PIERRE
Primula Bond

Copyright

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.mischiefbooks.com

An eBook Original 2015

Copyright © Primula Bond

Cover images: iStock

Primula Bond asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008173524

Version: 2015-12-21

Dedication:

For the boys in my life

They know who they are

‘Can the Cushite change his skin, or a leopard his spots? If so, you might be able to do what is good, you who are instructed in evil.’

Holman Christian Standard Bible

‘A person is “hors de combat” if:

(a) he is in the power of an adverse party;

(b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or

(c) he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and therefore is incapable of defending himself;

provided that in any of these cases he abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.’

The Geneva Convention

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Intro

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

More from Mischief

About the Publisher

INTRO

He has amazing eyelashes. Long, thick, and black. They fan out over his hollow cheeks when he’s asleep, which is most of the time. They’re like spider’s legs. And I mean that in a good way. I like spiders.

We’re forbidden to go into his room, which is precisely why I can’t resist. I mean, what’s a NO ENTRY sign and two muscle-bound bouncers barring a closed door if not a blatant invitation? That’s pure temptation. That’s an order just begging to be disobeyed. At least, it is to me.

The drugged stillness in there at first was absolute. And the whiteness. The white sheets. The pallor of his bruised, sleeping face. His arms are white, streaked with dried blood. The muscles are slack. In the first week or so his left leg was up in traction to treat the fractured femur, his bed crowded with pulleys and weights.

I wonder, when the poor guy occasionally wakes to a room with no colour in it except the redness of his own blood, if he thinks he’s dead?

I doubt he’s been aware of my little visits. He’s heavily sedated. He wouldn’t be able to flick away a fly if it landed on him. But poco a poco he’s swimming to the surface. Little by little, reluctantly or otherwise, that instinct for survival is kicking in.

After they removed the traction I sneaked in the back way as usual, through the open door from the garden to avoid his minders, and went to stand at the end of his bed. And his eyes opened. Those spidery eyelashes bristled, became a thorny protective hedge.

At first they seemed blank and unseeing, yet something was stirring beneath the surface.

They dropped shut again, but I know what I saw.

I’m not like Dr Venska, stalking the corridors in her tight pencil skirts and teetering stilettos, clutching her clipboard against her high, pointed breasts. She’s some sort of therapist. The others joke that it must be sex therapy, the amount of time she spends in his room. But the word on the ward is that Pierre Levi’s about as articulate as the Sphinx, and Dr Venska’s about as sexy as a stick of rock.

The notes she tosses into the filing tray after each unproductive session consist of just one word: unresponsive.

He may be unresponsive by day, but at night it’s a different story. I’ve heard his terrors, when you can hear his screams all the way down the corridor. They find him shouting or crying, wide-eyed, sweat drenching the bed as he recoils from something or someone who isn’t there.

So no, I’m no shrink. I’m not qualified to go around probing and analysing. But I do have a theory. I know that behind those beautiful black stubborn eyes lurks more than just pain and anger.

It’s fear.

After all, someone tried to kill him.

CHAPTER ONE

‘Only the most exclusive clients are admitted to the Aura Clinic, Rosa. Celebrities, aristocracy, oligarchs. Even royalty,’ Nurse Jeannie explained as she took me through the routines on my first day here. ‘But there was quite a commotion when the poor young man in room 202 checked in. Excessive even by our standards. He’s our only client ever to have been accompanied by the police rather than his own security detail.’

‘They bring security with them?’ I looked at the rows of closed doors hiding all those sick, secretive people. ‘So they’re paranoid as well as rich?’

‘Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’ She slowed her pace beside me. ‘Some of them have good reason to look over their shoulders, believe me.’

I pointed at the guestlist she was holding, matched the name with the room number. ‘Levi? I’ve read about him and his brother. Powerful players in the arts world. That’s an Eastern European name, isn’t it? Transylvanian, like the vampires?’

Nurse Jeannie smiled. Her nose wrinkles like a cheeky kid’s when she smiles.

‘Funny you should say that. He does have something of the night about him. You know, that impenetrable air of mystery and tragedy. And danger. That deathly pale skin, that black hair.’

‘Goodness. You sound a bit smitten!’

‘He’s not my type. But I’m sorry for him.’ Her smile faded. ‘That vampirical air took him to the brink of a career in film. By all accounts he used to be drop-dead gorgeous.’

‘Used to be? Why, what’s happened to him?’

‘It was a hit and run. He was over from LA on family business and his brother’s ex-wife drove straight at him. It’s possible it was a case of mistaken identity, but he remains under police protection until she’s caught.’

‘Christ. Does everyone in this place have such a dramatic story?’

Nurse Jeannie tipped her head towards mine. ‘Not unless you count plastic surgery and hair transplants as dramatic.’

