It’s me. Let me in.
A second later the notification pops up: Read 16:37.
Nothing happens. Go on, leave me on read again, I dare you, I think waspishly. If you do I will call the fire brigade and report a gas leak. Just try me.
I stare at the screen, waiting for the three little dots to appear that mean he’s writing back, but they don’t. Anger blazes through me. You fucking bastard, I’ve come all the way from Oxford on the spur of the moment, and if you think you’re going to leave me—
The street door opens and Frederic’s standing there, half a week’s beard roughening his face and a white bandage on his throat.
The sight of him takes my breath away. God, how I’ve missed him. I feel tears prickle my eyes and an almost overwhelming desire to throw myself into his arms. Then details start to bleed into my brain: how tired he looks, his pale and drawn cheeks, eyes red-rimmed and sunken. Surgery shouldn’t do that, should it?
“Frederic, you...look terrible.”
He nods and makes a yes, well, what can you do, face. Of course. He’s been told not to talk.
“Is it the surgery? What happened?”
He digs his phone out of his jeans pocket and types something into it. A moment later, mine buzzes. Flu. Caught it in the hospital.
“Oh.” Faced with the mundanity of his malady and the vague goal I had to “face Frederic,” I suddenly don’t know what to say. Maybe he’s perfectly fine about his voice and Sabine was just being dramatic. I mean, she was an actress. But when I look into his eyes I see a haunted look that I’ve never seen there before. He’s heartbroken, and he’s sick.
Putting my hand on my cabin bag, I take a deep breath and say, “Well, it’s a good thing I’m here. I’m going to look after you until you’re better.”
I’m fine. Go back to England, you’ve got things to do. He wraps his arms around his body and his teeth start to chatter. It’s not even cold out.
“You’re not fine. Now move, back inside.” I push him ahead of me and we go upstairs.
The flat’s not untidy, but it’s got an unkempt, stale feel to it, the cushions lying haphazard on the sofa and dirty dishes in the sink, mostly mugs of half-drunk coffee. The piano is closed and there’s dust on the lid. His sheet music is nowhere to be seen.
I turn around and see Frederic leaning against the kitchen counter, hunched over and bleary-eyed and looking like he might fall down at any moment. Still, he finds the energy to type, very slowly, Sabine called you, didn’t she? She shouldn’t have. I meant to reply to her texts but I’ve felt like death.
“Don’t worry about that now. Go to bed.”
Please, Evie. I don’t deserve this and you know it.
“It’s not a matter of deserving and not deserving. And I promise I won’t punch you in the face till you’re better, all right?”
I help him into bed and he’s shaking beneath the covers, his face alarmingly pale. There are empty blister packets of ibuprofen and paracetamol on his nightstand.
“When was the last time you took any pain relief?”
He makes a motion with his hand that I take to mean yesterday.
“Oh, Frederic,” I mutter. The glass next to them is dry and I wonder if he’s so gaunt because he’s becoming dehydrated. I make him drink a glass of water, take another blanket from the closet and lay it over him and then rummage through his en suite. I locate a hot water bottle, and I boil the kettle in the kitchen and fill it, and make a hot drink out of some fresh ginger, lemon and honey I find in the fridge.
Tucking the bottle under the blankets and the drink into his hands, I say, “I’ll go to the pharmacy and get you some cold and flu meds. Are the spare keys in the kitchen drawer?”
He nods, and then grabs my wrist and holds on with surprising strength. He looks at me for several long moments. Then he gives a frustrated grimace as if he’s forgotten he can’t speak and his hand falls back onto the covers. I wait, wondering if he’s going to reach for his phone to text me, but he turns his face away, his eyes closing.
I inhabit a role over the following days in his flat: the blustery, impersonal matron, administering meds and fluids, taking his temperature and changing the sheets. On the second day I get him into the shower, though he comes back after barely a minute, white-faced with exhaustion, limbs trembling. He’s got the towel knotted around his hips and water is beaded on his chest, and I’m struck by how not long ago I saw this sight almost every day, and how I used to lick the wetness playfully from his collarbone. But I force myself back into the matron mentality and help him into a T-shirt and track pants, as he doesn’t seem to own any pajamas.
Of course he doesn’t. He always slept naked, remember?
Shut up shut up shut up.
We go on like this for four days, him sleeping almost round the clock, me looking after him and trying to work on my thesis. His flat feels cold and impersonal without the knowledge that he’ll walk through the front door, green eyes gleaming, and gather me into his arms with a breath-stopping kiss. It’s too quiet with the piano standing silent. This isn’t the Paris that I love.
I’ve only been able to get soup down him and on the fifth day I head off to the market for more fresh ingredients. It’s the middle of the afternoon and I should be talking to a couple of first-years about the Shelleys and Lord Byron at Lake Geneva, but instead I’m debating the merits of ham hocks versus chicken bones. I opt for the bones, as the flavor of ham hocks might be too assaulting to a queasy belly.