by Primula Bond
I let her push me out of her office and we stand together for a moment. She’s still got her arm around me. No one is around. I don’t know how professional or otherwise this is, but I press my lips against her round cheek and give her a kiss.
‘Thank you, Nurse Jeannie. That’s really given me a boost.’
‘Good. And our Mr Levi has had a bit of a boost, too, this morning. He’s just received some momentous news.’ She squeezes me then pulls away, rubbing at the newly peroxided tips of her hair. ‘His attacker, Margot Levi, the woman they arrested? She’s just died in prison.’
I look away from her, down the corridor. ‘Divine justice.’
‘By all accounts she was an absolute monster. But Mr Levi wanted his day in court. He would have revelled in seeing her punished properly for what she did. Personally I think it will be better for his state of mind if he is spared all that.’
‘I wonder if he’s OK?’
‘You can go and see him when he’s next on your list.’ She taps my rota sheet. ‘But know this, Rosa. I will be asking him for full feedback afterwards.’
‘Received and understood. And Nurse Jeannie?’ I grab at her arm again. ‘Thank you.’
She pauses, leans in against my cheek and whispers, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but I – well, I like you, Rosa. I really like you.’
She puts her finger to her lips and walks away. I dance a little jig while nobody’s watching. Now I can’t wait for my next rota slot to admit me to room 202. In fact I’m due to finish soon, so, if he’s going to write nice things about me, I want Pierre Levi to say them to my face.
I knock on room 202 and slide in.
It’s the evening, and the sun is shafting in through the garden door, right across his face. But Pierre Levi isn’t avoiding the daylight today. In fact, he’s sitting up in bed, his bright-blue silk pyjama top unbuttoned to halfway down his chest. The frame has been pushed to the end of the bed, the sheet drawn off his poor legs, but he’s facing the sun. Somewhat unnecessarily he’s wearing sunglasses. Is it really to shield his eyes? Shield himself from prying eyes? Or an attempt to regain some of his cool?
‘Haven’t come to try and wash me have you, Rosie?’
I laugh and come up to the bed. ‘No. I’m just clocking off, actually. I just wanted to thank you for the glowing report you provided for my assessment.’
‘Not a problem. I know how important independent validation can be.’
‘That sounds very formal.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to. You cheered me up the other day. Not an easy task.’ He pauses, leans back against the pillows. ‘So what do you do when you clock off? Turn into a pumpkin?’
‘Sort of. I have to change out of this horrible uniform and put some other clothes on and get to my other job.’
‘Another uniform? Do tell me about it, Rosie.’ He waves me towards the visitor’s chair beside the garden door. ‘Tell me about life outside this infernal room.’
‘Nothing much to tell. I live on a houseboat.’ I sit down and the shiny leather squeaks. ‘On the river Thames, obviously, down on Cheyne Walk.’
‘Eccentric. But adorable.’ He yawns, rolling a red grape between his fingers so listlessly it’s as if the fruit weighs a ton. ‘On your own?’
‘I used to live there with my sister, Francesca. The one who saw you performing in New York. But then she went to Rome, and then I followed her, and we lived together there until she met Carlo, and then she went to New York and I came back here. Back to the houseboat.’
He doesn’t say anything. Just pops the grape into his mouth and holds it there for a moment.
‘Shall I go, Mr Levi? You seem –’
‘What about this moonlighting lark? You said you worked in a bar?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, come on, Rosie, Give me more than that. What do you do? Serve drinks? Mix cocktails? Wipe down the tables? Bounce undesirables out of the door?’
‘Not exactly. I told you, it’s pretty hush-hush. I’m not really allowed to say.’
He swallows the grape, spits the pip out on to the floor. Tears another one off the bunch.
‘What do you wear? For work? When you take that hideous overall off?’
‘A dress. A smart dress. Look, Mr Levi, I ought to go. I’ll be late.’
I stand up, pushing the chair roughly against the wall. At last Pierre seems to notice me. The black glasses turn towards the noise I’ve made.
