She backed the chair up, pulling the door handle on doing so.
Golf no longer interested her. The siege had ended and Vince may yet be triumphant.
She toggled the stick of the wheelchair and the heel of Vince’s crutch came
into view. The sight unsettled her. The foyer opened out. Vince had barely
moved from the spot. Jitters plagued the muscles in his legs but his resolve
would forbid him from falling.
Nancy
didn’t meet his gaze as she cruised the wheelchair though the doorframe; she
wouldn’t offer him his chair. She paused, turning in time to see him shuffle
towards the surveillance room. She put the chair in drive and made a right turn
past the Newell post. The entryway adjacent to the meeting room led into a
gallery.
Sunlit
casements on the right hurled cubist shapes upon the opposing wall. Doors and
photos drifted past as the motor idled forwards. At the terminus, an Edwardian
door made steady approach. Succulent plants on the other side promised an ideal
retreat, a conservatory overlooking fields, perhaps.
‘No-r-a!’
Suddenly,
the Edwardian door couldn’t arrive quickly enough. A door crashed. On her
command, the wheelchair gained speed. Nancy kept her sights ahead but didn’t
think the Edwardian door would provide the answer to her problem. Escape was
not the objective, but to take her person from Vince’s sight. On impulse, she
veered left, hitting the windowsill. Reverse. She backed into one of the doors
behind her. Her stomach in her mouth, she depressed the handle and the door
gave way. She disappeared from the gallery.
The
door drifted closed and her wheelchair continued backing up. Too soon, an
obstruction impeded her progress.
She
twisted round; she glanced up. The reflections on his spectacles made his eyes impossible
to read.
