by Liz Fielding
Jack’s voice, urgent outside the door, demanded to know if she was all right. He called again when she didn’t answer and then opened the door. He took one look at her and without ceremony swept her up into his arms and carried her back to bed.
He had found fresh sheets and pillow cases in the airing cupboard and remade the bed. Then he shook out a clean nightdress and without any fuss stripped her of the damp rag she was wearing and replaced it. He covered her with the quilt and she lay back, exhausted.
But he hadn’t quite finished. He made her drink some more soluble painkillers.
‘Go away, Jack.’ The words were feeble, but he understood them.
‘You’ll have to throw me out, Rosie. And I think twice in one week is a bit much even for you.’ But she was so distressed that he sat on the edge of the bed and gently wiped away the tears that trickled down her cheeks with the smooth pad of his thumb. ‘Is there anyone else who can look after you?’ He hesitated. ‘I could ask Sarah to call Anthony.’
She shook her head, tried to speak but was racked with a fit of coughing. She finally caught her breath. ‘He’s needed at the office. Short-staffed.’
‘Surely you’re more important than his business?’ he asked, with just a touch of impatience. She couldn’t be bothered to explain. She was too exhausted. ‘What about his mother?’
She shook her head, once. Anthony’s mother had a morbid fear of illness. She hadn’t been outside the house since the flu epidemic began. If she could only think. There must be some solution. But her head hurt and she felt so weak. She just wanted to close her eyes and forget everything. When she woke again the curtains were drawn against the night.
Jack had fallen asleep in the wing chair he had brought in from the living room. There were deep shadows beneath his eyes and he desperately needed a shave. A dark lock of hair had fallen over his forehead and he looked, she thought, oddly vulnerable. A newspaper he had been reading by the light of a small lamp, lay open on his lap and as she watched began to slide inexorably towards the floor.
She made a move to catch it before it fell and woke him, but he opened his eyes and retrieved it and folded it. ‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Better, I think.’ Her voice was still croaky, but she no longer felt as if she was trying to talk at long distance through a tube. He leaned over her and placed a cool hand on her forehead.
‘Your temperature’s down. Could you manage a cup of tea?’
‘That would be wonderful.’
‘I’ll go and make one, but you have to promise me that you won’t try and get up by yourself.’
‘I promise. Jack?’
He turned in the doorway. ‘Yes?’
‘Thank you for staying.’
‘Any time, Rosie.’
Why did he have to be so flippant, she thought crossly? Most men would have run a mile. ‘Did anyone phone from the office?’ she asked.
‘If you’re asking if Anthony rang,’ he said, without expression, ‘then I’m afraid the answer is no. Perhaps it’s as well under the circumstances. I’m sure he extracted a promise from you never to see me again?’
‘Is that what you would have done?’
He shook his head. ‘No, sweetheart. You’ll stay with me because you want to. Not because of a promise extracted when you’re feeling anxious and guilty. You’ll stay because you can’t do anything else.’ His words were shocking. He had come to the flat expecting to be made welcome and she had to explain, convince him that he was wrong, but he didn’t wait for her response. ‘When Sarah called, wanting you to take her some fresh clothes, I asked her to speak to Anthony.’ He hesitated. ‘She thought it was probably better if Anthony thought she was looking after you. She was going to suggest he stay away in case he caught your flu.’
He wouldn’t need that kind of prompt. His mother would insist he stay away. ‘I don’t think he would need much persuading after yesterday...’
‘Yesterday?’ His face suddenly creased in a smile. ‘If by yesterday you mean Thursday, my love, I have to tell you that today is Sunday.’
‘Sunday?’ Her finely drawn brows drew together in the slightest frown. ‘But it can’t be Sunday.’
He walked across to the chair and handed her the newspaper. ‘See for yourself. We all know they don’t lie. At least not about the date.’
‘But that means you’ve been here...’ It was too much effort to work out, but it must have been days. Where had he slept? But she was suddenly too tired to care. She lay back against the pillows.
‘Yes, I’ve been here,’ he said, tucking the quilt under her chin. ‘Someone had to look after you. For an ambitious and motivated young woman you seem totally incapable of looking after yourself.’
‘That’s not true!’ she declared, struggling up from the depths of her pillow, propping herself on an elbow. ‘I never had the slightest problem until you came along. I’ve never lost my keys. I’ve never been ill. I’ve never...’ She stopped. His face, the strong bones moulded by the shaded light of the lamp, was just above her. She wanted to reach up and smooth away the dark shadows beneath his eyes.
He brushed a curl back from her forehead. ‘What else is it that you’ve never done, Rosie?’
Never fallen in love, she thought as he straightened and turned away, apparently not expecting an answer. She lay back. How could it have happened? Less than a week ago her life had been clearly mapped out. There hadn’t been the slightest doubt in her mind that she was going to marry Anthony. For a while she would continue with her career, eventually they would have children. It was planned, orderly, with no room for unpleasant surprises.
Jack Drayton was an irresponsible rogue. Charming, fun to be with. Not someone to fall in love with if you valued your peace of mind.
