Bell stopped on the landing as the two dark-haired heads appeared above the top stair.
‘Come on. You were getting worked up, I could see it,’ Nina panted, Emil’s arm around her shoulder as they climbed slowly together. ‘You had that crazed glint in your eyes you always got when you were about to swear at me as kids.’
‘I was not about to swear at you,’ he muttered.
‘No, but you were about to do something else just as mad. Now take a ten-minute time-out and cool yourself down.’
‘I’m not a child!’
They stepped onto the landing and Nina glanced up, as though sensing her presence. Bell suspected she had the finely tuned instincts of an attack dog. ‘Oh. You’re there, Bell.’
‘Yes, I was just in with Linus,’ Bell said, seeing how Emil looked wracked with pain. She frowned. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Not really. The headaches are making him crazy.’
‘I’m not crazy.’
‘You were about to be,’ Nina sniffed. She looked back at Bell. ‘Could you help me get him into his room? He’s being obstinately heavy.’
‘I’m not. I just can’t see that well right now. Everything’s fuzzy round the edges.’ He was mumbling.
‘Just take his other arm, would you?’ Nina instructed.
Bell did as she was told, draping his arm over her shoulder, the scent of him wrapping around her like a fur boa. She closed her eyes, trying to pretend he wasn’t him.
‘For chrissakes, I’m not an invalid. I don’t need you both to help me walk,’ he resisted, trying to remove his arm from her.
‘No, you’re quite right,’ Nina said glancing across at the two of them. ‘You can manage with just one of us. Fine, trot along then,’ she said, ducking out of the way herself. ‘I’ll get back to our treasured guests.’
They both watched her go, feeling they’d been somehow played, but not quite sure how. Or why.
‘Well . . .’ Bell said after a heavy pause. ‘Let’s get you resting, then.’
‘I don’t need—’
‘Oh just stop,’ she snapped, losing patience with his continual protestations. ‘You’re clearly not well. Just accept the help, okay?’ And when she saw his astounded expression. ‘What? You’re not my boss.’
They continued down the landing and into his bedroom. Bell kept her eyes down as they crossed the floor, helping him onto the side of the bed. ‘You should lie down,’ she said.
He sat instead.
She refused to even look at the room – she had resolved never to return here, to the scene of her humiliation – but walked straight over to the table by the window and poured him a glass of water from the carafe. ‘Here, drink that. It’s important to keep hydrated with headaches.’
He obeyed, watching her as he drank. ‘You’re angry with me.’
‘Why should I be angry at you?’ He arched an eyebrow but didn’t reply, which only served to make her . . . angry. ‘Do you need some painkillers? I think it’s very clear you do,’ she said briskly, giving him no time to answer.
‘I’ll get them—’ But she was already heading across the room again, towards the bathroom. ‘Fine, invade my privacy then,’ he called after her.
She walked through to the en-suite. It was easily the size of her bedroom in the apartment, white strip-wood floors, a walk-in shower, a marble-topped vanity unit. She pressed the push-doors of the wall cabinet and scanned the contents – deodorant, toothpaste, comb, moisturiser, various vitamins.
‘They’re in a bag. New prescription,’ he called through.
She crouched low and opened the cupboard, her eyes falling to a white paper bag on the top shelf. She grabbed it and peered in, finding what she was looking for, but as she was withdrawing, she caught sight of the sheer number of pill boxes and bottles in there. It was like a pharmacy stockroom, evidence of the vast chemical formulations that had been needed to put his body back together and now keep him functioning, pain-free. No wonder he hadn’t wanted her to see this; it was evidence of his frailty.
Like Jack’s. Just the sight of it threw her straight back into her own past, the medical detritus building up – more pills, more drugs – as the doctors had battled to keep him alive. Battled in vain. Jack had lost, and she had been lost with him.
‘Any time before I die of a brain haemorrhage would be good!’ he called, bringing her back to the moment.
She walked through a moment later and handed him the pills. ‘As someone who I understand had to undergo a craniotomy yourself, that’s not a particularly funny joke to make.’
‘Yes, well, I wouldn’t remember that.’
‘Hanna told me.’
‘It must be true, then,’ he muttered, slamming them in his mouth and swallowing them with a gulp of water, his eyes fixed upon her as she looked everywhere but at him. ‘. . . You’re particularly edgy today. How’s it going with Mats?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ she said, taking the glass from his hand – a little water left in the bottom – and walking it back to the table.
‘You looked like you were having a good time on Saturday night.’
‘Yes. We were.’
‘Are you going to see him again?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ she repeated.
He watched as she moved back across the room.
‘I’m going to check on Linus,’ she muttered, refusing to be drawn into whatever game he was playing with her. He thought he could be the cat to her mouse again? No chance.
‘Things are going well between Linus and me, thanks for asking,’ he said to her back.
She turned around and gave a laugh that would have made Nina proud. ‘Don’t kid yourself. You’ve got his attention only because you’re dazzling him with flashy boats and helicopter rides and private screenings.’
His mouth tightened. He didn’t like hearing the truth, but nor did he try to deny it. ‘Perhaps. But that’s all I can give him that Max can’t. I missed out on all his formative moments, I wasn’t there, he grew up without me – so now I’m having to create special memories with him myself.’
‘But that isn’t what he needs from you. He needs to feel safe. He needs to know you “see” him. You can’t just buy him.’
‘I’m not trying to.’
‘Yes, you are!’ she cried. ‘Of course you are. You think you can have whatever you want. Nothing is denied to you!’
