‘Jessie?’ he asked softly. ‘What’s wrong?’
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘I love you so much,’ she said. ‘But you don’t trust me, just like I didn’t trust you when we were younger.’
He didn’t know what to say, because it was the truth. For a couple of hours this afternoon he hadn’t trusted her. She was the woman who’d had his heart since the day he was born and, because of his own jealousy, he was driving her away.
‘I wanted to leave,’ she went on. ‘I thought if I went to London, if we had a break from each other for a while then maybe we could try again. But …’ She paused, looking at the mess around her.
‘But what?’ he asked, hope filling his heart again.
‘I’m so tired, Rupert,’ she said, turning to look at him for the first time. ‘I couldn’t even lift the suitcase.’
He drew her towards him then and noticed her hands were shaking. He looked again at her pale skin and the sheen of sweat on her face and rested his hand on her forehead.
‘Jessie,’ he said quietly, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice. ‘You’re burning up. We need to get you to bed.’
‘But everything is such a mess,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘You need to sleep,’ he said, slowly picking her up and taking her to the bed. ‘And when you wake up we’ll talk.’
‘But …’
‘Jessie, please, you need to rest.’ He was furious with himself for not realising how ill she was, furious with himself for not being there when she needed him. ‘And I need to phone Caro,’ he went on.
She grabbed his wrist as she lay down and he pulled the duvet over her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Please don’t phone Mum. Phone Gemma – she’ll know what to do.’
*
‘She’s really sick,’ Rupert said as he walked into the living room to find Dan still there on the sofa. He realised that all the anger had been knocked out of him the moment he saw how ill Jess was.
‘I know,’ Dan replied. ‘That’s why I was trying to phone you.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Rupert asked. ‘Did she say anything?’
Dan shook his head. ‘She collapsed on the boat,’ he said. ‘I was trying to get her home when you saw us. That’s all it was, I promise.’
‘Why had she come to see you?’
‘I invited her,’ Dan said quietly. ‘I wanted to see her and I wanted to see you. I wanted some closure on the past and I think she did as well. Nothing is ever going to happen between us, you know. She loves you. She always has done. She just wants us all to be friends again, I think.’
Rupert leaned against the doorframe again, suddenly exhausted. It was so typical of Jess to try to make everyone get on, just as she had tried to make him get on better with his father when they were teenagers. She hated it when people weren’t happy.
‘I was coming to see you for the same reason,’ Rupert said. ‘That’s when I saw you two together.’
‘She was sick like this last time,’ Dan said. ‘When she first got ill.’
Rupert nodded. ‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ he said, closing his eyes.
‘You look exhausted, mate,’ Dan said and Rupert found he didn’t flinch at the colloquial use of the word ‘mate’ this time. ‘Come and sit down. Can I get you a drink of anything?’
‘There’s whisky in the kitchen,’ Rupert said. ‘Why don’t you stop for one, keep me company?’
Dan nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘This is such a mess,’ Rupert said.
‘It doesn’t have to be. We can all start again as soon as Jess is better. But you need to make her your priority now.’
37
JESS
I woke up to the sun streaming through the windows. I was as surprised to finally see the sun again as I was to see Gemma standing at the foot of the bed. I thought I must still be delirious.
‘Hello,’ Gemma said.
‘What day is it?’ I asked, trying to sit up in bed but feeling dizzy so lying back down again.
‘Wednesday,’ she replied as she came towards me to help me sit up. ‘Drink this.’ She handed me a glass of cloudy-looking water. I felt like Alice stepping through the Looking Glass.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Rehydration salts. You’ve been living on this and chicken soup since Saturday.’
Saturday. The day I went to see Dan. The day I collapsed on his boat and had a terrible argument with Rupert. I didn’t remember very much after that and I had no idea why Gemma was here.
‘Can I have a cup of coffee?’ I asked.
Gemma smiled. ‘You must be feeling better,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and make you one.’
As she was leaving the room I called her back. ‘Where’s Rupert?’ I asked. ‘And, while it’s lovely to see you, why are you here?’
‘Rupert’s at work,’ she said. ‘He’ll be back at lunchtime, and I’m here to look after you. Now drink your drink and let me go and get you some coffee.’
I lay back on the pillows, unsatisfied with Gemma’s answers. I wasn’t sure how it had got to Wednesday without me noticing. I had vague recollections of being propped up in bed and force-fed liquid from a mug – rehydration salts and chicken soup I’m guessing, after what Gemma said. I remembered someone, a doctor presumably, taking my temperature, whispered conversations in the corner of the room. I remembered Rupert holding my hand, which was a good sign after our argument, but I also remembered my dad sitting by the bed reading me a story, so perhaps my memories weren’t very reliable right now.
I did remember that after Dan had brought me back home on Saturday afternoon, all I had been able to do was lie on the sofa shivering. Dan couldn’t get in touch with Rupert so he said he would wait with me until he came home. I also remembered the argument we’d had in the living room in front of Dan, and I remembered trying to get the suitcase down because I’d thought, ridiculously, that the best thing I could do was leave.
