by Alix Kelso
“It sounds good. But you don’t have to stay and change my sheets or make me hot drinks. I can do those things myself.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to be looked after, don’t you think?”
She stared at the floor. “Yes.”
“Okay, where do you keep your clean PJs?”
“I can get them.”
Once more, he held up a hand. “Where do you keep them, Laura?”
His smile dissolved her, and she pointed to a drawer by the window. “Get me the ones with the giraffes on them. I like those.”
Opening the drawer, he rummaged around and located the pyjamas. They were pale yellow and covered with images of giraffes eating leaves from a tree, drinking water from a pond, and galloping across a savannah. They never failed to cheer her up. She noticed Bruce trying to hide a smile and blushed at his obvious amusement.
“And where do you keep your clean bed linen?”
“The cupboard in the living room. My stuff’s on the second shelf. Don’t take anything from the third shelf, those are Yvonne’s things.”
“Where is Yvonne?”
“She’s with Olly for the weekend.”
“Should I call her? Maybe you ought to have someone with you …”
“No, don’t call her, I’ll be fine.”
He studied her. “What about your boyfriend, what’s-his-name? Want me to see if he can come over and keep you company?”
She paused for just a beat before answering. “We broke up.”
A look seemed to cross his face, but she was too muddled to be sure what the look might have been, or what it might have meant, or whether it had even been there at all. He gave a nod and began moving towards the door.
“I’ll get some clean sheets, and you can get changed while I’m gone.” He looked at her uncertainly. “Unless you think you’ll need a hand ...”
She managed a smile. “Slick move, cowboy, but I’ll manage.”
He grinned, and then once more looked serious. “What about a shower? Do you feel like having a shower to freshen up?”
But already she was shaking her head. “I can’t even bear to imagine it.”
With a final nod he left the room, pulling the door behind him. Laura remained on the edge of the bed and began unfolding the clean pyjamas and removing the assemblage of mismatched garments.
She felt horrible, just horrible, and wondered how long she might have continued sleeping had it not been for Bruce coming to the door. She figured that she’d slept close to thirteen hours straight, and that she could sleep thirteen more, easily.
She was ill, no doubt about it.
Once changed into her fresh PJs, she heard a soft knock at the door and found Bruce with a stack of clean bed linen in his arms.
“Let’s get you settled on the sofa while I change your bed,” he said, laying the new sheets down and ushering her out. “I found a blanket in the cupboard to keep you warm.”
In the living room, she slumped on the sofa and let Bruce wrap the soft blanket around her. It felt good as the warmth returned to her body. He brought her tea, along with a glass of water and paracetamol, which he instructed her to swallow. She smiled in resignation when he loitered to make sure she took the pills.
“You’ll be okay for a minute while I sort your bed?”
“Of course I will.”
But still he stood there, and she couldn’t mistake the concern in his face.
“Sorry you’re so sick.”
“Me too.”
“We’ll get you better in no time.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” he said, and once more headed to her bedroom.
As she sipped her tea and settled back into the blanket, exhaustion swept through her from the physical efforts of the last ten minutes. She was aware of Bruce, wrestling with the bedding, but the sounds grew distant, as if she was floating into the sky.
She set down her mug of tea, laid her head against a sofa cushion, and tucked up her legs. She’d just close her eyes for a minute while Bruce finished dealing with the new bed sheets. Just close her eyes and wait.
Just for a minute.
The fresh bed linen that Bruce took from the cupboard wasn’t a matching set, he realised – only after putting the duvet and pillows inside their covers. He considered finding the correct matches, but thought better of it. Laura was in the grip of a seriously nasty bug and needed to get back into bed and sleep. Matching pillowcases were the least of her concerns.
He stepped into the living room to tell her the bed was ready, but stopped short when he saw her stretched out on the sofa fast asleep. He thought of waking her, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Her bed might be more comfortable, but the sofa would do just fine for now.
He certainly wasn’t going to leave her alone, though, to wake up confused on the sofa. When she woke, maybe she’d want to eat, so if he stayed he could make himself useful and fix something.
He’d wait. It was the decent thing to do.
In the kitchen, he dialled the number Natalie had given him and summarised the situation.
“I should’ve realised something was wrong,” Natalie said. “That girl is never off-colour. If I hadn’t gone out with your uncle last night, I wouldn’t have asked her to cover the shift, and maybe she wouldn’t have ended up so ill.”
“I doubt working has changed the course of events,” Bruce said. “She’s picked up a virus, and the virus will do what it does. I’ll stay for a while in case she needs anything.”
“You’re a good boy, Bruce. One of my other waitresses is starting her shift early, and when she arrives I’ll pop over with a carton of Tanya’s chicken and lentil soup. We can put it in the fridge for Laura – she’ll need something good in her stomach.”
“Would you tell my Uncle Keith what’s going on?”
“He’s standing right next to me and says you should stay with Laura as long as she needs you.”