We continued our progress up the corridor, past room 198.

‘So this Mr Levi, is he terribly disfigured, like The English Patient?’ I tried to peer at the notes she was carrying. ‘Or is he brain-damaged?’

‘Neither. His head scans are clear. There’s existing scarring over his torso from a childhood fire and he sustained a fractured pelvis and two broken legs from this latest episode, but there’s only temporary facial abrasions. The problem goes deeper than that. It says here that he seemed fine initially. Demanding the use of a phone as soon as he was out of Acute Admissions, sorting out some crisis in Morocco.’ Nurse Jeannie ran her pencil down his records. ‘But since he’s been referred to the Aura Clinic he’s stopped talking. So you see, most physical injuries, the outward signs, can be fixed with time. It’s the internal, invisible destruction that’s harder to heal.’

I glanced over at Pierre Levi’s door, at the hefty guard perched on a jolly yellow-moulded plastic chair that was too small. Someone had obviously instructed him to try to be inconspicuous by wearing a cheap suit instead of a uniform, but it wasn’t working. He and the gun holster that bulged under his arm looked totally out of place in these hushed, convent-like surroundings.

‘Maybe he’s naturally silent.’

‘Not by reputation. That’s the sad thing. You probably know that he was a renowned artistic live wire, creating these risqué shows full of music and dance and colour. And behind the scenes he was famous for his hot temper and even hotter girlfriends.’ Nurse Jeannie smiled brightly as the guard glared at her. ‘Dr Venska says he’s withdrawn. Assessing him is proving to be a tough ask.’

‘You mean she may as well try to spin gold out of straw?’

‘A great way of putting it, Rosa. Those fairy tales sprang from centuries of human experience, didn’t they? But yes. No one knows if he’ll ever be the same up here.’ Nurse Jeannie tapped at one raised eyebrow under her choppy sandy fringe. ‘The light has gone out.’

The glow of pleasure at my new boss’s approval swelled to unpleasant heat as we marched on. They’d kitted me out with a regulation white uniform, but although it was too loose the combination of nerves and synthetic material was making me sweat.

‘When will I meet him?’

‘Not for a few weeks, until he’s cleared for general access. Not until they arrest his attacker.’

* * *

But today’s the day I officially come face to face with Pierre Levi.

The madwoman who nearly killed him has finally been caught in New York. Apparently she was planning to perform a hat trick by harming both his brother Gustav and Gustav’s fiancée. There’s been a flurry of press interest over the last few days, resulting in raised levels of noise and activity, phones ringing, doors flinging open and closed, disrupting this normally hushed, secretive institution. The staff have got all hot under the collar, patting their hair, smoothing their white coats, dancing attendance on the high-ranking detectives and film crews.

My post at the nurses’ station filing notes and my other tasks such as scrubbing floors have made it easy to hover about trying to eavesdrop on what’s going on in room 202.

This morning, though, the fuss has died down. I’m early for once, and the wards are quiet. They seem deserted, though that’s just an illusion. There’s always someone within earshot of an alarm button. I get changed and as I settle at the desk to await instructions I spot the colourful cover of Wow! magazine, left on the shelf.

Not surprisingly, given all the brouhaha round here yesterday, it falls open at an article about Pierre Levi. There are brief details of the hit and run that landed him in here, the campaign of hate and the arrest in New York of this Margot Levi person, but the few mugshots and long-range pictures of stretchers, ambulances or police cars are far outnumbered by a series of bright, swirling photographs taken inside what looks like an old-fashioned music hall.

The title of the piece is: THE WAY HE WAS.

In the main photograph a dark man is standing centre stage, dressed in the black frock coat, floppy white collar and dandyish ribbon tie of Toulouse-Lautrec and other debauched artists. He’s motionless, in sharp focus. His eyes are trained steadily on the camera despite the kaleidoscope of movement whirling around him, burlesque dancers in a blur of lace and feathers, high-kicking legs, outstretched arms, frilly knickers, grinning red mouths. It’s highly stylised, the female dancers reminiscent of the ballerinas of Degas, the males and the stage design recalling Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge in Paris during the fin de siècle era.

Photographs by Serena Folkes.

Those black eyes are burning into the lens, burning through to the photographer. To the viewer. They may not be clouded with pain and drugs in this picture, but they’re the same eyes that opened and looked at me, all too briefly, in room 202.

‘I’m not sure I should have authorised those interviews, trusted broadsheets or not.’ Nurse Jeannie interrupts my thoughts, making me jump. She is rushing down the corridor, adjusting her breast watch and the neat row of pens in her pocket. ‘Mr Levi’s absolutely exhausted. He’s a little more communicative, but mostly to grumble. Dr Venska and I are concerned that all this attention might set him back.’

