Chapter 11
CHAPTER
I have no idea what time it is when Thorsen, an arm around my waist, helps me off the bed and points me towards a sofa.
All but five or six of the demons lowered their pitchforks as I slept so my headache isn’t too bad and I’m far less nauseous.
A step. Another one. My knees buckle and Thorsen is holding me up again.
‘Get your balance,’ he says quietly.
I spread out my toes as if I have webbed feet. ‘Like a duck.’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
A few more steps. The backs of my calves hit the sofa and he eases me onto the seat. I was burning up but now I have goosebumps. Forearms on my knees, I lean forward and he sits next to me with a hand on my back. A firm touch. A supportive one.
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Six hours.’
‘A doctor came, didn’t he?’ My shirt and pants are crumpled. I have no socks or shoes. ‘He gave me an injection.’
‘Anti-nausea.’
I clench my teeth to hide a shiver. ‘Are you angry?’
Thorsen, head lowered, pulls down my sleeves and fastens the cuffs. ‘Not yet.’
If I weren’t as small and delicate as a sparrow, if I hadn’t been throwing up for hours and hours and hours, buttoning my cuffs would be an intimate gesture. As it is, it’s something he’s forced to do because I’m not capable. Why are my cuffs undone?
So I didn’t vomit on them.
He’s on my right. Is it safe to assert my independence and lean to the left?
Am I sitting in the middle of the sofa or at the end of it?
In addition to a sofa and a table with four chairs, an office desk and chair, and the bathroom I know too well, there’s a separate room with a king-sized bed with rumpled covers.
I was lying on that bed before. I didn’t think anything of it back then but—
‘This isn’t a hotel room, it’s a suite.’
‘You need to eat.’
I squeeze my eyes shut. ‘Is this my room?’
‘Your bag is here.’
‘It’s your room, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can go to my room. I haven’t been there, have I? It won’t be as nice as this room, but it’ll be tidier and no one would have slept in the bed.’
A sound between a sigh and a growl. ‘I can’t leave you.’
I order my scrambled thoughts. ‘I’m getting better.’
He scans a QR code on a brochure and shows me a menu on his phone. ‘You have to eat something.’
‘You made me drink, didn’t you?’
‘Dehydration.’
I was dehydrated? Or he was afraid I’d end up that way? ‘I want to have a shower before I eat.’
‘Order now, then you can shower.’
I expect the thought of food to make me nauseous again, but my stomach grumbles in a good way.
The words of the menu are blurred so I make something up: ‘Fruit salad. Toast and honey.’
‘For dessert?’
‘What time is it?’
‘Twenty-one hundred.’
‘What?’
‘Nine.’
‘Fruit salad, toast and honey.’ I close my eyes. ‘That’s all I want.’
‘What would you like to drink?’
‘Darjeeling tea, if they have it. Please.’
His expression is grave as he enters the menu items, but he hasn’t pushed back his fringe in a while. That’s a good sign, so I brave a question.
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-one.’
‘When is your birthday?’
‘August.’
Only just thirty-one. ‘Can I have a shower now?’
When Thorsen tells me to leave the bathroom door open in case I fall, he doesn’t need to reassure me that he’ll turn away.
One, he’s noble. Two, he’s stood by my side as I’ve vomited into the toilet bowl and gutter (on the way from the airport to the hotel) so many times that he’ll want to be rid of me.
The water cascades all around me. Soap, shampoo, conditioner.
My pyjamas are navy but the cuffs are white.
Two at the wrists. Two at the ankles. The towel wrapped around my shoulders is already damp because I didn’t trust myself to stand up for the time it would take to blow dry my hair.
When I sway at the door, Thorsen takes my arm and guides me to the sofa.
He sits me down, crouching as he stares into my face.
‘Would you prefer to lie down?’
A demon shoves his pitchfork in the fire and pokes around but, putting a finger to my temple, I hide a wince. ‘You have very good grammar.’
‘You’re still in pain.’