I’d had so little energy I hadn’t been able to manage to open the suitcase by myself and I remembered thinking, as I sat on the floor amongst my scattered underwear, of the time I’d tried to leave Dan after I found the letter offering him a job with National Geographic – I’d been too tired to pack my suitcase then as well. When would I ever learn to be honest about my illness? When would I learn that hiding it is pointless and to ask for help when I needed to?
My body ached and my throat was dry and sore, my jaw and ears throbbing. The last time I’d felt like this was the Christmas I first got sick. I felt a flicker of fear in my stomach, like a clenched fist, at the thought of being that ill again, at the thought of taking another two years to begin to recover. Was it possible to get glandular fever twice?
I heard Gemma coming back up the stairs and finished my rehydration salts, which tasted like the cheap orange squash we used to be forced to drink at Sunday school. It was no wonder I felt so bad if this is what I’d been living on.
‘We’ve been worried about you,’ Gemma said gently as she took the glass away from me and placed a cup of coffee in my hand.
‘What happened?’ I asked as I let that first gulp of warm, dark caffeine slide down my throat.
‘We’re not really sure,’ she said, with all the authority of a doctor. ‘We think you’ve probably had another bout of glandular fever.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘The doctor obviously, not me,’ she confessed. ‘At first, he thought it was flu – apparently there’s a really nasty strain around at the moment – but Rupert told him about your medical history and he changed his mind.’
‘I didn’t think you could get glandular fever twice,’ I said.
‘Apparently you can, but it’s very rare.’ She looked almost impressed at my ability to achieve such a thing.
‘Where is Rupert?’ I asked again.
‘I told you, he’s at work.’
‘Gem, what aren’t you telling m
e?’ I could remember how angry Rupert had been. Was he avoiding me now? I wished I’d never gone to see Dan.
She sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Rupert phoned me on Saturday afternoon. He said you didn’t want him to phone your mum.’ I did remember telling him that. ‘I got the first train up to York that I could,’ she went on. ‘By the time I got here late Saturday night, Rupert was beside himself. He said you were mumbling about your dad and not making any sense, that he thought you had a really high fever, but he didn’t have a thermometer in the house and the doctor couldn’t come until Monday.’
‘Is that why you stayed?’ I asked. ‘Because he couldn’t cope?’ I realised this was the thing I’d always been worried about, that Rupert wouldn’t be able to cope if I ever got really ill again and that it would all be too much for him. Gemma must have seen the fear in my eyes.
‘It wasn’t that he couldn’t cope,’ she said quickly. ‘It was that he didn’t know what to do. He’s not going to leave you because you’re not well. How many times do I have to tell you that?’
‘We had this terrible argument,’ I said. ‘He saw Dan and me together and he was so angry and then I had this ridiculous idea to leave him but I didn’t have the energy to pack my suitcase and it reminded me of when I first got ill.’
‘I don’t think any of that matters anymore.’
‘I don’t really understand why Rupert was so angry or why he wouldn’t trust me.’
‘I suppose because you hadn’t told him you were going to see Dan.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘We’d both been to see him and not told each other and …’
‘I know,’ she interrupted, holding her hand up to stop me. ‘I’ve heard all about it. I didn’t say he wasn’t a hypocrite, but he did jump to the wrong conclusion.’
‘You know?’ I asked. ‘He told you?’
‘We’ve had quite a bit of time to talk while we’ve been waiting for you to get better. He didn’t go into specifics but I got the feeling he hasn’t been coping with any of this. It’s as though he’s wanted to get back together with you for the last decade, but he’s been on his own so long he doesn’t know what to do. And then he saw you with Dan and he felt angry and jealous and now he’s worried your mum was right when she questioned his ability to look after you.’ She sighed then. ‘I’m glad he phoned me – it looks like you need my help.’
I looked at her as she sat there, waving her hands about animatedly. ‘I don’t need looking after,’ I said.
‘Rubbish, everyone needs looking after from time to time.’
‘Is everything all right with you?’ I asked.
‘Of course, why do you ask?’
‘Well you didn’t have to drop everything to come up here you know. You should be at home with Mike. We would have coped.’
‘But you asked for me,’ she said simply.
‘I didn’t expect you to come,’ I said quietly, forgetting again what an amazing friend she had always been to both me and Rupert.
‘Of course I came. Firstly,’ she said, ticking off the points on her fingers, ‘Mike is fine – he’s busy with work and I call him every night. Secondly, Rupert sounded desperate and pathetic on the phone. And thirdly—’ she dropped her voice and looked at me ‘—I’ve missed you and I was worried. How long have you been feeling ill again?’
‘Oh, just a few days.’
‘And now tell me the truth.’
‘Ages,’ I admitted. ‘Since January probably.’
She shuffled up the bed and tucked my hair behind my ear, running her thumb over my forehead. ‘Oh, Jess,’ she said. ‘Why are you so bad at looking after yourself? Why are you so stubborn?’
‘I just don’t want anyone to worry about me. And now …’ I paused.
‘And now what?’
‘Well, it’s just another thing I’ve kept from him, isn’t it? I didn’t tell him how ill I was in the first place, and I’ve kept how ill I’ve been feeling now from him. And I didn’t tell him about going to see Dan, so it’s no wonder he can’t trust me. And I’m guessing by his absence that is exactly how he’s feeling.’
