Chapter 32
Jake could feel something tugging at his hand. He opened his eyes. The room was bright; he must have left the light on. He turned his head to see Marcus sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at him. ‘Have you finished with the bathroom yet?’ Jake mumbled sleepily. He realised that he must have dozed off while he was waiting. ‘And turn that light off.’
‘The light’s not on.’
Jake shook his head, trying to shake off the heavy tiredness he felt. He glanced at the ceiling light. Marcus was right – it wasn’t on. He rubbed his face with his other hand and pulled himself up into a sitting position.
‘Hey!’ Marcus protested as Jake left a trail of bandages down the bed.
‘Sit still.’ He shifted position and finished wrapping Jake’s hand in fresh bandages.
‘What time is it?’ Jake noticed a shaft of sunlight coming through a chink in the curtains.
‘Early. And will you hold still.’
Jake watched Marcus put the finishing touches to the bandage. Marcus still looked tired, but he was shaved and dressed, no longer in a suit but in clean, sand-coloured chinos and a blue cotton shirt. What was more, he seemed to have made a miraculous recovery from the previous night. Either the methadone had worked better than Jake had anticipated, considering the state Marcus had been in, or Marcus had a local source of drugs, which begged the question: how long had this been going on?
‘You’re turning into a regular little medical dispensary,’ said Jake sarcastically.
‘I got them from Gayle,’ Marcus said coolly, referring, Jake hoped, to the bandages.
‘You sleep well?’ Jake glanced over at the sofa, where he could see bedclothes in disarray. Jake looked back at Marcus for a response.
‘There, that’s all done,’ he said, letting go of Jake’s hand.
‘Is that an apology, then?’ said Jake, inspecting his newly bandaged right hand; the hand that Marcus had grabbed the previous night, intending to hurt in his desperate bid to get hold of the methadone in Jake’s possession.
‘An apology for what?’ Marcus took his other bandaged hand. ‘I think you should apologise to me !’
‘What the hell have I got to apologise for?’ Jake promptly snatched his hand away. ‘It was only the one hand that needed re-bandaging, or don’t you remember?’
‘Suit yourself.’ Marcus shrugged and tossed the roll of fresh bandages onto Jake’s lap. ‘You do it.’
Jake reached for the roll of bandages and noticed that the bandage covering his other hand had mysteriously acquired a pink hue. ‘How did that happen?’ Barring a run-in with a drug-crazed lunatic of a brother-in-law, he’d thought his hands were healing. Jake sighed and started unwinding the bandage to his left hand.
Marcus seated himself on the sofa opposite Jake. ‘Earlier on, you asked me whether I slept well.’
‘Well, did you?’ Jake continued unwinding the sodden bandage.
‘No, I did not.’
Jake wasn’t surprised. He glanced at Marcus. ‘I was going to take the couch, but I obviously fell asleep on the bed while you were in the bathroom – sorry.’ In truth, Jake wasn’t feeling sorry in the slightest; not after Marcus’s behaviour.
Jake unwound the last of the bandage and did his best to keep his face expressionless as he pulled away the last strip, which was painfully stuck to the wound. His hand still looked a mess. He reached for the fresh roll of bandages.
‘The sofa was surprisingly comfortable,’ said Marcus.
Jake looked up in surprise. In his experience, the sofa was never fine, although that usually had less to do with the comfort factor and more to do with the reason you found yourself relegated to the sofa in the first place. Jake unfurled a length of fresh bandage. ‘I thought you said you did not sleep well.’
Marcus nodded.
‘Maybe your meds didn’t kick in …’
‘That wasn’t it!’
Jake stopped what he was doing and looked at Marcus. ‘I give up. Was I snoring or something?’
‘No.’
Jake was getting irritated by the game of twenty questions. ‘You know what – whatever it is, will you just …’ Jake’s hand hurt and now his head hurt too, ‘shut up!’
‘What – like you did last night?’
Jake didn’t know whether it was because he was tired or perhaps not fully awake yet, but Marcus wasn’t making any sense.
Look, whatever you want to say, will you just say it? I am not in the bloody mood for word games.’ Jake held Marcus’s gaze a moment longer, waiting for his response, but he just sat there staring at Jake, making him feel uncomfortable; it was obvious there was something on his mind. Finally, Jake decided that whatever it was couldn’t be that important, so he turned his attention to his injured hand. The wounds had been healing; there were scabs covering them, but somehow, he had managed to open them up afresh.
‘You were thrashing about in the night.’ Marcus broke the silence.
