stroking my hair. ‘You shouldn’t hide those Bambi eyes. The patients need to see your expression.’
Since I last tiptoed into this room the bed has been pushed into the furthest corner, as far from the window as possible. Pierre Levi couldn’t have done it himself. He must have specifically ordered someone to move the bed for him. It’s as if he’s retreating from the summer heat. Trying to put off any more visitors. Or he’s sussed out my midnight flits.
All I can see is a huddle of white sheets beneath the hillock of a metal frame placed under the duvet to protect his legs.
‘Good morning, Mr Levi,’ I say, drawing closer. ‘How are you today?’
I pull at the zip but it has stuck. My fingers meet the warm skin of my throat and chest. The already loose top is gaping right down to my cleavage.
‘Do what you have to do, whatever your name is. But please. As little speaking as possible.’
Maybe it’s from conducting those newspaper interviews after weeks of silence, but Pierre Levi’s voice is rough and gravelly. Gruff with temper and sleepiness, and lack of use. I try to imagine that voice in happier, stronger times. Calling out directions on set, congratulating those dancers for a successful show, or giving thanks for an award.
Charming the pants off those hot dancers, fluttering around him, pecking like parakeets.
‘The minimum of disturbance, I promise, Mr Levi, but as you know I am the senior Matron and I have the right to speak when I deem fit,’ Nurse Jeannie murmurs, pulling back the curtains and kicking open the French doors to let in the air. ‘And as it’s the first time you’ve met Rosa, I must be allowed to instruct her on what’s required.’
The sunlight floods hungrily into the room, painting the plain furniture with its determined golden energy and giving everything shape and dimension.
The Aura Clinic is halfway between Kensington High Street and Cromwell Road and it’s good to hear the London noises. I’m a city girl, used to the honking of car horns and squealing tyres bouncing off old stone walls, the yelling and gesticulating of Roman drivers. I actively dislike the silence of the countryside. Cars and lorries, buses and bikes are the familiar hum of comfort for me. The backing track of my life.
‘I would prefer you to do the toilette, Nurse Jeannie,’ Mr Levi growls, wafting his hand in a camp fashion on the French word. ‘Not some junior trainee. You’ve seen it all before.’
‘Yes, but you can’t demand exclusive service from me, I’m afraid. All our staff are qualified to administer the toilette, as you call it, until you’re active enough to do it yourself.’ Jeannie pads back towards the bed. ‘Incidentally I’m afraid your brother won’t be visiting for a while. He’s been detained in New York. They have some happy news.’
A bee or wasp, heavy with pollen from the beautiful roses and flowers in the immaculate garden outside, nudges its way through the window and starts buzzing against the pane.
‘More news?’ he sighs, turning his head away from the light.
I keep my eyes on the bee, flailing uselessly against the smooth glass.
‘Not about the arrest this time. Personal news. Oh, dear, I thought you knew.’ Nurse Jeannie takes the sheet at the top and starts pleating it. ‘I’m sure they’ll want to tell you themselves.’
‘You’ve started, so you’d better finish, Matron. What is so important that Gustav has stayed in New York rather than coming back to London to see his sick brother?’
Any minute now that insistent drone of the bee will start to annoy me. It will annoy him, too. It seems to be getting louder.
‘Your brother’s fiancée – Serena, is it? – is going to have a baby.’
The silence in that room elongates like over-stretched elastic. A bird, alerted perhaps by a prowling cat in the grass, bursts from one of the perfectly clipped bushes near the window with a rising arpeggio of alarm. Pierre Levi remains totally silent.
‘Go into the bathroom and fill the big bowl with warm water, please, Rosa. You’ll see the special cleansing fluids and cloths in there, too.’ Nurse Jeannie continues folding the sheet down the bed, slowly uncovering Pierre’s body. ‘So, Mr Levi. You’re going to be an uncle!’
There’s something leaden in the silence emanating from the bed.
Time to take a really good look at him.
The whiteness of his skin, merging with the pillow, is accentuated by the bright daylight. If I hadn’t just heard his voice, reverberating with resentment, I could have sworn he was dead.
His eyes have remained closed since we walked in. He seems defeated, as if he’s offered no resistance and been beaten in a fight. His shoulders are broad, like a swimmer’s, but the effort of speaking to the reporter earlier, reliving the events, putting on a public persona, has visibly affected the rest of him. Despite being goaded into exercise by the physio, both in bed and in the pool, his arms are still too thin for a man of his size and build. The elbows and wrists too bony.
As Nurse Jeannie pulls the sheet down to his waist Pierre Levi screws his eyes tighter like a kid, and crosses those thin arms defensively over his chest. She unbuttons his old-fashioned pyjama jacket at the neck. The soft cotton has come open over his flat stomach, revealing a jet-black line of hair running south from his navel. Despite my semi-professional status it leads my gaze down, down towards the masculine shape, the forbidden bulge in the loose trousers.
‘Come on, Mr Levi. You know that when your eyes are shut we can still see you? We have to undo the shirt now.’
Nurse Jeannie’s voice has descended into a soothing murmur. Pierre’s black eyebrows draw together, but he lies back obediently as she undoes the remaining buttons and opens the shirt. She tries to roll him so she can remove the shirt altogether, but he grabs the sleeves to keep the shirt on.
‘Not today, Matron,’ he mumbles. ‘Not in front of the new girl.’
I glance back up to his bared torso. The cage of ribs is painfully visible. A cobweb of white burns snake over his chest, distorting the tissue. I’m glad Jeannie warned me, but scars, like spiders, have never fazed me. They represent an experience overcome. A badge of honour.
They’re a reminder that people like Pierre Levi and his fellow patients, for all their money and attitude, can’t avoid disaster or buy perfection. They’re not superhuman. Wealth and privilege can’t alter the fact that we’re all the same under the skin.
‘It’s not so bad getting undressed, Mr Levi,’ I joke, trying to close my gaping uniform. ‘I’m permanently having trouble with my outfit!’
He opens his eyes at last, but instead of looking at my face he immediately stares at the stuck zip. I look down, too. My plump breasts are plainly visible. In fact my futile efforts to conceal them are drawing attention to them even more.
There’s a flash of life beneath Pierre Levi’s black brows. Nothing like the intense, magnetic gaze I saw in that magazine, but could this be interest? Amusement? More likely to be disdain. I should probably feel uncomfortable, or affronted, being stared at like this. But I refuse.
He may be moody and arrogant but he’s still an injured man in a hospital
