“Too real?”
“Far too real,” I said, and then a terrible thought occurred to me. “Rob?”
“What?”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
“What?” he said, trying to look like the picture of innocence, but my darling had a dirty mind. And we both knew it. “Okay, once,” he said.
I groaned and pulled the pillow over my head, but he yanked it away, determined to explain. “Look, we’d been at the whisky,” he said. “And it wasn’t really happening for me, so I just wound up fantasising—”
“—Rob, please stop talking—”
“—sort of a tag team situation, because I was having a bit of trouble getting there—”
“—la la la la not listening.”
He pulled my hands from my ears. “Nathan, it’s not a big deal. It’s a common sexual fantasy.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it sprouts a whole other level of fucked up when you’ve banged us both.”
“You asked!”
“No, I said ‘tell me you didn’t.’”
“Right,” he said. “Which would have been a lie, because I did.”
“So lie!” I flopped back on the bed. “I would have been perfectly happy with you lying to me about that.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d always have been curious.”
I glared at him. Fuck him for being right.
“Listen,” he said. “I don’t compare. Because there is no comparison. Simon and I had fun, but I love you. Only you.” He leaned in and kissed me, his blue eyes bright with tenderness. “Sex is grand and all, but sex with love? That’s…that’s ice-cream sundaes with extra cherries. It’s fireworks and magic and the tiny noises that puppies make when they’re sleeping in a dear little heap…”
I wound my fingers into the fleece of his hair. He made my heart hurt. “And you get all of that from me, do you?”
“And more. So much more.” He kissed me again. “I love you so much, and yes, I know we need to tell Simon, but…”
No. Not right now. I wrapped my legs around him. “Make love to me,” I whispered, as his lips moved over my neck. His tongue traced the line of my collarbone. “I want fireworks. And extra cherries. All of it. All of you.”
*
I got home when the sun was just beginning to dilute the dirty orange night glow over London. I was beer stained and exhausted and my feet hurt. The living room light was on and there was a whiff of single malt in the air. I looked in to turn off the lamp and then jumped: Simon was stretched out on the couch.
“Jesus, you startled me,” I said. “What are you still doing up?”
He sniffed, turning something over between his fingertips. “Couldn’t sleep.”
I moved closer, and saw what he was holding. It was Rob’s hair elastic, and I remembered when Rob had left he had done so with his hair loose around his shoulders, because he couldn’t find the band. It must have slipped between the cushions of the couch as we kissed and humped our way to the bedroom. The golden hairs gleamed in the light.
He knows he knows he knows…
“Have you been drinking?” I said.
“Obviously I’ve been drinking,” he said, with a whiskied belligerence that made me feel queasy. “Why are you even asking me that?”
Testing the waters? I didn’t know myself. “I don’t know. Courtesy?” I sat down in the armchair nearest the door. What to say? What had given us away in the end? The hair elastic lost in the couch? Or maybe the neighbour had cornered Simon on the stairs – annoyance finally trumping embarrassment – and told him they were sick of listening to him fuck that noisy Irishman?
I knew what my next line should be, but my brain couldn’t seem to retrieve the words.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked, instead.
He blew out a long breath. “I think,” he said. “I might have made a mistake.”
“Oh?”
“Rob,” he said. “I think I might have let him go too easily.”
Fuck. Okay, so he didn’t know. And this was somehow worse. “What do you mean?”
“After all the trouble I went to…the trouble we went to, to get him…”
“But he broke up with you,” I said.
“I know,” said Simon. “And I just shrugged and accepted it.”
“What else can you do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, with another sigh. His hair stuck up at the front. Had he managed to conceal an identical cowlick from me for over thirty years? I always thought that was my one unique feature. His eyes glittered. He looked terribly drunk. “Isn’t there something romantic you’re supposed to do under those circumstances? Stand outside the front door with cue cards or something? Or a boombox under the window?”
“No, don’t do that. Apparently it’s not romantic any more. It’s just stalking.”
Simon, I have to tell you something…
It wasn’t complicated. I’d rehearsed the line a million times, but I couldn’t seem to make myself spit it out, and every time I heard it in my head it sounded worse.
…I’ve been sleeping with your ex. Well, not exactly sleeping, but you get the picture. And we’re in love. The kind of stupid, drooling, broke-brained love where you can talk about sleepy puppy noises and ice-cream sundaes with a straight face, and where just the sight of him scratching his nose in his sleep can make your toes curl.
“What do you think I should do?” he said.
“I think you should get some sleep,” I said, bottling it entirely. “It’s four in the morning and you’re drunk. Not a great time to be making decisions.”
Or telling the truth, as it happened. At least, that’s what I told myself.
13
It was the first time any of us had tried on costumes. Mine was a silver grey frock coat with a flared back and wide cuffs, worn over an ornately embroidered waistcoat. My first thought - when I’d put on the stockings and knee breeches - was that I was going to look ridiculous, but once the high white collar and cravat were in place and the rest went on...well, it was impossible not to preen a little. Those eighteenth century boys had been real peacocks, after all.