‘You look pretty knackered yourself,’ I tell her, flicking the magazine into my basket of clean towels. I busy myself lifting a pile of Dr Venska’s files off the spare chair. ‘Why don’t you take the weight off for a moment?’

‘Between you and me, I’m quite high on all the excitement.’ Nurse Jeannie eyes the chair longingly, but remains leaning across the shelf above me. ‘But yes, I am tired. So, as most of the others are on other duties this morning, how about you help me get him ready for the day?’

I sit upright, still holding the files. They still feel suspiciously flimsy. ‘Really? I’m going to meet the mysterious man in room 202 at last?’

‘Not so mysterious, Rosa. Don’t deny you’ve managed a few sneaky peeks at him during your night shifts.’

My mouth drops open. ‘How do you know that?’

Nurse Jeannie points up at a neat little camera screwed to the ceiling. At the series of identical cameras, angled at intervals down the corridor.

‘Our clients pay a premium for guaranteed security, Rosa. Which is why we try to call them clients, or guests, rather than patients. So we make it our business to know pretty much everything that goes on within these walls.’

Heat spreads up my throat and into my cheeks. At least the CCTV cameras aren’t inside the rooms. At least they can’t read my mind. Can’t read the thoughts I have of awakening that particular client, like the Sleeping Beauty, with love’s first kiss on those firmly closed lips.

‘I’ve just, I’ve just been checking on him, Nurse. These summer nights –’

Nurse Jeannie smirks. ‘You about to break into that song from Grease?’

I hesitate. I have to prove that I’m trustworthy.

‘He often requests the garden doors to his room be left open. Sometimes when I’m taking a break outside he calls out.’

‘Don’t look so anxious, Rosa. You’re not doing any harm. But it’s best you put away any ministering-angel notions. He’ll more than likely ignore you.’ Nurse Jeannie rubs at her closely cropped hair. ‘By the way, you had the right to know the bare facts about his history but remember, discretion is our priority, even for part-timers.’ She leans closer over the desk. ‘Unless they’re having a baby, or dying, it’s top secret why our clients come here.’

‘Understood, Nurse Jeannie.’ I tug at the white plastic belt I have buckled round my waist to try to make the sack-like uniform fit me better, but all it does is bunch the fabric and make my breasts and hips look enormous. ‘So what’s our mission?’

‘Well, as you’ve undergone the appropriate training, we’ll give him a wash. Most of them look forward to being bathed like babies, but our man in room 202 doesn’t like it. He’s obsessive about hiding his old scars, which is odd, as he doesn’t seem to care about his new injuries. However, as you know, cleanliness and hygiene are essential for every resident, no matter how grand they are. It’s the one time when we can treat them all the same. No arguments.’ Nurse Jeannie raises her arm to knock at the door. ‘Oh, and take the belt off, Rosa. It’s not a regulation accessory.’

I undo the belt, leave it on my chair. I smooth down the frumpy uniform, but it’s wrinkled and sweaty where it’s been cinched round my waist. No time to sort it out, or change. I pick up the basket of towels, slide the magazine under the top one.

Jeannie opens the door and pushes me in ahead of her.

‘Mr Levi? I’d like to introduce you to our newest recruit, Rosa Cavalieri. She joined us about the same time as you did. Before that she was living in Rome. Not sure why she would leave such a beautiful city but – well, between you and me I’m guessing it’s to do with a broken heart.’

‘Nurse Jeannie, I told you that in confidence! Mr Levi doesn’t want to hear a load of crap about me!’ I put the basket of towels down and fiddle with the metal tab of my zip. ‘I thought you said discretion was our top priority?’

There’s a creak from the shadowy bed and what sounds like a snuffle of laughter. But somehow I doubt that’s possible. Not after Nurse Jeannie has painted a picture of this patient as a cross between the Elephant Man and Hannibal Lecter.

‘Just trying to inject some personal touches into the proceedings, Rosa.’ Nurse Jeannie steps over to the other side of the bed. ‘I believe you’re earning some extra pennies here two or three days a week while you – what’s your other job, Rosa? Waitressing, was it?’

‘Something like that. I do evening work. In a bar.’ I run the zip up and down beneath my throat. ‘I don’t want to tempt fate by telling you any more about it, if you don’t mind.’

‘See? She’s perfect for our purposes. A hard worker. And discreet to the death.’ Nurse Jeannie’s brusque Scottish accent melts a little. ‘So we decided to throw her in the deep end and give you a lovely scrub down, Mr Levi. I hope you don’t mind.’

There’s no answer. Maybe he’s passed out. It’s boiling in here. It’s one of the hottest July days we’ve had but the occupant of room 202 has the curtains pulled and, from the lack of traffic noise, the windows shut. Perspiration prickles along my scalp but at least my hair isn’t catching in my eyes and sticking in tendrils to my neck.

