made her way upstairs. As she turned to go up the 'dog-leg' half way up, a voice shouted from the foot of the stairs.
"I forgot to mention last night," Leo cried. "There's a short kimono in the hanging robe in your room if you want to use it as a dressing gown; finest Chinese silk and made in Japan. A most wonderful present, one of four from a client of my ex-partner's for whom I had painted a picture in the style of the woodblock artists of 'ukiyo', the 'floating world' of seventeenth century Japan, as a gift, in gratitude for their, the client's and his wife's, hospitality during my visit to Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. The kimono is, of course, clean!"
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