Seven Days of Us

by Francesca Hornak

  He kept looking at the recipe as he spoke. Sweat glistened on his temple. She knew she should give him a break, but something made her mean instead.

  “God, I could have told you that. You’re just both too stubborn to realize it.”

  “No doubt. You and Emma always see these things. But still, something to celebrate, no?”

  The new touchy-feely Andrew was making her feel weird. She preferred the old, grumpy one. Only she could make that Andrew laugh.

  “I just want to go out and have fun, forget everything. I’m so stressed about Mummy.”

  She didn’t feel wonderful about playing this card, despite it being true. It seemed to work, though. He took a sip of whiskey. “Fine. Of course,” he said, the new smile returning. “Well, off you go. I hope this Caspar character knows his luck.”

  Emma

  THE TV ROOM, 34 GLOUCESTER TERRACE, CAMDEN, 5:55 P.M.

  • • •

  Emma heaved herself up after a whole afternoon surrendered to the sofa. It was a novelty to be banished from the kitchen, and she had to peek. She hoped Andrew wouldn’t be attempting anything too ambitious, or messy. But she was met with a surprisingly professional smell of frying garlic, and much clearer surfaces than she managed. Jesse was stirring a pan on the stovetop, and Andrew was stuffing a chicken.

  Elvis came crooning over the radio. “You were always on my miiiiinnnd!” warbled Andrew, looking up at her. He’d been almost facetiously jolly since giving his notice with that glorious last column. It was as if the unreal scene in the cellar, and their conversation by the window yesterday—even her diagnosis—had all been leading up to this change. Making love that morning, then watching Andrew whistle while he frothed her cappuccino, she’d been transported back to their honeymoon in Puglia. Perhaps Jesse’s Californian sunniness had melted Andrew’s sharp edges, she thought, watching the two of them harmonize.

  “May I have this dance?” said Andrew, striding up to Emma.

  “Haven’t you just had your hands up a hen’s bottom?”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” said Andrew, taking her hand, and clasping the small of her back. “We avoided Haag. Can’t let a spot of salmonella stand in the way of romance.”

  He began moving her back and forth, and she remembered what a good dancer he’d been when they used to go to Soho jazz clubs, knowing they wouldn’t be spotted by anyone Emma knew. It was like dancing with clockwork, after the Bertie Wooster types she usually met. With Andrew, you just let yourself be led. Jesse whooped in a very American way as Andrew dipped her, and said: “Still got it, Emma!” which was rather sweet.

  “Sorry I couldn’t persuade Mademoiselle to stay,” said Andrew. “No stopping her.”

  “Tant pis. Not your fault.”

  “OK, bye, everyone,” said Phoebe, from the doorway. She had her coat on, and was pushing heels into an overstuffed bag of clothes.

  “Ought you to wear those, with your foot?” said Emma.

  “Mummy! I’m twenty-nine! It’s fine. Doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  “Won’t you just stay for a glass of champagne?”

  “Can’t, I’m late,” said Phoebe. “You have mine. Plus I don’t want to get there pissed. I’m a cheap date,” she added to Jesse.

  “It’s ’cause you’re, like, a size two,” he said, and Phoebe looked pleased, as if he’d said the right thing in their private script.

  “Right, happy New Year’s, guys,” said Phoebe, blowing kisses. “See you tomorrow. I don’t intend to get up till midday.”

  She looked so excited that Emma tried not to mind as the front door slammed, jolting the William Nicholson prints on the wall.

  “Aaaargh, gotta love the King,” said the DJ, as Elvis came to an end. “Now we’re going to the news, before my next guest, dance maestro Bruno Tonioli.”

  The news jingle played, and Andrew released her.

  She stood washing her hands at the sink, while Andrew went back to the chicken.

  “Sean Coughlan, the Irish pediatrician diagnosed with Haag virus, has died in hospital,” read the woman’s expressionless voice. Emma froze, her hands under the too-hot water. “It is thought he developed an infection, following his removal from isolation on Thursday. A full postmortem will not be carried out until next week. Coughlan was thirty-three and is believed to have contracted Haag after visiting a primary school, as part of a campaign to educate local children about the disease. Although he subsequently tested negative for the virus, which attacks the immune system, he is said to have been very weak. Tributes have been paid by family, friends, and colleagues to a courageous young man who will be much missed. This is the first death of a British aid worker following the Haag crisis. His family have appealed for privacy.”