“Holy shit,” said Poppy. “You look fucking hot.”
I turned around. So did she. She looked like she’d been poured into a wine red taffeta gown, with a tight bodice that did amazing things to her breasts.
“Hey, eyes up here,” she said.
“Sorry. It’s just very difficult when they’re so…there like that.”
She peered down into her cleavage and giggled. “I know, right? I didn’t think I could get them up that high.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Rupa. “You’re twenty-five. Your knockers defy gravity anyway.”
“That’s true,” said Nadia, from inside a changing cubicle. “You do have fantastic boobs.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Is this a thing that’s going to happen all the time now? That you all just talk about breasts in front of me?”
“You have a boyfriend,” said Rupa. “You’re not interested in boobs.”
“I’m still technically fifty per cent heterosexual, I’ll have you know.”
“Yeah, technically,” said Poppy. “You’re in love, dude. We’ve all seen your face when he texts you.”
I think I blushed, thinking of where I’d left him that morning. He was extra cuddly because I’d brought him a gift the night before, a little black cat carved out of haematite. In the morning I’d brought him tea in bed, meaning to kiss him goodbye, but he’d hooked his fingers under the waistband of my jeans and made soft, needy little moans while we kissed. And then I was naked all over again and he introduced me to a whole new register of sex noises – coos and sighs and breathless, throaty gasps – and the sex was sweet and shuddery. “You darling thing,” he said, when I was holding him close, bringing him down slowly from the peak. “My love. My Nathan.”
Yes, I was in love. So stupidly in love that the ethical mess I was in couldn’t dull t
he bright, perfect clarity of my feelings for him.
“Here,” I said, handing Poppy my phone. “Take a picture of me. I want to see what he thinks of the eighteenth century get up.”
“He’ll swoon,” she said, snapping a quick picture with the rapid ease of kids who’d grown up chronicling their every fart, sneeze and make-up malfunction. “When do we get to meet him, anyway?”
She handed me back the phone and I found the selfie I’d taken with Rob in the bookshop, back when I’d first introduced myself to him as myself, mainly to wind up Simon. I had the beginnings of a beard and Rob had his tongue out, but he still managed to look both fun and adorable, which he was.
“Aw, he’s cute,” Poppy said.
“I know.”
“You look so good together. Where’s he from? He looks kind of Scandinavian.”
“Actually he’s from Coleraine. Northern Ireland.”
“Ooh, does he have the accent still?”
“Yep.”
“You have got to bring him to rehearsals.”
The phone shuddered in my hand. “Hold on,” I said. “It’s my brother.”
I slipped away from the girls. “Hi. What’s up?”
I heard Simon swallow. “Nathan,” he said. “I don’t want you to panic…”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. My first thought was of Dad, who had kept right on recklessly salting his food despite the fact that we had a family history of hypertension. “Oh God,” I said. “Who died?”
“I’m at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital,” said Simon, and I could feel my knees go soft. The colour must have drained from my face because Rupa said something – was I okay? – but I could barely hear her voice. My whole world was concentrated on the next words out of my brother’s mouth, and yet at the same time I wanted to hang up the phone and run screaming from what I knew they were going to be.
“It’s Rob,” said Simon.
I reached out to steady myself. Felt the cold metal of the radiator against my hand. “Is he…?” To this day I don’t know how I pushed those two words past my lips.
“There was an accident,” said Simon, speaking in that slow, measured tone that people use when the world is falling the fuck apart. “On the road, near his place.”
I made a strange barking noise. I felt someone’s hand on my elbow, but it was like I was floating above myself now, desperate to escape this sudden nightmare.
“He’s conscious. He’s talking...” Simon said, and that was all I heard. I swear I could feel my adrenaline levels crash in that moment. Suddenly there was hope in the world again. “But they’re going to have to admit him. It was nasty…”
“How bad?” I said. My lips felt like two pieces of rubber.
Simon took a breath, and I heard it tremble. Not like him at all. “Bad,” he said. “He’s asking for you. Can you get here?”
I scrambled to get out of my frock coat. Jesus Christ. Rob had been hit by a car and here I was playing fucking dress up. “I’m on my way,” I said. “How bad, Simon? Is he going to…?” Couldn’t say it.
“No,” said Simon, with that wonderful Simon certainty. I exhaled. “But it’s impossible to assess the extent of his injuries this early on.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s very badly hurt. Look, don’t talk about this now, okay? Just get here and we’ll discuss it face to face.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m on my way.”
I don’t remember much of the journey. Rupa put me in a cab and all three girls offered to come with me, but I said I was okay. The truth was I couldn’t face talking or interacting with anyone. I had so many questions. What had Simon been doing in Chelsea in the first place? Why had he been with Rob? And why was I even thinking about that, because it didn’t even fucking matter right now.
Simon met me at the hospital. There was no sign of Rob.
“Where is he?” I said.
“He’s in x-ray right now,” said Simon, his hand on my arm. “They’re taking very good care of him.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “What were you doing there?”