Nurse Jeannie might not have got my vital statistics right but before every shift she has taken to pinning my unruly curls into a knot because I’m useless at fixing my own coiffure.

‘Part of the dress code’, she declares, 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 bed. A good-looking injured man, probably horribly frustrated and definitely in a lot of pain.

The way he was.

Give the poor guy a break. He’s only human.

Take a good look, mate, I say to him silently. Call the shots if it makes you feel better but you can’t touch me. You’re just flesh and blood and, let’s face it, you’re lying there with a bunch of bust bones.

I will his eyes to meet mine. And when they do the dullness has cleared, as if he read my thoughts. That’s more like it. Those thick eyelashes flare round the black irises. It’s like facing down a wild animal. A wounded wild animal.

I raise one finger and run it slowly up the damp crack between my breasts. A little test. Pierre Levi’s eyes narrow, giving nothing away. I pull demurely at my uniform.

Now I see it. I see the wetness of Pierre Levi’s tongue as it runs over his lower lip.

Nurse Jeannie got it wrong. They all got it wrong. Despite the useless body, the lifeless eyes, the cold hostility. Those terrible scars. Or maybe because of all that.

He’s still alive. And he’s still drop-dead gorgeous.

‘Rosa? I need the soap and water over here, please. Time’s ticking on. We do have other clients to see to.’

Nurse Jeannie’s voice is more abrupt than it needs to be, senior Matron or not. I suspect the sternness is for the client’s benefit, not mine. I nod calmly and go into the bathroom to collect the bathing stuff. I’ve washed countless clients since I started here but this is different.

I stare at my reflection in the bright mirror. I know what I’ve just seen lying in that bed. A once thrusting, successful player, struck down by murderous intent, racked with pain and hiding from the world. But what does he see when he looks at me?

A dark-skinned girlish face flushed from the heat. Barely tamed black hair springing away from my damp face in crazy ringlets. My brown eyes look huge, even without make-up. Like one of those marmosets up a tree, watching for the enemy. It’s as if I’m trying to see right through the glass, through the wall into the sick room.

What else? Yes. The tops of my breasts bulging through the half-pulled zip like something out of a Carry On film. I tug at it again, but it doesn’t budge. I pull the stiff fabric together, and pick up the washing lotions.

I’m going to have to remember every bullet point of my training.

He’s a patient, not a person. A body, not a being.

When I come out of the bathroom the moment has gone. Pierre Levi has collapsed against the pillow again, his eyes closed. He doesn’t want to see me, and he doesn’t want to see himself. Nurse Jeannie has moved the cage away from his legs and pulled the sheet and his pyjama trousers right down. I can’t see the legs. The more seriously broken left leg is encased in plaster. The right is wrapped in bandages. But the sheet has slipped away from his stomach, his groin, his bruised, swollen thighs. He is as naked as the day he was born.

And almost – almost – as helpless.

Nurse Jeannie stops talking and bends to her task with the soap and sponges. She directs me to hold the bowl while she runs the cloth over Pierre Levi’s eyes, behind his ears, nose and mouth, pushes his thick hair off his forehead so that it stands away in tufts. She squeezes the water out and takes a clean sponge to continue washing down his neck, over his chest. As she moves it slowly round each pec the nipples stiffen. She brushes the sponge across each tip, making it darken. His fingers curl into fists, but otherwise he doesn’t react.

It looks as if we are torturing him.

I stretch out and touch her hand, wet with soap and water.

‘Maybe we should stop this,’ I whisper, gulping on a ridiculous rush of tears. ‘He’s hating it.’

Nurse Jeannie’s face softens, but she shakes her head. She lays her hand on Pierre Levi’s chest.

‘You’ll feel better when you’re clean,’ she says quietly. ‘These restless nights you have.’

She squeezes the sponge, dribbles water playfully over his stomach, and starts to massage it in circular movements. My sister used to do that with her babies when they had colic.

With those long lashes fanned out over his cheeks and the hair pushed away from his eyes, Pierre’s face is more open and boyish. I long for him to catch me watching him. Maybe I could coax out another snuffle of laughter.

I look back at Nurse Jeannie. Now she is the one watching me. A glimpse of understanding crosses her round blue eyes as she rolls Mr Levi’s torso, turning him as far onto his side as his legs will allow so she can wash his back. Now he’s facing me. Still his eyes remain closed. Screwed tight shut again, as is his mouth. It really is as if he hates us.

Nurse Jeannie strokes the sponge over the mound of each buttock, up the crack between, down his thighs, then lays him gently on his back. She raises the sheet to do his feet and toes, smoothes the sponge back up and then dries him with the towel.