When I make a vague attempt to wipe moisture from my face, he stands behind me and efficiently gathers my hair in the towel and twists. He rubs the ends to dry them even more and then, as I comb through my hair with my fingers, he fetches a dry towel and puts it around my shoulders.
‘Thank you.’
A brisk knock on the door. ‘Room service!’
I smile weakly at the waiter as he puts the tray on the table. ‘Thank you.’
Before Thorsen tells me once again that I should eat, I put perfectly cut wedges of fruit on a plate and pick up a fork. Then I turn to him.
‘Are you going to eat?’
He nods towards the sandwiches. ‘Later.’
It’s an effort to stab the pieces of fruit and going by the way he clenches his jaw every time I do it, I’m certain he’d like to confiscate the fork and feed me himself.
‘It would be easier for me to eat if you ate too.’
Frowning, he picks up a sandwich and bites. After swallowing, he points to a piece of pineapple. ‘Your turn.’
After I’ve eaten a third of the fruit and a piece of toast spread haphazardly with honey, I say, ‘I’ll go back to sleep and then I’ll be okay.’
A disbelieving look. But then he stands. ‘I hope so.’
‘Matt!’
Lungs bursting, I run through the knee-high grass towards the fence and the gap my brother showed me when he was sixteen or seventeen and I was eight or nine and we sneaked onto the airfield to go to the hangars.
When it wasn’t too cold and Mum had left Matt in charge of looking after me, he’d take me with him, settling me on groundsheets with a torch, a water bottle and a chocolate bar, and telling me if anyone came, we’d have to get out quick smart because he didn’t want them to think he was up to no good, he just wanted to learn as much as he could before he finished school so someone would take a chance on a kid who didn’t have the right-shaped feet to get into the air force and didn’t have cashed-up parents to pay for flight instruction.
While I did my homework and read my natural history books, he’d spend hours walking around the planes and—
He’s in a plane right now and it’s falling from the sky.
‘Matt!’
I suck in breaths as I scramble to sit. Then I fight against whoever it is that’s holding me back and telling me to open my eyes.
I’m in a hotel room, not on an airfield. I’m kneeling on a bed and Thorsen is sitting on the bed and he’s holding onto my arms. I shudder a breath and wrench free, wipe my palms against my cheeks.
‘Lisse.’ Lissa. Two syllables, like he explained.
‘You’re safe.’ He gives me tissues and I hold a bunch to my face, blow my nose, sniff and blow my nose again.
I close my eyes. Open them. Touch my temple to push the demons back inside my head even though I don’t want them there either.
I move my shoulders around, rub the sides of my neck.
‘What time is it?’
‘Almost midnight.’
Another shaky breath. ‘I thought today couldn’t get worse.’
‘Matt was your brother?’
As this isn’t about Thorsen’s personal life but mine, he doesn’t hide his expression.
Concern. Sympathy. I turn away, study my hands.
Then, after scrambling off the bed, I flick a switch in the bathroom, but the light is so bright that I turn it off again.
The light over the bath is further away but even so …
Enormous eyes. Ghost-white face. Scatter of freckles.
I pull a brush from my toiletries bag and smooth my hair into order before tying a plait down my back.
After my shower, I used a towel on my body and another on my hair and Thorsen lay a third towel over my shoulders.
A fourth towel hangs from a hook behind the door.
Back in the room, I notice things I didn’t see before.
Thorsen’s bag is sitting neatly in a nook near the desk.
In addition to two laptops, the desk is scattered with paper and an eight centimetre–thick document with a blue and purple spine.
There’s also a paperback, a different book to the one he wedged into his bag when I saw him at the airport in Melbourne.
His hair is damp. And even though I have no idea what he was wearing earlier today, I’m guessing he’s changed his clothes. Black T-shirt, jeans and socks.
‘I’m better now.’ My voice is croaky. ‘You need to sleep too.’
He nods towards the desk. ‘I’m working.’
‘All night?’
‘It’s morning in Geneva.’ He indicates the sofa. ‘I’ll sleep there later.’
‘You don’t—’
‘I told the doctor I would stay. Also Robin and Kingsley.’