He shook his head. “Pure coincidence. I got up the courage to go and see him, and he wasn’t home. I decided to walk back to the Tube station and met him coming back across the road—”
“—the one where people drive like fucking idiots.”
Simon let go of my arm. “Yeah. He saw me across the road, waved. Then he stepped out and…” He trailed off. I didn’t press him. I didn’t want to know what had happened, because Simon clenched his jaw hard and breathed too deep. And I really didn’t want to know what could make my stoic, iron-stomached brother look like that.
The big folding doors opened, and I saw him for the first time.
They had him strapped down, immobile, his head held rigid between two blocks of red foam. I only knew it was him because of the spill of blond curly hair, but then he moaned and tried to move and I saw the cat tattoo on his forearm.
I rushed forward and leaned over him. There was a deep graze on his forehead and I went cold, remembering they used those head cradle things for spinal injuries. His eyes wavered for a moment before fixing on me. He was high as a kite: his pupils were mere pinpricks. “Oh my God,” I said, and he started to cry. “It’s okay…shh…I’m here. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” he said. “I’m broken.”
“You’re not.” I touched his hand, and to my relief I felt him reach for me, his fingers squeezing mine tightly. “You’re okay. You’re still here.”
He tried to speak again, but his lips went taut around a high, thin cry of pain and anguish. “I want my mum,” he said, because of course he did. Because everyone did when the hurt was that bad.
“Where’s your phone?” I said.
“Simon…Simon’s got it.”
“Okay.” I wanted to lift his hand to my mouth and kiss it, but I couldn’t even do that. “We’ll do that. We’ll get her here. Don’t you worry about that.”
“She’ll have to get on a flight from Belfast…oh God…”
“Shh. Don’t worry about that now, baby,” I said, but he was sobbing hard enough to shake the stretcher. I had never felt more helpless in my life.
“We’ll take care of everything,” said Simon, stepping up to his side.
Rob let out a low moan. “What’s wrong with me?” he said. “Why can’t I feel my legs?”
“You have movement,” said Simon, in his best, reassuring doctor voice, which did nothing to dull my panic. “That’s good.”
“But I can’t feel anything!”
“Try not to worry,” said Simon. “It’s too early to make judgement calls on how that’s going to go, but you were wiggling your toes while we were waiting for the ambulance, remember?”
Rob sniffed and swallowed. “Yeah.”
“That’s a very positive sign. Your reflexes were good. It could just be spinal shock. They’re going to put you under and patch you up, all right?”
“Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for telling me.”
Simon patted his elbow. “You’re in excellent hands. Actually I’ve studied under the orthopaedic consultant here: she’s going to take the very best care of you.”
“Thank you,” Rob said, again. I nearly joined him, because I was so grateful to have Simon there. He didn’t bullshit or tell people what he thought they wanted to hear. That simply wasn’t in his nature, and I had never been more thankful for that as I was right now, not even when I was sat in the back of a car, cradling a snapped forearm and listening to him drone on about bones.
“You’re going to be okay, baby,” I said, bending to kiss what part of his forehead I could reach. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Rob said, and then he was gone again, whisked off to the operating theatre.
I stared at the door as it swung shut. Nothing seemed real. The lights of the hospital corridor were too bright. Only this morning I’d been lying in his arms
, feeling his toes rub up and down the back of my calf, and now…oh my God. He said he couldn’t feel his feet. How the fuck had this happened? How close had he come to it not happening? If he’d stepped back just a second sooner. If he hadn’t spotted Simon across the road…
“Come on,” said Simon, with a welcome, doctorish decisiveness. “Let’s go and find a very strong cup of tea, shall we?”
We walked the echoing hospital hallways until we found a Costa. I thought I was okay until I got inside and then I looked at the menu and realised I had no capacity to make even as simple a decision as what kind of coffee I wanted. All I could think about was Rob, stretched out on that trolley. Were they putting him under right now? Placing the mask over his face and instructing him to count down from ten as the anaesthetic poured into his veins? Or perhaps they were already cutting. My knees went soft again.
“Sit down,” Simon said, and I flopped into the nearest chair. Colours were too bright, people too large somehow. The hiss of the cappuccino machine hurt my ears. While he was away at the counter I had a childish desire to get up and cling to his elbow, insist on holding hands like we had when we were five and when Mum was trying to keep the both of us in one place at the same time. I wanted him inches away, where he could sit and tell me about the limbic system and the nature of shock. And I still had so many questions.
“Here we are,” said Simon, setting down a tray with two cups and a fat white china teapot. “Don’t rush. Let it brew.”
“Stew, you mean.” Simon took his tea steeped for long past the recommended time. A thick brew with barely a splash of milk and enough tannin to cure leather. I used to tell him his stomach must look like the inside of a bog mummy.
Used to. Back in the days before this happened. I was too dazed to think about what lay ahead, but I knew that the After would never, could never, look like the Before. This was too big, and it was insane, because Before had only been this morning, and this morning had been perfect, Rob’s hip warm under my hand, his beard soft on my neck. And now…
I couldn’t make myself think about the things that were happening to his body. I just told myself he was under. He was out. He couldn’t feel a thing.
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