Virgin

by Georgia Le Carre

  I stand suddenly. I have to get out of here. My cheeks are burning, there’s a tightness in my chest. It feels as if I’ll explode if I stay here a second longer.

  “Goodnight,” one of the waitresses says as I walk to the door. There’s sympathy in her eyes. Like she wants me to know I’m not the only one who’s ever been through this. Strangely enough, my pride kicks in. I don’t need her sympathy. I’m not hurt. So what if I made a complete fool of myself by sleeping with a man who is known to be a Casanova, and actually expected him to show up for lunch after he got what he wanted.

  “It looks as though my meeting got canceled without my knowing about it.” I manage to smile. “Goodnight.”

  She’s diplomatic enough to pretend she believes me. Nodding politely, she walks away. Tears of shame burn behind my eyes. She knows. They all know. Thank god I’ll never be coming here again. I hurry out, careful to avoid eye contact as I go. I wish I’d never come. I wish … God, I wish … I wish he had just turned up.

  I can’t go back to the apartment just yet. The thought of sitting with my friends for the rest of the night enduring their pitying glances … it’s too much to even think about. How they will laugh at me. Saving my virginity all these years and dropping it into the lap of the worst kind of skirt-chaser. I look back and forth down the street. A taxi stops. I get in and to my shock I ask the driver to take me to his hotel.

  I walk through the lobby, and up to the reception. A woman in a navy suit smiles professionally.

  “I’d like to speak to Tyson Eden, please,’ I say, meeting her in the eye.

  She frowns. “Monsieur Eden? I … um … let me check.” She looks down at her computer screen and taps at a few keys. She looks up shaking her head. ‘Sorry, Mademoiselle, but Monsieur Eden checked out this morning.”

  My eyes widen. “What?”

  “Yes, he checked out at eleven o’clock.” She shrugs. “Sorry.”

  For a second I stare at her blankly. He checked out. So even that story about going to see his friend was bullshit. My mind refuses to believe it. I cling on to the last bit of hope. “Did he leave a message for me?”

  She shakes her head slowly, her eyes pitying. “No, sorry. He did not leave a message for anyone. If he had there would be a notice in the notes section.”

  I nod and, turning around, head out of the hotel. My mind is blank as I walk the streets of Paris for ages. Even when it starts raining I don’t stop walking. There I was, thinking I was smart. I wouldn’t ever get roped in by a handsome face or a charming smile. Holding myself above all the poor, silly girls who let men take advantage of them. What did I think made me so special, so smart? I was clearly wrong. I was wrong about so many things.

  I think back to how happy I was only a few hours ago, how I spent the whole day smiling and giggling to myself like I was the keeper of the most wonderful secret in the whole wide world. I feel so lost and hurt. A single tear rolls down my cheek and I knuckle it away.

  I stop at the corner to wait for traffic to rush past and it hits me that something might have happened to him. My breath catches. All these cars racing past. What if he got hit on his way to Louis? Or had an accident? Maybe I should call up the hospital to see if he was admitted? No, that’s stupid. He checked out of the hotel. What if he had to go home for something, like an emergency? That’s surely possible.

  A tiny flicker of hope sparks to life in my heart, but I put it out right away. Then why didn’t he leave a message for me at the hotel?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tyson

  Izzy still hasn’t called my phone. I flag a taxi and go straight to the hospital. By the time I reach Liam’s bedside, running full-out from the second I cross through the entrance, he is still hanging on, looking worse than I’ve ever seen him, but alive.

  “You think you’ll get rid of me that easily?” he wheezes. I can barely hear him.

  I run a hand over his mostly-bald head and force a smile. “Keep your smartass comments to yourself. Rest a little, eh?”

  He shakes his head. His eyes burn as he looks up at me. “Fuck rest. I’ll rest when I’m dead. Hit me with all you’ve got, you pussy,” he whispers.