In any other situation there’d be more sexual response by now, however immobile the rest of him. Pierre Levi must have a will of steel to stop himself groaning under this feminine touch. His cock has plumped up slightly but it must be yearning to lift, straighten, stiffen, in anticipation of pleasure. Any other patient would offer a smutty joke or a muffled apology and get soothing amusement from the nurse. But not this one.

I know I’m supposed to be detached. I’m a care assistant. Pierre Levi is vulnerable and badly injured.

But to me he’s also an attractive, naked man lying on a bed.

I lay my hand on the mattress and stare past Jeannie, out past the neatly clipped topiary shapes decorating the clinic’s parched garden, up at the hot, blue sky hanging above the city. I’m barely aware that my fingertips are touching Pierre Levi’s hip because a memory from last summer, July in another hot city, another shadowy room where another naked man was lying, is searing through me.

The day my heart was broken.

I thought it would be a nice surprise. I had returned to Rome two days early from a jazz festival in Edinburgh. My boyfriend Daniele hadn’t been able to join me in Scotland, so I thought he’d be pleased to see me home so soon. Silly me. It was still dawn when I got off the airport train. The church bells were ringing over the domed and tiled rooftops. I could hear faint choral singing from the nuns up in the Trinita chapel as I crossed the Piazza di Spagna towards our apartment …

‘She’s gone off somewhere, nurse. Some nostalgic journey. Bring her back.’

‘Rosa? Would you like to have a go?’

I stare blankly at Nurse Jeannie and then down at Pierre Levi. While I was reminiscing his eyes have opened again. They are searching my face as if he can read exactly what is written there.

‘Yes, of course,’ I answer, shoving the bowl at her so roughly that the water slops over the edge. ‘Just the genitals left to do, was it?’

She nods, frowning at my tone. Pierre doesn’t blink, but he bites down on his lower lip. I refuse to meet his gaze. I tweak a fresh cloth from the dispenser, squirt on a big blob of soapy wash and thump the cloth onto Pierre’s lower abdomen. It lands too hard. The muscles tense beneath the blow. Rock-hard muscles. So he has been working on his physio.

My hand in its surgical glove rests there for a moment, letting the anger at what Daniele did to me seep out. I start to make circles over Pierre Levi, moving lower with each circuit, until I reach his groin. I pause. He’s not paralysed. Nothing wrong with his arms. He could easily stop me doing this at any point if he really objected. His velvety penis is no longer soft. Quietly, no doubt reluctantly, it’s coming to life. It’s unfurling, straightening along his thigh. I take it into the palm of my hand, lift it away from his leg, run the cloth firmly from the base to the tip, down again, smooth the cloth over the strip of perineum, feel it grow, balance the heavy balls in my hand.

Daniele’s cock was thicker than this. Shorter. Some might have said it was small. But since when did size matter? It used to batter its way greedily inside me. Oh, God. In the early days of our relationship, those nights of unadulterated lust, the moment Daniele thrust into me stars would explode in my head.

‘A little more gently, Rosa.’ Nurse Jeannie halts my train of thought. ‘It’s a fine line, isn’t it, Mr Levi? Making sure such a personal activity is conducted with total professionalism.’

To my relief he doesn’t reply. Just lies there with a tight, agonised expression on his face as if I’m about to slice him open without anaesthetic.

Daniele’s cock seemed to be permanently ready. Permanently hard. But then again, he wasn’t recovering from a near-fatal accident, was he? Pierre Levi may not be fully erect but it most definitely is not, as Dr Venska’s notes claim, entirely unresponsive. It has flushed darker and a pulse deep inside is shifting it in my hand.

I swallow. If this was Daniele lying here at my mercy I’d be lowering my face into his groin by now, feeling the heat beating off it, opening my mouth, flicking my tongue around the base of the warm shaft.

I try to hide my impure thoughts by giving Pierre a quick smile. I don’t mean the smile lasciviously. I hope he gets that. I mean it as reassurance, and I hope he gets that, too. Although I don’t really care either way. I may not be the good little professional, but I’m aware of patient protocol, of keeping that essential distance, and it works to my advantage, too. I’m more than capable of withdrawing behind my own protective barrier when life gets too intrusive.

Pierre Levi isn’t the only one with that privilege.

His cock sits in my hand, harder now. But a stiffening cock is the last thing I need to handle. What Daniele did with his, what I saw him doing that misty morning, nearly finished me.

I’ve been celibate for a year. Another year will do me absolutely fine.

Nurse Jeannie’s pager bleeps just as I’m rolling back Pierre Levi’s foreskin.

‘Sorry, I have to get down to admissions. Can you finish off alone, Rosa? Not normally our procedure with the newer girls, but I think you can cope. Is that all right with you, Mr Levi?’