They ended the call, and when he checked again on Laura he found her still asleep. Back in the kitchen, he quietly washed up the dishes that sat in the sink, and as he dried them and found where they belonged in the cupboards, he took the place in more fully than he had during his previous visit.
He liked this kitchen and the way Laura had it laid out and organised. It felt good in the space, warm and comfortable. He could imagine her standing at the hob stirring something in one of those pans that lined the pantry shelf. He could imagine her chopping vegetables on the scarred wooden board propped up against the turquoise wall tiles, could imagine her watering her herb pots or fiddling with her ancient coffee machine. This kitchen was a place where a person could be content, where a person could be happy.
Which, he thought grimly, was in stark contrast to the clinical kitchen installation Heather had insisted upon for their home, six months before they’d split. While he’d been glad to see the back of the tired units and vinyl flooring they’d inherited from the previous owner, he hadn’t anticipated that their new luxury kitchen would consist of a palette of greys and cold whites that made him feel depressed every time he walked into it. But he’d figured it was all just part of the compromise of marriage. Heather’s heart had been set on the vision she’d created, and so he’d consoled himself that he had his lovely pub to retreat to with its warm woods and clever colours on the walls. It never occurred to him that it should’ve been his home that he thought of as his sanctuary, not his place of business.
Thinking of that hard, cold kitchen of Heather’s while he stood in this warm, lovely kitchen of Laura’s, with its mismatched tableware and pretty plant pots and bright tea towels, made him realise just how his own vision of what a home should look like had never really matched up with that of his ex-wife’s. These days, it seemed he only ever found himself baffled that they’d ever had enough in common to get together in the first place.
After making coffee he headed to the living room, where Laura still slept. He picked up a magazine and flicked through it, befor
e scanning the rows of well-thumbed paperbacks in the bookshelf alcove and selecting a thriller to pass some time.
Lowering himself into the armchair by the window, wincing in case of any noisy creaks, he realised that this was the chair he’d made gentle fun of that night he and Laura had chatted on the phone while Keith and Natalie had gone out on their date. She’d explained that the chair had belonged to her father, and he found himself imagining the man, sitting in this chair watching golf on television, just as she’d described him.
It was a nice memory for her to hold on to. He wondered what it must have been like for her to lose her parents so young. She’d been only nineteen, he calculated. He couldn’t imagine his parents not being around when he’d been nineteen. Even now, he spoke to them most weeks at their cottage on the coast. When his marriage to Heather had been collapsing, it had been his parents, and Jack, who’d got him through it during countless phone conversations while the end had spun out.
Who’d been there for Laura since her parents’ deaths? Who’d watched out for her?
In that moment, he understood a little better Laura’s devotion to Natalie and her devotion to Valentino’s – and the anxiety she felt at what lay ahead.
Watching her, tucked up inside her blanket, she looked beautiful. Even in the grip of illness, her face left him mesmerised.
He thought about what she’d said about her boyfriend no longer being on the scene. It made sense that she must’ve ditched him after he’d stood her up that day for an Indiana Jones movie. She would’ve been crazy not to.
No boyfriend. No entanglements.
If he wasn’t still licking his divorce wounds, he wondered if he might have allowed his heart to open instead of keeping it snapped closed.
Laura woke, although it was more like surfacing after being trapped below ground. Groaning, she screwed her eyes against the light. Although every muscle still ached, they didn’t ache quite as badly as before, and for that she could only be grateful.
Opening her eyes, she shifted and heard heavy rain lashing against the windows. As she looked to the dark, gloomy skies outside, she saw a figure sitting in her father’s old armchair, and once her vision adjusted she realised it was Bruce.
“What are you still doing here?”
He closed the book he’d been reading. “I didn’t want to leave you alone, in case you needed something.”
Swinging her legs off the sofa, she grimaced at the sharp spears of stiffness in her calves and thighs.
Bruce studied her for a few seconds. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a twenty-tonne truck.” Rising, she waited until the room stopped whirling around her before testing one foot in front of the other. “I need some water.”
“I’ll get it. How about tea, too?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
Heading for the door, he paused. “Natalie brought you some soup from the restaurant. Chicken and lentil, Tanya’s speciality, apparently. Want some?”
“What a lovely thing to do. But I didn’t hear anyone at the door.”
“You were out for the count. You have been for the last three hours.”
“Three hours?” Her gaze darted towards the clock, and she saw it was the middle of the afternoon. “God, I’ve slept most of the day.”
“You needed to sleep. And now that you’re awake, just take it easy while you get your bearings.”
In the bathroom, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and groaned. After splashing cold water on her face and brushing her teeth, she felt a little better although her reflection looked just as awful.
As she walked into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of warm soup, she heard Bruce talking on the phone cradled at his ear while he stirred the pot on the hob.
“Tell the girls I’m sorry, and I’ll see them during the week,” he said, pouring soup into bowls. “Yeah ... yeah, I know ... yes, I do understand about fluid intake requirements for sick people, I’m not a moron. In fact, I’m heating soup right now ... Okay, have fun, and don’t set your hair on fire with that barbeque.” He hung up and shifted his attention to the soup-pouring.