  I pretend to chuckle, and he chuckles with me, but I see that even laughing exhausts him. My heart aches to see how he still wants me to think of him as a strong man. I hold his hand and he squeezes mine, but there is no power left in him. He is just a shell of the man I knew. I want to know why he didn’t tell me. How he thought I would take it if I never got the chance to say goodbye. But none of that matters now. It would only take up the little time we have left together.

  Vanessa comes in with fresh coffee. She’s a mess—hair dirty, pinned up on top of her head. Eyes ringed with dark circles, cheeks sunken in. Clothes that look like she’s worn them for days on end. Her nose is red and chapped. I have to admit, I never cared much for her. Never thought she was good enough for him. Seeing the way she’s falling apart taking care of Liam, and knowing she could easily have walked away when she found out he was sick makes me regret the things I said about her.

  “It all happened so fast,” she whispers softly as she sits on the other side of the bed, close to him. “He started coughing for no reason. He felt fine otherwise, no fever or anything. Just that cough. Then, he lost his appetite. And he was tired all the time. I would say three or four weeks between when it started and when I managed to convince him to see the doctor.”

  “He always was a stubborn ass,” I mutter.

  “That’s the truth,” she agrees, shaking her head with a rueful smile. “But it was too late by then. The doctor said it was Stage Four lung cancer.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  She looks up at the ceiling. “Three months?” she says with a shrug.

  My hands clench. Three months. He could’ve gotten better treatment. He might have had a chance, but no, the stubborn bastard insisted on keeping it a secret from me and letting the cancer ravage him. My eyes find his face and I see the way it has eaten him out. His hair is all but gone, and his pallor is ghostly grey. Eyes and cheeks sunken like a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. I can hardly believe this is the same man I used to sprint up and down the football pitch with. Somebody replaced my best friend with a withered old man.

  “They must be able to do something for him.”

  She looks at me from across the bed. “Nothing we can afford. Nothing feasible.”

  “Afford? Feasible?” I hiss. Money? Is that all he lacked? When I have more of it than I’ll ever know what to do with? I’d kill him myself if he wasn’t already so close to it. The bastard.

  She shrugs uncomfortably.

  “I can afford it, Ness.”

  “He didn’t want you to do anything like that,” she says, her voice breaking. “He’s proud and stubborn. He wanted it this way.”

  “How could he want this?” I ask, furious but trying to keep my voice down for his sake. What I want to do is punch a wall, curse him for being such an idiot.

  “You know how he is,” she says, like that’s an answer.

  I stand up. “Tough shit. He’s going to have to deal with help from me. I can’t accept this. I want to speak to his team of oncologists, immediately. I want to explore other alternatives.”

  “Tyson, no.” She rises, grabbing my arm as I’m about to storm out the door and raise holy hell in the corridor. I look down at her, surprised. Why would she stop me from getting help for him?

  She swallows hard. “If it’s more of what he’s had, no. You don’t know how much he’s suffered in the last three months. Believe me, there is nothing I want more than for him to be alive, to be with me, but I love him so much I won’t put him through anymore. Enough is enough.”

  I touch her arm. “I’ll find a way. A way where he doesn’t suffer.” My voice is strong and determined. “I need him. This is what I want. I can’t sit here and not try, at least.”

  Her eyes swim with tears and a wild, crazy hope. “All right, then. Do
it. I can’t pretend I don’t want you to do it.”

  He sleeps through the next few hours, and I sit up by his bedside. Just watching, waiting. Waiting for what? For him to open his eyes again? For him to die? The thought kills me and I walk out of his room and go down the corridor. There is a door that leads out to a garden. There is no one in it. There is still no missed call on my phone. I guess she must be so busy she is going directly to Costa.

  I call Costa at eight sharp. A man answers on the first ring, and I ask for Margot. She comes on the phone and immediately recognizes me.

  “Is she there yet?”

  “No, she has not arrived.”

  “No problem. I’ll call back in fifteen minutes. Ask her to wait for my call.”