‘Do you always do what you say you’ll do?’
A stiff smile. ‘Yes.’
He refuses my offer of tea but as I boil the jug and find a lemon and ginger tea bag, he slots a pod into the coffee machine. Black coffee, no embellishments. Carefully depositing my mug on the side table, I climb back into bed. Thorsen stands by the desk.
‘Are you angry?’
‘You asked that before.’
I search through last night’s demons and pitchforks to find the answer. ‘You said “not yet”.’
‘I’m not angry.’
‘Furious? Pissed off?’
‘I won’t argue with you.’
I lean against the pillows, pull the sheet over my legs. ‘You’ll control your emotions until tomorrow?’
‘Correct.’
‘You never tell me what you’re thinking.’
‘When would I do that? At the pool when you walked out? On the plane? In the taxi?’ He gestures to the bathroom. ‘In there?’
The tears are sudden and hot and wet and—
‘For fuck’s—’
‘Shut up!’
‘I didn’t—’
‘I said shut up!’
He shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘I’m not angry.’
I grab a box of tissues from the side table and swipe at my face. ‘Are you going to kick me off your project?’
‘I haven’t decided.’
‘Won’t your girlfriend mind that I’m in your room?’
I have no idea where those words come from but now they’re out and I can’t take them back.
‘What girlfriend?’
I sniff. ‘You were with someone at Martin’s house. Natasha?’
‘It wasn’t a relationship.’
Only sex? A hook-up? I don’t want to know. And it’s none of my business.
He comes to the bed, sits on the very edge and holds out his hand. ‘I wouldn’t let you touch me if I was in a relationship.’
Because he might be attracted to me like I, for no rational reason, am attracted to him? I don’t want to know that either.
I link my hands demurely in my lap. ‘You might find a girlfriend in Antarctica.’
‘Go to sleep, Felicity.’ He takes back his hand.
‘Do you miss your family?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you close to both of your brothers?’
‘Equally.’
‘Did you have time off before you started this job?’
By the time he meets my gaze, his expression is masked. ‘A month.’
His past is painful and he hides it. Just like I hide things. He’s had the opportunity to see more of my pain than I have of his and that isn’t fair, but I can’t bring myself to ask questions that’ll hurt.
‘You called me Lisse when I had the dream. And on the plane.’
‘Yes.’
‘Should I sleep on the sofa? You’re too tall to stretch out.’
‘No.’
‘No, I shouldn’t sleep on the sofa, or no, you’re not too tall?’
‘Both.’ He bends a leg. ‘I can do this.’
‘Did the doctor say I had to sleep on the bed? He didn’t, did he?’
Thorsen frowns. ‘Go back to sleep.’
He’s tired, no matter what he says. And all he had to eat was sandwiches.
He’s also got a full day scheduled for tomorrow, and a cocktail party and speaking engagement with people from the Antarctic Division in the evening.
As he watches, I collect two pillows from the side of the bed nearest him and two pillows from the other side.
I line them up in the middle so there’s a division.
‘You could lie here.’
When he stands and snaps to attention, I look the other way.
‘To read your book,’ I explain. ‘To stretch out and sleep.’
‘No.’
Staring straight ahead, I perch on the edge of the bed facing the window like a bird with clipped wings. The window is hidden by two layers of curtains. I can barely swallow but as soon as I do, I blubber again. Hot. Wet. Silent.
‘Are you crying?’
‘No.’
It’s been a long time since I’ve cried like this. My brother was dead. I wanted to be held, but I couldn’t articulate that. And even if I had, the men I had sex with wouldn’t have understood. They were older than me. Some were Matt’s friends. They should have been better.
Thorsen isn’t on the bed like I wanted him to be, he’s crouching by my side, and even through tears I can see he has no idea what to do about this unexpected turn of events.
I remind myself of the facts. I’ve been here before.
I’ve hoped and prayed that someone would understand but they never have. I don’t ever want to go back. I can’t.
Twisting away, I wipe my face on the pillow and mumble good night.