‘Whatever, Matron. I’m just counting the days when I no longer have to submit to this humiliation.’

‘Rules is rules, Mr Levi.’

Nurse Jeannie puts the bowl of water down on the table-trolley and leaves the room.

There is silence for a moment. I’m still gripping his cock between my finger and thumb. It has grown while I’ve been standing here daydreaming. I can feel it swelling and hardening in my fingers, through the latex of my glove.

Bravo, Mr Levi. Your tackle is thicker now than Daniele’s ever was.

I puff air through my lips, meaning it to be silent, but it comes out as a low whistle.

‘Now the sergeant major’s gone, how about we break those bloody rules?’

I wipe the rounded end as it noses out of the delicate sheath. ‘What do you mean?’

Pierre Levi turns his head towards the window. The bee is still there, crawling blindly into its own reflection.

‘You’re the first person, the first member of staff, who’s questioned this ghastly morning ritual. Actually, it’s more than that. You can see how I feel about it.’

‘Maybe some of the patients like it? Even the ones who are perfectly capable of washing themselves, like you are.’ Even so, I pause what I’m doing. ‘Maybe that’s why the ritual was introduced?’

‘A little surreptitious pleasuring to keep the customers happy, you mean? A bonus in the pay packet if there’s a happy ending? You’d make a good sex worker, Cavalieri.’ The ghost of a smile plays around Pierre’s lips as he keeps looking at the window. ‘Why didn’t Nurse Jeannie think of that? We’re all poor frustrated fools in here. The men at least. And normally I’d be all for a gorgeous girl with lips like pillows touching me up.’

‘We’re not touching you up,’ I interrupt him, unwrapping my fingers. ‘We’re washing you. But if you find it humiliating then I’ll stop.’

‘Yes, please do. I don’t want you treating me as if I was a baby. It’s degrading. But then again, there’s nothing normal about any of this. There’s certainly nothing normal about me.’

I pull the sheet back over, just covering him, but the stiff shape is still visible, making a tent out of the white cotton. Pierre knows perfectly well what just happened. He glances down at it, then at me. His face relaxes. The cheekbones are less sharp, the brows less hooded.

Then he winks. I’m not imagining it, because I can feel it. The heat flooding through my body. Goddammit, I haven’t blushed in years, but here it comes. Into my face like a beacon for all to see.

‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ I say, pulling the gloves off with a snap.

‘What, blush like a schoolgirl?’

‘No. Yes. No, I don’t mean that.’ I turn away, toss the gloves into the basket of towels still by my feet. ‘I mean I’ve only been working here a few weeks and you’ve already made me break the rules. Not washing you this morning could get me the sack.’

He snorts. ‘You want to wash people’s sorry arses the rest of your life?’

I look back at him, trying to read the blackness in his eyes. They are pulling me under, daring me to drown.

‘It’s not the job of my dreams, Mr Levi, but those are the regulations and I need the work. And you know what? I applied to come here because this haven for the rich and entitled pays well over the odds to wash people’s “sorry arses”.’

‘I like it!’ This time he really chuckles. ‘I like you! The other carers are all so fucking serious. I was only taking the piss, Rosie. That’s the way I am. I’ve got fuck all else to do in here, have I?

I move the frame back into position and sweep the light duvet back over him.

‘Rosa. It’s Rosa. And you may be bored witless, but you could try being a little more polite to people who are only following instructions.’ I try, and fail, to push my curls back into place. ‘Shedloads of money shouldn’t equal zero manners. It should mean better manners. So I’m not disobeying any more rules, no matter how nicely you ask.’

‘OK, Rosa. Consider my wrist well and truly slapped. I won’t tell if you won’t.’ He hands me a kirby grip that has dropped out of my hair. ‘But I’m now going to consider it my goal to test how many other rules I can get you to break. Pushing at the boundaries is my pathetic attempt to go back, you see. To be the same as I was before.’

I pick up the bowl and the cloths and the gloves. I hesitate, halted by the pain in his voice. His face settles into the white, expressionless mask I saw when I came in. But no. Don’t weaken. Remain professional at all times. Master and servant. Customer and employee.

As I turn to retreat I trip over the basket of towels, sending them flying. The magazine flips out and lands on top of them.

‘What’s that? Brought me some gossip?’

I open it to the right page and turn it to show him. He takes it from me, stares at it for a long time. The silence stretches again. The bee at the window skids across the glass and escapes at last.

‘It’s an article about you. I was reading it earlier, and you know something? My sister saw that show in New York. I remember her telling me.’ I tap at the photograph. ‘She said it was amazing. Very naughty. You had to go along dressed in period costume, and the cast mingled with the audience and dragged you onto this walkway, onto the stage, until you all became part of the performance.’

‘Yes. I know all that,’ Pierre sighs. ‘I designed it.’