  Emma took the stairs two at a time, cursing the house for being so tall. She shouted, “Wiv!” before she was even close, but there was no reply. When she reached the spare room, she saw Olivia lying facedown on the bed, her shoulders shaking, silently. She sat beside her, saying nothing, just stroking her broad back and her mousy-colored head. It was the only way she used to be able to get Olivia to sleep when she was a baby. She couldn’t tell if Olivia even knew she was there. “I’m so sorry, darling,” said Emma eventually. “I’m just so sorry.” She knew it sounded hopeless. Olivia didn’t reply or look up. But after a second she shifted minutely closer to Emma’s thigh.

  Phoebe

  FLAT A, 29 BURY STREET, DALSTON, 7:30 P.M.

  • • •

  “I’m still in shock that he’d do that,” said Lara, topping up Phoebe’s prosecco. “Just piss off, after he proposed. It’s psychopathic.” Phoebe had given Lara a gabbled account of the week in quarantine, while she did her makeup and Lara smoked out the window. Even in Lara’s disconcertingly adult flat the evening felt nostalgic—like when they used to sit in Phoebe’s bedroom, talking nonstop and perfecting their Amy Winehouse eyeliner. And it had become clear that Lara had never been a fan of George—despite gushing over the ring two weeks ago. Phoebe felt like an idiot for assuming everyone was jealous. Still, perhaps it was better than the pity she’d expected.

  “I know,” she said. “But it’s weird, I kind of feel, just, detached already. Maybe it’s everything else going on. It’s like I don’t mind if I never see him again.”

  “Really? Don’t you need some kind of ending? Or an apology?”

  “I know it makes no sense. It’s like how you’d feel about someone you’d only been seeing for a while. Not your fiancé.”

  “Like you weren’t genuinely that close?”

  “Guess. I think I was in love with the idea of being his girlfriend to start with. And then I just got used to being a couple. Except we never really went beyond that dating level. Which was fun, in a way. But not actual love.”

  “So maybe he did the right thing by ending it,” said Lara.

  “Ish. He could have done it a better way.”

  “Yeah, but now you can hate him for being a coward. And it’s easier to hate someone than miss them.”

  “True.” Could she imagine truly missing George anyway? Wasn’t it her pride that she’d been crying for, the years wasted on an idiot?

  She’d held back from mentioning Jesse’s theory. It had become habit, she realized, to censor everything she told her oldest friends about her relationship. The thought made her say it out loud, in a rush, now. She felt her cheeks flare as she did so.

  “Shit,” said Lara. She turned away to tap her cigarette on the windowsill. For a moment she just inhaled and exhaled, saying nothing. Then she said, very serious: “Too bad it didn’t give him better taste in jewelry.” And then they were both giggling so hard that Phoebe had to spit prosecco into her glass, before she did the nose trick. She never laughed like that with George, she thought, when they’d both recovered and she had to repair the damage to her mascara. Perhaps she’d cared about ha
ving a boyfriend, any boyfriend, too much.

  Olivia

  THE SPARE ROOM, 34 GLOUCESTER TERRACE, CAMDEN, 8:00 P.M.

  • • •

  Every part of Olivia’s body hurt. Pain seemed to be rushing toward her and around her like the incoming tide—up to her neck and over her head, as she tried to gulp in some air. She opened her eyes, but the room strobed in and out and she thought she might be sick again, so she shut them. Now, instead of the red blackness of her own eyelids, she saw Sean’s eyes looking back at her. She could see them in pin-sharp focus—the splotch of gold by one pupil, smile lines fanning to his temples, violet crescents stamped by a night shift. Her heart felt like it might implode, as if her body understood what had happened, while her brain refused to follow. She kept reliving the last time she’d seen him, yesterday. She’d been hurrying, because her father was outside in the car, and had left the room with breezy kisses and a promise to celebrate soon. Why hadn’t she asked to check his bloods, to see a spinal tap? What was she thinking, taking the ICU monitor’s word for it that he was fine, when he’d only tested negative three days ago? She opened her eyes to escape Sean’s, and lay looking at the spare room walls without seeing them.