‘Well, you’ve guessed wrong,’ Gemma said, standing up for emphasis. ‘He blames himself entirely for this. He knows he jumped to the wrong conclusion and overreacted to seeing you with Dan and he feels terrible that he didn’t really understand how ill you’ve been.’
‘He told you that?’
‘Yes, many times. Plus, he feels pretty guilty about going to see Dan without telling you.’
‘So why isn’t he here?’
Gemma sat down next to me again. ‘He had to go into work to pick up some papers that need marking, but he hasn’t been in all week. He’s mostly been sitting in that chair, waiting for you to wake up.’ She pointed to the chair in the corner of the room. ‘He’s been sleeping in that chair too.’
‘Really? Why didn’t he sleep in the bed?’
‘Because Captain insisted on sleeping next to you every night and I’ve been relegated to the sofa.’
‘Captain?’ I never really thought Captain liked me much.
‘Rupert and Captain adore you, Jess. When are you going to understand that? Rupert has always adored you. Stop worrying about every tiny thing and start living your life, will you?’
I nodded, finishing my coffee. ‘I don’t really feel well enough for living my life just yet,’ I said.
‘So let’s concentrate on getting you better,’ Gemma replied, grinning.
‘What are you smiling about?’ I asked.
‘I can’t tell you yet,’ she said. ‘But trust me, everything is going to be just fine.’
38
RUPERT
She was sitting up in bed when he came home from work and the relief he felt was palpable. Captain had followed him up the stairs to see how Jess was, but Rupert made him stay on the floor as he got into bed beside her.
‘Hey,’ he said softly.
‘Hey yourself,’ she replied, moving closer to him, reaching for his hand, wrapping her fingers around his.
He felt her against him, warm and coherent again. He exhaled, letting go of oceans of worry and tension. He’d promised himself that if she got better he’d forget about everything. None of it mattered anyway.
He’d jumped to the wrong conclusion on the towpath on Saturday afternoon. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have walked away like that instead of realising how ill Jess had been? How could he have started an argument with her when she was feeling so ill? By the time he had shared a whisky with Dan and called Gemma, Jess had been sleeping, but later that night her temperature had been raging. By the time Gemma turned up, Jess was refusing to drink anything and had started to talk about her father as though he were still alive. He had known then that Caro was right, and he hadn’t got the first clue how to look after Jess. He hoped that Gemma had.
She’d been amazing. She’d looked after them both and dealt with the doctor who thought it was glandular fever again and she phoned Caro and told her, calmly, what was going on. She even managed to convince Caro not to jump on the first train to York.
When the doctor came again to check up on Jess, he told Rupert that her illness had probably been triggered by the amount of stress she was under and Rupert had felt so guilty about putting her under that stress – moving her across the country and acting like an idiot over Dan. He had been so grateful for Gemma’s practical approach – rehydration salts and chicken soup. It’s what Caro had done the first time around apparently. He had never been so glad to see Gemma and her ridiculous eyebrows in his life.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, squeezing Jess’s hand, noticing how pale she still looked.
‘Tired,’ she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry if I worried you.’
‘I didn’t know what was wrong, Jessie. I didn’t know what to do. How long had you been feeling like that? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘A few weeks.’ He knew she wa
s lying. He knew now, looking back, that she’d been ill since Christmas. ‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ she said.
He shifted on the bed next to her and Captain sat up, thinking it was his cue to get up on the bed too. Rupert shifted again as the dog’s weight made the mattress sink.
Rupert laughed. ‘He’s been worried too,’ he said. ‘He’s barely left your side.’
‘I never thought he liked me. I always thought he saw me as the usurper.’
‘He loves you,’ Rupert said. ‘We both do. And I want you to worry me. I need you to worry me. If something’s wrong, you have to tell me about it, so I can help.’
‘That goes both ways,’ she said, twisting round to face him. He looked away briefly.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Neither of us have been particularly good at this communication thing since we got back together, have we?’ He looked at her again then, drinking her in, so glad she was here. He vowed to do whatever he could to help her get better, to make her life easier.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you’d been to see Dan?’ she asked.
He closed his eyes, his jaw tightening. ‘Because I didn’t feel it had gone well. I felt that I’d been judgemental and awkward. I hadn’t planned to see him in the first place, but he was on the towpath as I was walking past and he invited me in. He caught me off guard and I wasn’t ready.’ He paused. ‘I’d walked past his boat every day for weeks and not felt ready.’
‘Were you going to see him again on Saturday?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you were doing?’
He nodded. ‘After talking to Mum I realised it was time to make my peace with the past. I’ve always been so resentful and regretful about the way things turned out for me. I felt as though I’d given up everything for a position at Harvard that didn’t even work out. I’ve been incredibly selfish but Mum made me realise that unless I start to accept the past and move on then my future will be filled with regret.’
‘I can’t believe you thought I was with Dan though,’ she said. She sounded light-hearted when she had every right to be angry.
The Pieces of You and Me Page 21