“You had plans today,” Laura said.
He turned and smiled when he saw her in the doorway. “Just a visit to my brother and his family, no big deal.”
“I feel terrible.”
He set the pot in the sink and hurried over. “I’ll help you back to the sofa—”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean I feel terrible you’ve stayed with me instead of visiting your family.”
He looked at her, his gaze level. “There’s nothing for you to feel terrible about. You didn’t ask me to stay, I chose to. Anyway, Jack just wants to show off his new shiny barbeque.”
She turned to the rain-spattered kitchen window and the leaden skies beyond. “Your brother’s having a barbeque in this weather?”
He laughed. “He bought one of these all-weather, all-purpose barbeques of the gods. Rain just gives him another opportunity to test its capabilities.”
“He makes his family sit in the rain so he can have a barbeque?”
“God, no. Jack will be out in the rain, Claire and the girls will be warm and dry inside. You’ve saved me from hovering at his kitchen door, passing the meat tongs while he lectures me about marinade techniques. This virus of yours has really helped me out.”
She laughed, and then groaned as the muscle movement sent fresh aches darting through her. Bruce ushered her back on to the sofa and set her up with a lap tray.
“Thank you,” she said, taking in the soup bowl, the linen napkin he’d dug out of the drawer and placed inside a napkin ring – how had he even known what those were for? – and the glass of iced water that sat tantalisingly alongside.
“Eat as much or as little as you can,” he said. “Natalie wants an update once you’re finished.”
She drank down half her water in one long, thirsty gulp, and began eating the soup. Although it was delicious, she felt herself begin to fade away after six or seven spoonfuls.
“That was good,” she said, setting her lap tray on to the table. “But I can’t eat any more.”
“Want anything else?” Bruce asked.
She shook her head. He continued eating for a few moments longer before also setting down his spoon and giving her a look she couldn’t decipher.
“What?” she finally asked.
“I’m glad you broke up with your boyfriend,” Bruce said. “Ditching you like he did last weekend, well, he deserved to get dumped.”
She cut her eyes towards him before looking away. “Actually, he dumped me.”
Bruce gaped. “How did he ...? What, you gave him another chance after last week?”
Laura blushed. “I know, I’m an idiot. He said he was sorry and asked to take me to dinner to make it up. Then after he brought me home, he broke up with me. I’d been going to end things with him, and he ended up dumping me. That’s what happens, I suppose, when you try to dodge making a difficult decision.”
“I can testify from personal experience, it’s always better to be the dumper than the dumpee.”
She gave him an unhappy look. “I put on my beautiful dress and my killer heels because he said he’d take me somewhere fancy. And we ended up at Pizza Hut. Hey, don’t laugh!”
“I’m not,” he said, attempting to clear his expression.
“Yes, you are.”
“Only because of how you described it.”
“Great, have a good chuckle.”
“Sorry, I’m not chuckling,” he said, serious now. “This guy sounds like an idiot.”
But she shook her head. “That’s the thing, though. He’s not an idiot. He’s not mean or horrible. He just wasn’t right for me, and I wasn’t right for him. He liked going to the movies, and we’d just sit there in the cinema, no work required. I don’t know why I thought that’s what I wanted. Stupid, right?”
Bruce looked at her for a moment, and when he answered his voice w
as soft. “Not stupid, no.”
She sighed and shifted her blanket. “I’d like to close my eyes again for just a little while. Do you mind?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
“Do you want me to go?”
She thought about it and shook her head. “Is it okay if you stay?”
“It is.”
When Laura woke again, it was eight in the evening. She’d only meant to nap for a few minutes. Cursing the virus, she propped herself up and found herself alone in the living room.
Bruce must have left. Of course he’d left. Why would he hang around for another boring four hours while she snored?
But when she opened the living room door, she heard noises from the kitchen. She wandered through, her legs still stiff and achy, and found him working at the counter with a wooden spoon and a mixing bowl.
“Hey,” she said, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Bruce turned and smiled. “Hey, sleepyhead. Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“You didn’t. What are you doing?”
Glancing at the bowls and ingredients and general mess on the counter, he laughed. “I was planning to surprise you. I’m making muffins.”
“You don’t have to make muffins, you’ve done enough already.”
“Ah, but these aren’t just any muffins. These are magic muffins.”
At her sceptical look, he laughed and gestured to the mixture in the bowl. “My sister-in-law, Claire, makes these for my nieces when they get sick. I happened to be there once when she was making a batch. They’re amazing, so I called her and she talked me through the recipe. I thought you might like them.”
She sat at the kitchen table and watched him spooning the mixture into cases.
“I didn’t know I even had muffin cases.”
“You didn’t. I asked my Uncle Keith to bring round a few things.” He finished filling the cases and slid the tray into the oven. “How are you feeling?”
“Not any better, but not any worse, either. Think I might like a shower, though.”
“I’ll warm up some more of the soup Natalie brought, and it’ll be ready when you are.”