  “Got it.”

  I call again. And again. And again. Fifteen minutes became every thirty minutes. But each time the answer is always the same. She has not arrived. Finally, the answer was different.

  “I’m so sorry. She has not come and we are closing now.”

  My heart is so heavy, I can barely thank her for her trouble. Oh, Izzy. Did I completely misjudge you? No. I’m a pretty good judge of character. I didn’t make a mistake. No one can pretend such innocence. I saw the blood. That wasn’t a lie. We were so perfect. So happy. I try to think of anything she might have said that would give me a clue as where she could be.

  Suddenly, crazy thoughts and images start appearing in my head. What if she met with an accident? What if she’s lying in a hospital even now? I imagine her broken and bleeding.

  If it weren’t for Liam, I would have gone back to find her, but he needs me. His doctors are trying to find him a place at the Oslo Comprehensive Cancer Center in Norway. I need to be here to move quickly when they arrange something. My brother needs me.

  I go back to Liam’s room and he is still asleep.

  “You look like shit. There’s no need for both of us to be here. He’ll sleep right through now. Why don’t you take a break?” Vanessa says to me.

  I rub the back of my neck. “Why don’t you take a break? I’ll stay with him.”

  She smiles. “I’ll be all right. I’m happier when I’m here, next to him. You go ahead. There is a hotel just up the road. It’s not much, but you’ll be close by, and you can refresh and recharge. You’re no good to him tired and irritable. Go on.”

  I don’t want to leave the hospital, but the doctor assures me things look all right for now. I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours and Ness is right. Liam needs me at my best. I take a taxi to the hotel Vanessa told me about.

  The room is drab and basic. I drop my bag on the bed and walk to the window. The hospital is so close by I can see from where I am standing. A square gray building. I think of all the people who work there, who die there.

  I should sleep.

  The bed looks comfortable enough, but when I lie down and close my eyes, all I see is Izzy. I can’t get her out of my head. I roll onto my back with my arm over my eyes.

  And there she is again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Izzy

  I get lost in the maze of streets and don’t even realize I am lost until two men walking towards me say something in French to me, but their body language and leering faces snaps me out of my daze.

  I’m alone in a dark street with two men who look like thugs. I don’t think I have ever been so frightened in my life. I drop my head and crossing the road start walking away quickly. My heart hammers in my chest. My ears listen for their footsteps. They don’t follow. One of them laughs and calls something out. I don’t turn. Just keep my head fixed straight ahead and my stride long and fast.

  To my relief, only a short distance away, the street joins a busy one full of traffic and people.

  I run the last few steps and burst on to the busy street. I look around me. I realize for the first time that I am soaked to the skin and shivering. Nobody takes any notice of me. I flag down a cab and give the address of the apartment I am staying in to the taxi driver.

  He doesn’t speak. Simply grunts, switches on the meter, and starts on driving.

  By the time I get back to the apartment, everyone is asleep after all the champagne at the party, and only Marie, Lina’s French friend, whose apartment we are staying in, is awake.

  “You are wet,” she says and shoos me towards the bathroom.

  My mind is blank as I peel off my clothes and get into the shower. I don’t even cry. Slowly, feelings come back to my frozen limbs. Eventually, I get out and wrap myself in the thick bathrobe Marie hung behind the door for me.

  I dry myself and go into the living room where she is watching TV. To my surprise Lina has come to join her friend in the living room. They are talking in low tones. When they hear me they both turn towards me, but it is only Lina who speaks to me.

  “I heard the doorbell. What are you doing here?” she asks, a frown on her face.

  I shake my head, because quite honestly, I cannot speak. Cannot say a word. She stares at me for a few seconds then, she stands, and comes over to me. “Come on, let’s have a cup of tea in the kitchen.”

  We go into the kitchen, but it is not tea she takes down from the cupboard, but a bottle of cognac. I sit down and watch her pour a generous measure into two mugs. I smell the fumes from where I am sitting. I drank Jameson last night. I can still taste it on my tongue.