  She remembered a perfect night in Liberia. They’d been sitting on the beach at dusk, barbecuing a fish he’d just caught. He’d looked so pleased with himself—like a small boy—that she’d teased him until he’d grabbed her in a fireman’s lift and run toward the waves threatening to dunk her. She remembered being pleased, despite herself, that he could throw her around like a fledgling. She liked the way he got into the sea, stumbling through the surf till he fell over, then bobbing up with a seal’s slick head and lashes like spears. That night was the happiest she’d ever seen him, and not just because of the fish and the beers and the sunset. He’d told her, afterward, that it was the moment he knew he was in love. And she remembered feeling the same, and that being so at ease with someone was even more exquisite than the rush of a first kiss.

  The enormity of having his baby, the baby he would never see, thudded into her yet again. She tried to push it aside—she was only seven weeks. But the fear that Sean’s child would tether her to this day, to Haag, forever was deafening. She clamped her eyes shut, hating herself for even thinking of her future, for considering life after now. She heard his voice in her head, the way he said “O-livia.” And she found herself wishing she’d told her mother who he was at the airport. And now it was too late.

  Andrew

  THE KITCHEN, 34 GLOUCESTER TERRACE, CAMDEN, 8:18 P.M.

  • • •

  The raw chicken sat on the side, naked and chilly-looking. It had been ready to go in the oven just as the news broke, but would have to be binned now. Olivia had begged to be left alone, but it still felt wrong for them to feast as planned downstairs. Andrew had no appetite anyway. Seeing him look at the bird, Emma seemed to remember to act like herself—or a caricature of herself. She jumped up as if she’d sat on something hot and yelped: “The chicken! It’ll never cook through in time—quick, put it in, Andrew!”

  “But we aren’t going to do all that now, surely?” he said.

  “We still have to eat,” said Emma. Her eyes had the alarmed look they got in airports. “Especially Wiv, in her condition. She has to keep her strength up. I can take her a tray—or maybe she’ll come and sit with us later.”

  Andrew doubted that Olivia would welcome Emma’s tray of food. Or that she’d come down tonight—or even tomorrow. All the same, his wife’s faith in roast chicken was touching.

  “But won’t she, uh, mind us all carrying on as normal?” he said. He knew how quick Olivia was to take umbrage, and wouldn’t blame her if she resented them tucking in downstairs. Their new rapport still felt fragile.

  “Of course she won’t. Rituals are comforting,” said Emma.

  “Emma, really, I don’t think . . .” He tailed off. “Couldn’t we just put it in the fridge, have it another day? I couldn’t eat a thing myself.”

  “But it’s darling Jesse’s last night!” she said, turning to give him a clutchy embrace. The brandy must have gone to her head. Still, it was rather a shame to part on such a bleak note.

  “Jesse?” he said.

  “Guys, please, don’t do anything on my account,” said Jesse. “Although Emma’s right, I guess, rituals can be grounding.”

  Andrew realized it was up to him to make a decision. It was a novel feeling.

  “Right, well, since it’s all done, we may as well stick it in and have it cold tomorrow,” he said.

  “Good-oh,” said Emma, yanking open the oven and nearly dropping the whole chicken in her hurry. She straightened up, looking for the next task. “Would she like a bath? Jesse, perhaps you could start running it. I’ll go and tell her,” she said.

  “Wait,” said Andrew quickly. “Better she’s left alone for now, I think. But Jesse, do see if you can track down your younger sister—you’ve got her mobile, haven’t you?”

  And as he said so, he realized it was the first time he’d thought of Jesse as a brother to his daughters.

  Phoebe

  SUGAR RUSH, HOXTON, 9:33 P.M.