‘You are!’ He sprang up from the bed with a suddenness that made her jump. ‘I don’t have you, do I?’ The words had seemingly left him without permission – no filter – as he looked back at her with an anger and resentment she couldn’t understand. He slumped, slightly, as though something had been pulled from him, leaving him exhausted. Empty. ‘I don’t have you, Bell.’
‘As I recall, you made the decision on that.’ Bitterness reflected off her words like bright lights.
‘Yes. I did.’ He walked slowly towards her. ‘Because it was the only decision I could make. It was the right one. I want my family back. I don’t want to want you.’ She could see the tension in his mouth as he spoke, emotions running across his face as he stopped just feet away. ‘It’s not supposed to be you! She was the last thing I saw before the accident. She was all I could think about when I woke up. She’s the reason I got back to this point. She’s the mother of my child. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. I can’t . . . I just can’t . . .’ His eyes roamed her face, kissing her without touch.
‘. . . Fall for the nanny?’ she finished for him, feeling flattened. Because she got it, she did. A one-night hook-up couldn’t be allowed to derail a marriage, a family, a life. ‘I know.’
‘But you don’t.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Because when I close my eyes now, I see you. When I was with her, I saw you. When you didn’t come back, I missed you.’ He clutched his head, the fingertips blanched white as he squeezed hard against his skull, as though the thoughts, the feelings, the pain, could be forced out. ‘I missed you and everything’s wrong. It was so clear before, what I had to do. Ever since I woke up, it’s always felt like . . . something’s missing, a part of me. And it has to be them. It must be. They’re my family.’ His hands dropped down as he looked back at her, looking defeated. Worn down. ‘It can’t be you.’
‘. . . I know,’ she said again, not daring to move. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer, the shock of his words still rebounding through her body like pinballs. ‘I’m sorry.’
They stared at one another, unable to move closer, unable to pull away in an unbearable fixed tension that couldn’t be broken. ‘Today’s the day I’m getting them back,’ he said slowly, decisively, though she couldn’t tell if he was convincing her, or himself. ‘I’m not waiting another hour. When I go back down there, I’m telling Max everything.’
She nodded, feeling his eyes travelling over her skin like fingertips, touching her, feather-light. ‘Okay.’
Their eyes locked and the magnetic attraction sprang to attention again. He waited. And waited. ‘. . . This is where you tell me that she’s happy with him.’
Bell swallowed. ‘She was. But now she’s happy with you.’
He waited, his stare becoming more fixed, resolute. ‘This is where you tell me that I’ll never be half the father Max is.’
She forced herself to look back at him. ‘You love your son. That’s all he needs.’
A small sound escaped him, something between a groan and a plea. ‘And this is where you tell me that when you were with Mats . . .’ His voice cracked. ‘That you didn’t think of me.’
Reflexively, she looked away, the lie lodged in her throat, immovable, untellable. Because the truth was, eyes closed, he was all she’d seen and all she’d felt.
‘Bell –’ There was heat in the word, shape to a need, as he stepped towards her . . .
But she stepped away. ‘No. You’re doing the right thing,’ she whispered, her eyes shining with tears as he stared back at her, so close and yet a world away. ‘It’s not me.’
He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the pain relief to kick in and trying to still his mind; but the headache and his emotions had fused into some kind of vortex whirling through him, a roar of images and sounds and feelings that he could neither control nor contain.
Seeing Max had been harder than he’d anticipated, dredging up feelings and memories he didn’t want. Friendship-boyhood-adventure-fishing-drinking-weddings – Hanna.
Hanna. Always her.
He closed his eyes and she filled his head again. Flash of blonde. Pale skin. Blue eyes. Blackness. The last thing he saw and the first thing he saw. Blue eyes crying. Pale skin. Blonde . . .
His mind stopped, automatically rewound. Flash of blonde. Pale skin. Blue eyes crying. The last thing he saw. Blue eyes crying . . .
He stared at the ceiling, feeling his heart pound like it was going to burst from his chest, his body held captive to his mind, pain spearing through him as he lay rigid on the mattress while the memories played on and on in a loop – successive, continual. Stuck. Blue eyes crying. Blackness. The last thing he saw.
Blue eyes crying. Blackness.
Blue eyes crying. Black.
Blue eyes crying. Black.
Blue eyes crying.
. . .
Black car.
She lay in his arms, both of them watching the full moon drift slowly above, framed by the almost perfect circle. The crater walls were ragged and frilled like a jellyfish, the dark water glimmering darkly just a few metres from their feet, hissing into the sand in rhythmic breaths.
She had already been in the water when he’d arrived, her skin so pale she could have been a mermaid. They had swum, they had chased and they had succumbed, over and over. Those years of abstinence, of doing the right thing, had done nothing to dull their appetite for one another; on the contrary, they had heightened it and he understood what a half-life he had walked through till now, thinking it could be enough to inhabit the periphery of her world.
They watched the sky brighten with every breath and he felt a spasm of panic. The sun was winning the fight, painting up the day and drawing her back. Away from him.
‘I want to freeze time,’ she whispered, holding him more tightly again, reading his mind. ‘I want to make this the day and not the night.’
He kissed her lips, knowing wishes didn’t come true. He was a realist. He knew that she could never be his, not truly. It was an unwinnable fight. ‘So do I.’
She looked up at him with self-reproach. ‘. . . I left it too late, didn’t I?’
He bit his lip. They had both been too late, permanently behind the clock from the start. ‘You tried to do the right thing. We both did.’
She looked up at him, knowing what he was saying. For all her fighting talk about leaving, she was trapped. They both knew she had too much to lose now. ‘I will tell him one day. When it feels . . . safe. It won’t always be like this, I promise.’
‘No, I want you to promise it will be,’ he said, stirring and shifting on top of her again. ‘I want you to promise it will always be like this.’