‘I’m sorry, Rosie. I’m not great company, am I? A bit down today. But I’ve been waiting to catch you alone. I wanted to ask you something.’
I step between the garden door and the bed, so that I can see him clearly. I can see my questioning face reflected in the blackness of his glasses.
‘I’m not about to break any other rules, if that’s what you’re getting at. Nurse Jeannie’s on to me as it is. She’s watching me like a hawk.’
I watch for it, and here it comes. The slight smile, twitching at the upper lip. I can get to him. I know I can.
‘Is it breaking the rules to ask you why you looked so sad the other morning? When you went off into a daydream and Nurse Jeanie had to drag you back to the more pressing business of cleaning my cock?’
I half gasp, half giggle at the sudden introduction of the word into the quiet room.
‘Hah! Got your attention, didn’t I? I don’t have much to think about in here other than my own deep dark secrets. I’ve tried asking the other carers to spill, tell me something about their lives, something really searing and intimate, preferably X-rated, but it’s like Big Brother’s watching them. No one will play ball.’
I get a grip.
‘And you think I’ll spill because –’
‘Because if you don’t share, if you don’t let out all that angst, it’ll poison you. And you’ll never be able to love again.’
‘Pierre Levi, the soothsayer.’ I realise I’m leaning on the bed, my hands by his leg. ‘Who said anything about angst?’
‘Written all over that lovely face of yours.’ He grins as he waits for me to get my breath back. ‘Well? Was it to do with the bloke in Rome?’
‘What bloke in Rome?’
‘The one who broke your heart? Come on. Humour me, Rosie.’ He picks up a pair of dumb-bells. ‘Tell me what that bastard did to you. Get it all off that magnificent chest of yours. Oops, another rule, I dare say. Thou shalt not comment on the contours of the sexy female staff.’
‘Rule 63, I think you’ll find.’ I lower my head so he can’t see me smiling. ‘You don’t want to hear about my miserable little life.’
‘It’s not a request, Cavalieri.’
‘You remember my surname?’
‘I remember everything about people I meet. Especially the pretty ones. It used to be my job. I used to read faces. Paint faces. Create faces for a living.’ He puts one of the dumb-bells down, reaches out and takes my arm as I straighten. ‘Which is why I want to know more. I need entertaining in here, Rosie. Otherwise I’m going to go mad.’
I hesitate. I was lying about the evening job. I’m not due at the bar tonight.
‘Think of it as research,’ he presses. ‘I’m thinking of writing a musical set in a clinic.’
I burst out laughing. I’ve not laughed much in the last year, especially not in the presence of a single white male.
Pierre grins at me, lifting the dumb-bells up and down, his biceps bulging.
‘And I like you, Rosie. There aren’t many people in my life I like or trust, I can tell you.’
‘Damning with faint praise?’
‘It’s the best you’re going to get.’
‘I’ll take it. You’re the second person today who’s told me they like me.’
And if that gets his attention, so much the better.
I push myself away from the bed and stretch, running my hands absent-mindedly under my hair, loosening it from its pins. As it starts to fall down my back I realise it’s going to make me hot again, so I catch it before it comes
completely undone.
‘Come back here, ragamuffin. Let me sort you out. You want to look smart for work tonight, don’t you?’ Pierre puts the dumb-bells down, beckons to me to come over. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m sure a touch of hairdressing is allowed. Call it, I don’t know, grooming. No, that doesn’t sound right. Why am I always so inappropriate when you’re around?’
‘Maybe it’s your default setting?’
I bundle my hair into my hands, still with my back to him. I try to pin it up again, but the grips scatter all over the floor.
‘Toilette. That’s the right word. Get over here and let me do it, Cavalieri.’
I turn reluctantly. ‘This is all a bit random, isn’t it?’
‘I never do anything at random.’
‘What if Nurse Jeannie walks in?’
‘I used to work on fashion shoots. My French pleats are second to none. If the dragon questions it I’ll tell her I’m prepared to offer the same service to everyone in here. For a vast fee.’ He removes his sunglasses and folds them into a case. ‘Now come and sit here where I can reach you, and start talking.’