‘Carlo, her husband, thought it was ace. Then again, he’s pretty bloody naughty himself.’

I clamp my mouth shut, but it’s too late. Pierre Levi lowers the magazine. His eyes are enormous, his eyelids drooping with the weight of sadness.

‘It says here, “The Way He Was.”’

‘Francesca said you were awesome. Like a ringmaster, you know, controlling all the animals.’

‘I was amazing. You see? It’s all in the past, Rosie. I don’t know who I am any more.’

‘You’re Pierre Levi, of course.’ I take the magazine out of his hands. ‘Here you are. In this magazine. A handsome, strong, successful man surrounded by brilliant dancing girls.’

Pierre turns his face towards the window. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here but the sun has climbed higher in the sky and the heat is beating the energy out of the air.

‘So what do you see now, Rosie? Who do you see?’

‘I see a man, a patient, in a lot of pain.’ I try to remember the psycho-speak we were advised to use during training, for defusing difficult, upsetting situations. ‘You need to rest now.’

‘I’ll tell you what I am. I’m no longer the circus master. I’m one of those animals, but I’m not dancing any more. I’m caged up. Chained. Hobbled.’

He knocks at the frame, dislodging the duvet. I step forward, pull it back into place.

‘Temporarily, maybe. But you’re the same man, Mr Levi. Just with some broken bones. They’ll heal in the end, and then you’ll be as good as new.’

‘You’re a doctor now?’

‘No. I’m not even a proper nurse. But I do know that there’s one part of you that can never change, or lie.’

We gaze at each other, and then down at the bed. The sheet has subsided and is lying smooth and snowy across him.

A deep dimple appears in his cheek, and a bubble of laughter fizzes inside me, too.

‘What bit’s that then, Cavalieri? The one you’ve just kindly covered up?’

‘The eyes, Mr Levi! The eyes! They’re –’

He presses his hands down on mine, where they are still resting on top of the duvet, and we laugh.

Being in here is like being caught up in a freak storm, where one minute thunder clouds are turning the world black, the next a multi-coloured rainbow is arching over the sky promising a heatwave.

‘Go on.’

‘Lovely black eyes, Mr Levi. In this picture, and in real life. They’re piercing and bright, like a raven, or a –’

‘Ratsnake?’

His hands are white from lack of natural light, and too thin from lack of appetite, and still covered in dried scratches, but they’re large, and warm. I sense that they’re strong, or they soon will be again. They could stroke you, or hold you, or lift you –

‘Seal. I was going to say a baby seal.’

‘Before they club it?’ He lifts my hands as if to use them as weapons.

‘No! I meant big, you know, and appealing –’

Pierre’s laugh is stronger now, a slow, lazy rumble that comes up from his chest. He drops my hands gently, reaches for an apple and polishes it absently against the sheet.

‘Well, you may not have washed me to Nurse Jeannie’s exacting standards this morning but you’ve achieved something far more significant, Miss Rosie,’ he says, chuckling, taking such a greedy bite that juice sprays into the air. ‘I’ve talked more to you in half an hour than I ever have to Dr Venska! And believe me, this is the first time anyone’s made me laugh.’

‘Voila. So allow me to give you my diagnosis, Mr Levi.’ I open the door and the mid-morning trolley bursts through. ‘What you really need is a kick up your sorry arse.’

CHAPTER TWO

I’m standing in Nurse Jeannie’s office. I’m expecting a grilling. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, but I can’t think why else I’m in here.

‘I haven’t had time to speak to you since I left you on your own with Mr Levi the other day and I see it’s been more than a month now since you started here. So I thought it was time for an assessment, Rosa. You might benefit from some feedback. A lot of our clients have perked up significantly since you started working here.’

She hands me a sheet of paper. I stare at it while I try to take in what she’s just said.

‘I wasn’t expecting such a nice – you mean you’re not telling me off?’ I say, still hovering in front of her desk. ‘So what have they said about me?’

‘As you know we regularly ask our clients to assess the staff by means of our questionnaire, and I have to tell you the comments made on your performance to date have been very positive.’ Nurse Jeannie leafs through my personnel file. ‘A lot of them enjoy their chats when you’re on duty. You’re obviously completing all the washing and cleaning tasks while you discuss the movies or holidays or the new royal baby or whatever it is you gossip about, because I’ve had no complaints from anyone on the quality of your work.’

She looks up at me and taps her pen on the folder.

‘That’s great,’ I mumble, trying to read the remarks upside down. Has she sussed that there’s one patient who is not getting the regulation morning wash? ‘So I’m doing OK, then.’

‘More than OK. And that goes for the staff as well as the clients. We all like having you here. I like having you here.’ She coughs and taps the pen against her mouth. ‘I know you’re busy juggling these two jobs, but I wanted to make sure you’re quite happy. Not planning to move on any time soon?’