With the tea he brought a boiled egg and a slice of bread and butter and put it on the bedside table. She regarded him from beneath the bedclothes.
‘Can you sit up?’ he asked. Then frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ She swallowed. Not true.
‘Come on, I’ll help.’
‘No. It’s all right.’ She struggled into a sitting position. He continued to stare at her for a moment, then turned his attention to the tray.
‘Let’s see you try a little of this.’ Despite her protests that she wasn’t hungry, he insisted she try a little of the egg, holding the spoon to her lips until she obeyed him. In the end she managed to swallow most of it. Afterwards she demanded he let her up to wash.
‘You’re not strong enough.’
‘Of course I am. I can’t just lie here...’ Her attempt to prove her strength by swinging her legs out of bed would have brought her to grief, but for Jack catching her as she pitched forward.
‘Don’t you ever learn, Rosie?’ he demanded. ‘Just lie there.’
‘I feel disgusting,’ she said, tetchy because she was close to tears and she didn’t want to cry. She never cried.
‘Then we’ll do something about it, but you’re going to have to accept that you’ve been very ill.’
‘It’s just a touch of flu. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’
‘I think I preferred you when you had lost your voice.’
‘I preferred you when you weren’t here!’
‘Well, Rosie, I have to agree that if your temper is any indication you appear to be on the mend,’ he said. ‘But I suggest you leave the prognosis to your doctor. I think you’ll find he disagrees with you.’
‘The doctor? You mustn’t bother him. He’ll be rushed off his feet.’
‘He’s been four times in three days. He’s calling again in the morning. You don’t want him to ring a peal about my ears for not looking after you properly, do you?’
‘Four times?’ This did more than her own weak state to convince her that she had been really ill.
‘Now will you lie back and behave yourself?’ She nodded, too weak for further protest. ‘Thank you. Now I’ll get a bowl of water and we�
��ll see what we can do to make you feel better.’
She did as she was told, unable to raise more than the feeblest token of resistance when she realised he intended to wash her himself.
‘You can’t, Jack.’
‘Stop me,’ he invited as he wrung out the flannel. She submitted to the indignity of having her face washed for the first time since she could reach a wash basin for herself. He was brisk and business-like about it and when he held her over his arm, pulled off her nightgown and washed her back it was done so impersonally that she knew it would be ridiculous to object when he did the same to her front. But she closed her eyes; at least that way she could pretend it wasn’t happening. He slipped a clean nightdress over her head, helped with the arms, then left her to wriggle into it under the covers.
‘Anything else?’ he asked when he came back a few moments later.
‘Could you pass me my hairbrush?’
He picked up the silver backed brush that had been her grandmother’s, weighed it in his hand and then handed it to her without a word. She tried to lift it, then let it fall back to the bed. He took it from her and began to restore the tangled chestnut curls to some order.
‘It needs washing,’ she said, self-consciously as he stroked the brush through it.
‘It’ll keep,’ he replied, a little brusquely. ‘Right now I think you should go to sleep.’
Her lids were already half-closed. Jack leaned over her and as she drifted off into sleep she thought his lips brushed her forehead. But maybe she just dreamed it.
* * *
When she woke, it was Sarah leaning over her and she wondered if it had all been a dream.
‘Hello, Rose. How’re you doing?’
She tested her limbs, moved her head. ‘I think I feel a little better.’
‘The doctor’s here. We’ll see what he says.’
The doctor’s verdict was much the same as her own. On the mend, but weak. ‘You need at least a week of pampering, Rose. Two weeks would be better, but I have no doubt you’ll tell me that’s impossible.’
‘It’s impossible.’
He grinned appreciatively. ‘Definitely on the mend. You’ve your young man to thank for that.’
Not a dream, then. ‘He’s not...’ She decided not to try and explain. It was too complicated. ‘Thank you for coming out. You must be terribly busy.’
‘The worst of the epidemic seems to be over, thank goodness.’ He wrote out a sick note and left it beside the bed. ‘This is for two weeks. Take it.’
‘I’ll try,’ she promised.
Sarah came back after seeing the doctor out and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘What’s the verdict?’
‘He wants me to take two weeks sick leave. How’s Matt?’
‘Much better. But he wasn’t nearly as bad as you.’
She hesitated, unwilling to ask the obvious question, but wanting to know. ‘Where’s Jack?’
‘Missing him already?’
She dismissed the question as ridiculous. ‘Of course not. I just wanted to thank him. He was very kind.’
‘Yes,’ Sarah said, gravely, but her eyes sparkled with humour. ‘He was very kind.’ She relented. ‘And he’ll be back in an hour or two. He had an appointment that he couldn’t cancel so he asked me to come back and keep an eye on you. So, shall we take advantage of his absence and get you into the bath?’
Bathed, her hair washed and dried by Sarah, she was propped up in bed with some breakfast when the doorbell rang. She looked up expectantly as the door opened but Sarah came back alone, carrying a single red rose.
‘This, I call style,’ Sarah said, sniffing the bloom appreciatively.
There was no card. ‘Who is it from?’
‘Rosalind Parry! You’re getting married in a couple of months. How can you ask such a question? I’ll put it in water.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, not arguing, but Anthony’s romance quotient was on the low side and the idea of him sending a single rose was unreal.