‘It’s hardly entertaining,’ I say as I sit down. ‘The massacre of my relationship.’
Pierre Levi pulls all the pins out of my hair, puts them in his mouth like an old seamstress and combs it out, away from my hot scalp. His fingers slow as he runs them down to the ends, nearly touching my waist. My head tips involuntarily, relishing the contact, the touch, little electric currents running up my hair to the sensitive roots.
‘The bloodier the better! Think of yourself as, I don’t know, Scheherazade. You know, A Thousand and One Nights.’
‘Cosa?’
He separates my hair into strands and rapidly starts to plait it.
‘Tell me a story every day. Otherwise I’ll have to kill you.’
‘On one condition. That every time I tell you about myself, or even on the days when I don’t, you do ten extra abdominal crunches or whatever the physios tell you to do. That way you can exercise your way out of this gloomy, self-pitying –’
‘OK. OK. Deal. I’ll work out. I’ll get stronger. Now start talking.’
He has stopped stroking my hair and is working briskly, tugging it away from the roots, twisting it into a tight plait, coiling it Heidi-style on top of my head.
‘I was living with this guy in Rome. Daniele. He was, he is, a chef. I met him when I was working as a waitress in his restaurant.’
‘You’re a grafter, Cavalieri. I’ll give you that.’
He gives me a little pat to show me he’s finished. His hand rests for a moment in the small of my back, warmth permeating the unyielding fabric of my uniform.
‘I came home early from a trip. To surprise him.’
‘Fatal.’
‘I didn’t call out when I got to the apartment because it was the crack of dawn and I figured he’d still be asleep. I went into our galley kitchen and put some coffee on. The place was a mess. That’s when I should have smelled a rat. Daniele’s your typical tyrannically organised chef. But there was dirty crockery in the sink, empty wine bottles in the rubbish, the remains of a meal on the table.’ I get up. His hand slides off my back as I move away from him to the garden door. ‘I didn’t even stop to wonder why there were two wine glasses and two dinner plates. I just noticed they were smeared with the remains of his signature aubergine sauce. How stupid am I?’
I pause, watching a pigeon sidestepping along a branch of the spreading beech tree in the centre of the garden.
‘Go on.’
‘He’d left the knives and forks at right angles on either side of the used plates in the continental fashion. That was odd, too, because our little private joke was that he had learned to place his knife and fork primly together at six o’clock, in the English style.’
‘The little details,’ Pierre remarks, dropping a couple of extra hairgrips into a saucer on his side table. ‘They hurt, don’t they?’
‘In the fridge was a bowl of tiramisu. How lovely of him, I thought. It’s my favourite. But why had he made such a big pudding when we were supposed to be going on holiday to Puglia? Anyway, while the coffee brewed I took off my sweaty clothes and pushed them into the washing machine. Decided to get my one clean négligé out of my bag –’
I turn from the door, the back of my neck prickling, but Pierre isn’t looking at me. He’s staring straight ahead, at the opposite wall, puffing his cheeks out as he lifts the dumb-bells, apparently counting his lifts.
‘Go on. About the négligé. You’re talking my language now. I never tire of hearing about lingerie. The flimsier and more see-through the better.’
‘You’re putting me off.’
‘Sorry, signorina. Proceed.’
I kick at the doorstep, unsure whether to wrap up this story – or ramp it.
‘I made him a tray. Can you believe it? So devoted. Two slightly stale pastries and the espressos. I tiptoed across the hall. The bedroom door was ajar. I pushed it with my knee.’
‘Your poor bare knee under that silky négligé. About to get a horrible shock.’ Pierre’s voice has gone very deep, very quiet. ‘Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t stop it hurting.’
I turn round so I can see him while I tell him this bit.
‘Daniele wasn’t asleep.’
Pierre Levi’s black eyes meet mine. His face is calm, but serious.
‘Of course he wasn’t. What was he doing, Rosie? What exactly was he doing in your bedroom?’
‘What are you – why would you want to know the gory details?’
