C.L. Taylor - Sleep

‘No, no.’ He straightens up, still rubbing at his chest. ‘I’m fine. Double-check the rooms are in order while I’m away. Oh, and check on the bread. It’ll need to come out of the oven in twenty minutes. Don’t just stand there looking vacant, girl. There are jobs to be done.’

Cold air blasts across the lobby as David opens the front door and disappears outside. Dark clouds, heavy with rain, scuttle past the window as trees whip back and forth in the wind. According to the weather forecast this morning we’re due a storm soon. That won’t go down well with the guests who came here to walk, cycle, fish and deer-stalk but we should still be able to get them to Kinloch Castle and the craft shops. And if the weather’s really bad there’s a TV in each of the bedrooms and books and magazines in the lounge. And the hotel is well stocked with booze and firewood. I jump as my mobile phone scuttles across the desk, then snatch it up. It’s a text from Alex:

I’ve been thinking about you. I hope you’re well and happy and that the fresh island air is helping you sleep.

Alex grips the bunch of flowers a little tighter as the doors to the Royal Free Hospital slide open and a cloud of warm, bleach-scented air hits him full in the face. It’s a beautiful summer day and his shirt is sticking to his back. He wants to take off his jacket, get some air to his skin, but he’s worried about the sweat patches under his arms. He glances at his watch: 2.55 p.m. He didn’t want to risk being late, so got here early and spent the last hour sitting in KFC around the corner, sipping a Coke. He’d rather have had a coffee but he was worried about bad breath.

He takes a seat in the waiting area near M&S and rummages around in his pocket for the packet of mints he bought on his way here. He pops one into his mouth then props the flowers between his knees and wipes his palms on his jeans. He knows he’s being ridiculous, sweating and worrying like a thirteen-year-old on a first date, but he can’t slow his hammering heart or shake the sick feeling in his stomach. He’s never done anything like this before, never got so worked up about someone he barely knows. But Becca likes him, she must, or she wouldn’t have replied to his Facebook messages, never mind agree to a date. His stomach clenches as his phone vibrates in his pocket. Is she cancelling? Is she, as he sits in the hospital foyer and waits for her to finish her shift, secretly sneaking out of a back entrance so she doesn’t have to see him?

He looks at the screen and heaves a sigh of relief. It’s just Anna.

Are you trying to be funny?

He frowns, confused and rereads the message he sent her earlier. It was a nice message, wasn’t it? Asking how she was doing.

He looks around to check Becca’s not on her way over to him (it wouldn’t be done to be caught texting an ex), then taps out a reply.

No. What do you mean?

She replies immediately.

The comment about sleep.

He cringes. Oh, that. If he’s honest he’s barely given those messages a second thought since she left. He’s thought about her, obviously; you don’t spend nearly two years with someone and then forget all about them the moment they walk out of the door, but he’s enjoyed having the bed to himself and waking up without her lashing out in her sleep, or else staring at him, wide-eyed and frantic from across the room. He did feel guilty though, logging on to Facebook when he returned home to piles of boxes and a flat stripped of Anna’s things. Her side of the bed was barely cold and there he was, searching for the nurse who’d cared for her. The attraction was there from the first time they’d laid eyes on each other – an invisible spark that made him catch his breath. He was sure she’d felt it too, from the way her cheeks had coloured and she’d glanced away, at Anna’s unconscious form. He tried telling himself that he was misreading her friendliness, that looking after relatives was as much a part of her job as caring for her patients, but Becca seemed to genuinely enjoy their little chats while Anna slept and she checked her vitals. He was terrified when Anna came to and started screaming. Her eyes were glassy and empty, as though she were looking straight through him. And the noise, he’d never heard anything like it. He could have hugged Becca for the professional way she’d taken charge of the situation. He hadn’t of course. Not only would it have been wholly inappropriate but Anna’s return to consciousness made him feel utterly ashamed of himself. What kind of despicable shitbag was he, perving over the nurse while his girlfriend recovered from a horrific accident? If he was being kind to himself he’d explain it away as a coping mechanism, a way of climbing out of the pit of fear he’d fallen into after her stepdad had rung him, his voice cracking as he broke the news about the accident.

But Anna hadn’t died. She’d survived the crash and the operation and when the surgeon told them both that, other than a scar across her mid-section, there would be no lasting damage he raised his eyes to the white ward ceiling and said thank you to a God he didn’t believe in. He knew it was his duty to look after her when they got home, he owed her that much after two years together, but he could barely drag himself out of bed in the morning after being kept up by Anna half the night, thrashing around fighting night terrors. He felt trapped and unhappy whenever he returned home. It wasn’t her fault, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop the resentment from rising, threatening to burst the banks of his patience like a river after a storm.

He hadn’t expected her to end things. He thought she’d keep plugging away at their relationship, as she always had. But no, she’d had enough too. He was so grateful she’d had the courage to speak up that he’d hugged her, so shocked that he asked her to stay one more night in case there was anything left to be said. There wasn’t, other than a strained conversation about a note she’d found on the car. As he’d walked to the tube afterwards he couldn’t help but feel relieved that Anna was no longer his responsibility. And guilty for feeling that way.

‘Alex?’ Someone touches him on the shoulder, making him jump.

He almost doesn’t recognise the woman smiling down at him, in her red mac with her long, brown hair swept across her forehead and resting on her shoulders. Brown eyeliner is smudged in the corner of her eyes and her lips shine cherry red.

‘Becca?’ He stands, hastily, and presses an awkward kiss into her cheek. ‘You look lovely. I almost didn’t recognise you.’

‘Thanks a lot.’ She laughs and takes the flowers he pushes into the space between their bodies. ‘These smell lovely,’ she says as she dips her face to the bouquet of white lilies and roses. She looks up at him, her nose still buried in the blooms, and he thinks how lovely her eyes are, how smiley, the most startling cornflower blue.

His stomach tightens as she looks away from him, her blue eyes flitting over the diners that surround them, folded over magazines, coffees and mobile phones, all lost in their own little worlds.

‘What is it?’ he asks as a frown creases Becca’s smooth brow.

‘Nothing.’ She straightens and shakes her head lightly.

‘Are you sure? You looked like you were looking for someone.’

She reaches round for her hair, gathers it in her hand and swings it over her shoulder. She’s nervous, Alex thinks with a pang of surprise, as she continues to twist her hair and gaze wonderingly at him. The urge to put an arm around her shoulder and pull her close is almost more than he can bear.

‘I was just …’ She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. ‘Things are definitely over between you and Anna, aren’t they? She’s not suddenly going to jump out at us and call me a boyfriend stealer?’