  • • •

  Caspar walked to the bar and Phoebe leaned back in their booth, watching him. He was taller and wirier than George. She liked how his jeans hung. George’s jeans used to cling to his rugby-player haunches—gross. Lara had kept saying how fit George was, as if she was looking for anything positive to say about him. And although Phoebe knew it was true she also knew, deep down, that she’d never liked the way George’s bulky body felt on top of her—had never felt her insides dip when she looked at him. But the knottiness behind her belly button, right now, wasn’t that how you were meant to feel? She’d noticed people recognize Caspar, and it had gone to her head like the Aperol spritzes.

  She checked her phone while she waited—five missed calls. Three were from the Gloucester Terrace landline, one from her father’s mobile, and one from a foreign-looking number. She couldn’t be bothered to listen to the voicemails. Her mother always waffled for ages, and she wouldn’t be able to hear in the bar anyway. It was probably one of her parents’ dumb questions about their own house: “Phoebe, have you seen the Sellotape?” “Phoebs, did you throw away our moldy taramasalata?” She sniggered to herself, rearranging her face into an approximation of sober and sultry as Caspar walked back from the bar, and then ruined it by laughing as he put down their drinks.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, putting his arm round her shoulders as if it belonged there.

  “Nothing, just my family. They’re annoyed I didn’t stay for dinner.”

  “Ah. Is your dad going to hate me forever?”

  They looked at each other for a long, slow-motion second, and then she was tasting his unfamiliar, Aperol-laced mouth, her hands reaching up to the back of his head and neck, and she knew they’d never make it to the party.

  Jesse

  THE KITCHEN, 34 GLOUCESTER TERRACE, CAMDEN, 10:12 P.M.

  • • •

  New Year’s with Emma and Andrew had been a strange, subdued evening. Olivia was upstairs, unable to face food or company, and it didn’t feel right to talk about anything else. The three of them kept lapsing into long, sad silences. Jesse had gone up to see her after the news broke, but by the way she remained rigid in his hug, he could tell she wanted to be alone. Nobody had heard from Phoebe, who was still out on her date. It was pretty harsh, thought Jesse, considering Sean’s death had been all over social media. He was beginning to understand how his younger sister operated—she was sweet and fun, for sure, but she always came first.

  Nobody had eaten much, though Emma kept imploring them to have some chicken, seeming to forget Jesse was vegan. He was hungry now, but feared that eating would look disrespectful. The batch of sweet potato brownies he’d baked earlier was untouched.

  “What about the
new year quiz?” said Emma. “I could do with something to take my mind off—off—” She looked as if she was about to cry again, and Andrew grabbed a copy of The World from the side table and began frantically flicking through it.

  “It’s a little tradition of ours, Jesse,” said Emma, composing herself. “The World publishes a huge quiz on everything that’s happened over the year. I’m always hopeless, but it’s rather fun anyway.”

  “Sure,” said Jesse, thinking it sounded like a bizarre idea in the circumstances. “We do the same at home, Trivial Pursuit at Thanksgiving.” It was like Emma couldn’t decide how to cope—she kept alternating between tears and a kind of forced normality. She was probably in shock. At least Andrew seemed to be keeping it together, unlike when Olivia collapsed. Jesse couldn’t have dealt with taking the lead again.

  “Right. Here we are. Now, popular culture: Which female artist sang: ‘He see me do me. Dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt,’” read Andrew, counting the “dirts” on his fingers. “Come on, Jesse, you’re the only member of the younger generation here,” he said, peering over his glasses.

  “Was it Princess Gaga?” said Emma anxiously.

  They carried on halfheartedly, all of them jumping at any distant creak that might indicate Olivia coming downstairs. It was better than sitting in silence, Jesse guessed. He wished he wasn’t leaving them like this. He knew he would worry about Olivia and Emma. As he’d said earlier to Dana, it was strange how he felt like he’d known his new family for months already. Maybe he could persuade the Birches to come visit next Christmas and meet his family back home. They were better out of Weyfield. The baby would be, what, four months by then? He’d been thinking how much he wanted to be a part of his niece or nephew’s life. Not to be the newcomer in their eyes. Plus his mom adored babies. That was why she’d wanted to adopt, he thought, patting Leila’s letter in his pocket. Just knowing it was there felt good. Andrew interrupted his thoughts by asking: “Jesse, you’ll know this: Which popular health-food snack was found to contain traces of arsenic in February?”