‘To help you, of course. And because I’m a pervert.’
I laugh. Right in the middle of telling a virtual stranger how my boyfriend cheated on me. Pierre grins back at me, but he doesn’t join in the laughter.
‘You’ve been in this situation, haven’t you?’ I say slowly, peering closer into his face. ‘You’ve been caught just like Daniele.’
Pierre’s shadowy black eyes hold mine for a moment, then slide away.
‘Right first time. I’ve always been the other man. I’m the one who cuckolds the husbands.’
I lean back against the door frame.
‘You really are a bastard.’
His eyes snap back to mine. ‘You’ve got it, sweetheart. That’s me.’
We stare each other out. He’s daring me to falter. I’m daring him to regret what he’s done in the past.
‘The bedroom was in darkness. I didn’t believe what I was seeing at first.’ I keep my voice steady and low, keep my eyes on his. ‘There was just a seam of light glowing around the edges of the shutters. We painted those shutters together. Duck-egg blue. There’s a balcony outside where we used to sit with wine or coffee at night, looking at all the lovers and students and tourists sitting and smoking and chatting on the Spanish Steps.’
Pierre thumps the dumb-bells on to his table. ‘I’d love to visit Rome.’
‘Daniele was wide awake. He was never wide awake at that time of the morning! He was kneeling up on our bed, taking his weight on his arms. I could see his bottom sticking up in the air. Butt naked, white against the dimness.’
I stop. The phone on the nurses’ station rings. We’re both reminded of where we are and what we’re supposed to be doing. I shouldn’t be here. My shift ended hours ago.
‘Don’t be shy. Let it all out.’
I hesitate. ‘Just one thing, Mr Levi. If you’re so into all this sharing, letting it all out, if this is such marvellous therapy, why aren’t you co-operating with Dr Venska? Why don’t you articulate all your issues with her instead of refusing to talk?’
‘I thought those notes were confidential.’
I drum my fingers on my arm, bite my lip while I wait for him to cave in. The silence stretches to the brink of awkwardness, and then he shrugs.
‘We’re talking about you right now, Cavalieri. Not me. But who knows? Maybe I’ll try it next time Venska comes steaming in here. Maybe I’ll give her what sh
e wants!’ He grins so devilishly that a minuscule part of me feels sorry for the haughty therapist. ‘Go on, Rosie. What else did you see in that bedroom? Apart from your cheating boyfriend’s naked backside?’
My face is aching with the effort of keeping some semblance of cool before this interrogation.
‘There was a girl underneath. Legs wrapped round him. I knew those short stumpy legs. I knew exactly who it was. She was from the restaurant. The sous chef. She’s always been after him.’
I shake my head, feel the hot angry tears pricking my eyes.
‘What was he doing to her, Rosie? Use the exact words!’
‘He was fucking her.’ I stop. Let the word reverberate.
‘Again. Say it again.’
‘He was fucking her like he used to fuck me, hard, like a fight. She was bouncing about, moaning, head tossed back, he was inside her, my boyfriend. Mine. I wanted to be sick.’
Pierre is silent for once. He nods, his hands resting loosely on his broken legs.
‘It was awful, compelling, like watching a car crash.’ I grip the back of the visitor’s chair. ‘I should have run away, shouted something, but I just stood there. They were so engrossed they didn’t see me. Our bed was creaking, my favourite pillow had slipped off; the wooden frame was banging against the wall. Bang, bang, bang. He and I painted that wall.’
‘I can see it all. So clearly,’ Pierre murmurs. ‘I can hear it, too. I bet the bitch came first. A proper little screamer.’
I shouldn’t, but I smirk, because it’s true. She did scream, because she thought no one was listening. I’ve gone over that scenario so many times, but hearing Pierre’s take on it, his nasty additional flourish, has taken the sting right out of it.
Pierre has closed his eyes now. Beads of sweat dot his brow, and one of his hands slides off his leg on to the sheet.
‘I should go.’
I stand up and lean closer to him, pat the bed near his hand. His hand shoots out and grabs mine.