A little later the bell rang again. ‘More flowers.’ Sarah handed her the bouquet with slightly raised brows. Pink carnations and a card. “Get well soon, love Anthony”.
They both glanced at the single red rose in the bud vase that Sarah had placed beside the bed and Rosalind found herself blushing.
‘I’ll go and find a vase,’ Sarah said, quickly.
‘Sarah!’
Sarah turned somewhat reluctantly to face her friend. ‘What is it?’
She lay back, suddenly quite exhausted. ‘Nothing.’ Nothing that Sarah could help with. They both knew that.
‘Don’t worry about it now, Rose. Go back to sleep for a while. It’ll all sort itself out.’
She closed her eyes, but sleep was more elusive. Her body was weak, but her mind seemed to race. Jack said she was paying a high price for security, but he didn’t understand. No one understood, except perhaps her mother. She had known what it was like to be married to a man who always wanted to be somewhere else. Doing something else. Who hated to be tied to a house, responsibilities. Hated it so much that despite his love for her mother, for her, he had put on his coat one day and simply walked away from them both, beguiled by the sound of a “different drummer”.
A tear tolled down her cheek at the pain of his desertion, never writing, never phoning. Totally uncaring that the bottom had fallen out of her world with his disappearance.
Anthony would never do that. He was solid. Conventional. A marrying man. She had thought she longed for security, yet ever since Jack Drayton had crossed her path like a latter-day Pied Piper offering her untold wonders in the sound of a saxophone she too had been beguiled.
She sighed. She had always had a touch of her father’s wildness in her. She had tried to crush it, heaven knew, but maybe she was more like him than she was prepared to admit and until she was surer of herself it would be wrong to marry Anthony. With that decision made, a load seemed to lift from her mind and she finally slept.
* * *
She stretched, languorously and opened her eyes to find Jack smiling down at her.
‘Hello,’ she said, suddenly well enough to feel shy at this intimacy.
‘How are you?’
‘Much better. Thank you.’
‘Could you eat something? Sarah made some chicken soup before she left.’
‘Left?’
‘She’s gone back to Matt’s. She said you’d understand. Rosie, is your mother away? I’ve been trying to get hold of her all weekend.’
‘Have you?’ For a moment she couldn’t think why he would want to speak to her mother. Then the penny dropped. He wanted her to come and take over. He’d had enough of playing nursemaid. ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I must have been a dreadful nuisance to you.’
‘Dreadful,’ he agreed, earnestly. ‘And in your weakened state I haven’t been able to take advantage of the situation, which is a pity. But, Sarah’s going back to work tomorrow and I have some business that I can’t put off any longer.’
‘You really don’t have to worry about me any more. I’ll be fine,’ she said, stiffly, not wanting to think about the business he had in mind.
‘If I want to worry about you, I will. I asked about your mother.’
‘What date is it? Mum was going away before Easter. I can’t remember when, exactly. She was taking some of the older children to London for a few days.’
‘Older children?’
‘She’s head teacher at a primary school.’
‘Well, I’ve left a message on her answering machine. I imagine she’ll phone as soon as she gets back. I thought you might stay with her for few days until you’ve recovered—’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’m going back to work—’
‘Not this week, even if I have to cancel all my meetings. Not next week if I can help it, but I’ve no doubt that by then you’ll be strong enough to tell me to go to hell.’
Meetings! Was that the word they used? ‘I should have done that the moment I set eyes on you,
’ she said, with a good deal of feeling.
‘Hmm. Well have a bowl of soup, first.’
‘Only if I can sit at the table. I feel welded to this bed.’
‘You sound stronger with every argument.’ He held out a dressing gown and she fed her arms into it, then rose slowly to her feet. She swayed slightly and he held her. ‘All right?’
She looked up into his face. ‘Fine.’ His expression altered imperceptibly from concern to something deeper, more intense. She was suddenly very conscious that she was leaning against him wearing a flimsy nightdress, that they were alone and for days he had looked after her in the most intimate way. The sudden heat that seared her cheeks had nothing to do with influenza.
She dropped her eyes and began to fumble with the buttons of her dressing gown, but Jack caught her wrist and stopped her. ‘Better let me do that; you’ve got them all wrong.’ He fastened each one with careful precision and then helped her through to the kitchen and pulled out a chair for her.
‘Why did you stay, Jack?’ she asked, as she watched him pour soup into a bowl.
He made an impatient gesture. ‘Why do you always want to analyse everything, Rosie? Let’s just say it was convenient. I had nowhere else more important to go.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He had cared for her in return for helping himself to her sofa.
‘I very much doubt it, Rosie. Just eat your soup.’ She ate a few spoonfuls then left her spoon in the bowl. ‘That’s not enough. Finish it up or it’s straight back to bed with you.’ She glared at him but eventually managed most of it and he relented and settled her in the armchair by the fire before clearing up.
The phone began to ring. She knew from experience that he was unlikely to hear it in the kitchen, so she struggled to her feet and answered it herself.
‘Rosalind? Is that you?’