Jake looked up. At least that explained why he needed to re-bandage this hand too. ‘So, I had a restless night. So what?’ He hadn’t slept well at his apartment in London either, but he felt he was acclimatising to his first holiday in almost a year.
‘You spoke.’
Jake finished the bandage and tied it securely.
‘In your sleep,’ Marcus continued.
Jake got out of bed and looked down at the crumpled clothes he had slept in. He reached for his shoes and then glanced about the room for his bag; he needed a fresh set of clothes. He noticed that Marcus must have cleared up the room that morning while he slept, repacking their cases with the clothes and items he’d thrown all over the place in his frantic search for the plastic bag he’d left with from the police station.
‘Where’s my bag?’ Jake glared at Marcus as if he was hiding it intentionally to keep him stranded in the room. There was no sign of it.
Marcus crossed the room to the wardrobe. He got out Jake’s bag and closed he wardrobe door. ‘Don’t you want to know what you said?’ he asked.
‘In my sleep?’ said Jake as Marcus dropped the bag on the bed. Jake unzipped it. He put his hands straight on a pair of clean jeans, but finding a sweatshirt was proving trickier. He gingerly lifted some clothes out of the bag and glanced at Marcus. He had a feeling that Marcus had something he was itching to get off his chest. ‘What the hell does it matter what I said?’ Jake added.
‘It matters, Jake,’ Marcus said softly, as he took a seat on the sofa, watching Jake.
Something in Marcus’s tone made him stop, his hand still in his bag. He had a good idea what he had said in his sleep, and most probably shouted out every single night. At home, alone, there was no one to hear him. There was no one to remind him each morning what had gone on while he was sleeping – he made sure of it. That’s why he wasn’t in a relationship. It was why he didn’t stay in the same house as anyone else if he could help it.
He thought back to the previous Friday night, when he had babysat Natty. Marcus had reminded him of his bad dreams, his fitful sleep, and how he shouted out in his sleep. The question he was now asking himself was whether he had woken Natty. Was that why she had come down in the middle of the night for a glass of water and some reassurance about the strange noises she’d heard?
Jake had reassured her she had just a bad dream – but had she? It made him think of the times she’d stayed over at his house. He hadn’t woken her there. Perhaps she’d been out like a light, and hadn’t heard him. Or maybe it was the case that for some reason, on those occasions, he had not had a nightmarish, fitful night’s sleep. He certainly didn’t recall having nightmares when she’d stayed over.
Marcus continued. ‘I was woken by the sound of heavy breathing, but it wasn’t just heavy breathing – you were gasping for air like someone, or something, was sitting on your chest and squeezing the life out of you.’
Jake slowly pulled out a shirt from the holdall, the search for a sweatshirt forgotten.
‘You were calling my name, Marcus, Marcus, over and over.’
Jake slowly zipped the holdall back up.
‘ Marcus. Not me! Leave me! you said.’ He paused. ‘Then you just said her name, Eleanor , over and over.’
Jake closed his eyes.
‘That’s how I managed to find you, you know, after the avalanche.’
Jake’s eyes shot open. Not this again. How many times had Marcus told him this story? He still didn’t believe him. Jake dumped the bag on the floor.
‘Remember, I told you in the aftermath, I could hear your voice – like you were talking to someone, telling them to leave you buried in the snow, and find her, find Eleanor.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Jake turned on Marcus. He was furious. He pointed angrily at him. Then he suddenly felt tired; tired of having the same argument, tired of hearing the same lies. He hoped that one day, Marcus would just be honest. Or, at the very least, be honest with himself about what had really taken place on the mountain on Christmas Day.
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Jake said flatly. He stood up, took his clothes and opened the bathroom door.
‘What is it you don’t want to hear, Jake?’ Marcus said defiantly, ‘The truth?’
‘And just what is that, Marcus?’ Jake said from the bathroom door. ‘That you found me because you heard me calling out?’
Marcus nodded.
‘Well, that’s bullshit, and you know it. How could I call out when I was buried in the snow, for god’s sake? Completely buried . That’s how I wake up every morning, like I can’t breathe, like I’m buried on that mountain again, like …’ Jake stopped abruptly.
‘Eleanor,’ Marcus finished.
Silence.
‘You know what your problem is?’ said Jake bitterly. ‘You can’t accept the fact that you made a choice up there.’ He stabbed a finger in the direction of the mountain beyond the house. ‘And you can’t live with it!’
‘No, you’re the one with the problem.’ Marcus got up from the sofa. ‘You can’t live without someone to blame.’ He marched to the bedroom door, flung it open and walked out, slamming it shut behind him.
Jake stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut too.