  She pushes one of the mugs towards me. I curl my hands around it and drink it down. All of it in one go. It burns my throat and makes me cough. I look at Lina’s face.

  Her mouth quirks. “It’s okay, honey. It happens to all of us.”

  I bite my lip. She doesn’t understand, but I nod. I can’t talk about it. Not to her. Not to anyone. She can never understand. No one can.

  “So Charlotte went on her honeymoon. Everything went really well,” she says softly.

  I nod.

  “Kylie got really drunk and threw up in the toilet,” she adds into the awkward silence.

  I nod again.

  She drinks her cognac and refills our mugs. I drink it and stand up.

  She stands too. “I’m really sorry, Izzy.”

  I nod, then I turn to leave.

  “I’m here if you need to talk,” she says.

  I turn. Her face is soft and full of concern. I nod and manage a half-smile. For the first time in my life, the pain is too deep for me to talk about my pain to anyone.

  Tyson

  “Norway?” Vanessa chews on her lower lip, looking uncertainly from me to Liam and back to me.

  Liam frowns. “Why?” he whispers weakly.

  “Because there are specialists there who are in the middle of developing a new treatment for your specific cancer. There are doctors throwing all their expertise behind it,” Liam’s doctor says.

  “Can he manage a trip like that?” Vanessa looks at the small team of doctors gathered at the foot of the bed.

  “Yes. Mr. Eden has already made the arrangements for transport. All the necessary medical equipment can be taken onboard.”

  “And it’s ready to leave whenever you are,” I finish, looking down at my friend. “All you have to do is stop being a stubborn jackass and accept the very thing you would do for me if you were in my shoes.”

  “How much is it going to cost?”

  “I can afford it,” I say.

  “No, it’s too much,” he protests.

  “Stuff it. It’s not too much. It’s nothing.” I touch his shoulder—it’s like touching a skeleton. “Please.”

  Liam looks at Vanessa, his jaw set hard.

  Her eyes fill with tears. “Please, Liam. Do it for me.”

  It’s what decides it for him. “All right. Let’s go to Norway.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Izzy

  Two Days Later

  The journey back is strange and strained. I find it difficult to talk to the others and spend most of it pretending to be asleep. Lina’s brother comes to pick us up.

  As soon as he drops me off on m
y street, I wave goodbye to everyone and run up the three flights of stairs to my little apartment. I lock the door behind me, then lean against it. A strangled sob bubbles up out of my throat. I’m alone, finally. I can let it all out. Tears overwhelm me as I slide down the door and end up in a heap on the floor.

  What’s wrong with me? Why does it matter so much? He was just a man, just a man, just a worthless man. I made a mistake. So what? I had fun, right? Then why is my heart breaking? It must be my pride that’s hurt. Yes, that must be it. My pride. My pride is hurt.

  Though I did think we had something special. Nobody can tell me that night was not special.

  I cry my heart out. When I finally manage to get myself up off the floor I feel cold determination take over. I’ll get over this. I take my shoes off, then the belt of the brand new dress I wore for the first time today, a cute little knit dress that hugs my body and whose light grey shade complements my eyes. I pull it over my head and toss it on the bed, not even bothering to put it away.

  I only wore it because I was sick of Catherine and Lina looking at me as if I was going to slit my wrists.

  A pair of tracksuit bottoms and a cuddly old night shirt will suit my mood a lot better. I pull my hair into a bun on top of my head and put the kettle on. An afternoon of trashy TV is what I need more than anything. I’ll get over you, Tyson Eden. You’ll see, I’ll get over you if it’s the last thing I do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tyson

  Two Weeks Later

  “It’s looking good, Ralph. He’s looking real good,” I say into the phone. The Norwegian sky is a clear blue and the air is fresh and clean.

  “That’s great news,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Did they say when he can come home?”