‘What makes you say that? I love it here.’

‘Any aspect in particular?’ She draws the tip of the pen between her lips. ‘Any one person who you’re becoming extra fond of?’

She sucks on the pen and waits for me to answer.

‘We’re not allowed favourites. You told me that.’

‘Come on. We’re all human. I’ve seen a special little smile on your face some days.’ Nurse Jeannie laughs, pulling the pen out of her mouth with a little pop. ‘A rather fetching blush when you’re doing your rounds? Anything you want to confide in me, Rosa? You can tell me anything, you know that.’

I straighten, pull back my shoulders as if preparing to salute. ‘Absolutely no personal or physical interaction which could jeopardise or interfere with the fulfilment of the clinic’s stated objective, which is professionally and discreetly to aid recovery. I think that’s rule 32 in the etiquette book.’

She flicks her fingers, as if getting rid of some dust.

‘Oh, there are ways of making exceptions! So long as the relationship is subtle, you know. Out of hours. So long as it, well, I suppose any dates could take place off site.’

I frown at her, trying hard not to look ignorant or rude. ‘Off site? But he can barely move at the moment, let alone get up to anything off the premises. In any case he hasn’t a clue –’

‘He?’

‘Er, I –’ I bite the inside of my cheek to stop my face flooding red. ‘We are talking about a patient here? I mean, whether or not I might be transgressing the client-to-carer status?’

Nurse Jeannie straightens abruptly, dropping her pen.

‘Actually I was talking about carer-to-carer status, as you so militarily put it. As far as I’m aware there are no rules against staff members getting close.’

‘Staff members? I’m sorry, Nurse Jeannie. You’ve totally lost me. Carer-to-carer?’

She turns her back, so there’s no way of reading those wide blue eyes. She pulls open the top drawer of a metal filing cabinet with an ear-splitting screech.

‘Do I really need to spell it out? I mean, you know, a doctor having an affair with a nurse. A matron with an assistant. A carer copping off with a porter. Staff relationships. Oh, forget it. Barking up the wrong tree. Let’s start again. Who are we talking about here? Who is the “he” who can barely move?’ She stops rifling in the drawer. ‘I’m guessing you’re talking about the occupant of room 202?’

I don’t reply. My heart is sinking too fast. We haven’t been alone since that first time, there’s always been a colleague with me, but in barely a handful of days, in just a couple of snatched conversations, it looks like Pierre Levi’s achieved his goal, which is to cause me to break another cardinal rule. If I admit to him, or Nurse Jeannie, or even to myself, that I’ve started counting the hours till I’m in his room again, I’ll be for the high jump.

‘Perhaps you should change my rota, Nurse Jeannie. Move me to a different ward. I’m not admitting to anything, but, well, I’d hate to venture into forbidden waters.’

Nurse Jeannie slams the drawer shut.

‘And I don’t want to – we don’t want to lose you, Rosa. I might have to keep a closer eye on your interpersonal skills, make sure you’re not stepping over any lines, but you’re in demand. I’m not going to change your shifts or rotas. For the moment.’

‘Thank you, Nurse Jeannie. But I still don’t quite understand –’

‘You’ve become very valuable in a very short space of time, Rosa. I don’t need to tell you how beneficial to our publicity it is to garner positive praise from our high-profile patients. And believe me, there have been some very colourful comments. You’re in danger of breaking one or two hearts there.’ Nurse Jeannie runs her finger across the name badge pinned to my breast. ‘And although I shouldn’t specify one particular example, you should know that Mr Levi has vastly improved in the last few days. Even so, you have to remember that our clients are way more vulnerable than they care to admit.’

‘So I’m not in any trouble, then.’

‘I will have to keep an eye on you, but with the best possible motives, Rosa.’ Nurse Jeannie moves her hand up to touch my cheek. ‘We want to avoid any breach of clinic etiquette, don’t we?’

I nod, feeling my way round this odd conversation. On the one hand Nurse Jeannie seemed about to chastise me for getting close to one of the staff, but now she’s being, if anything, extra friendly and tactile. I’m tempted to tell her why there’s a special smile on my face when I walk past his room, why I’m blushing. I’m tempted to tell her, because she’s obviously guessed, about the lurching sensation I get, deep inside, whenever I think of Pierre Levi’s flat stomach. The dark hair of his groin. The warm, throbbing life of him, held in my hand.

How can I tell her it makes me want to come when I remember Pierre Levi’s cock lifting as if in greeting when she first left us alone together?

Nurse Jeannie bites the end of her pen.

‘Is it because he’s young, and male, and easily the most attractive inmate we have, and we’re asking you to do fairly intimate things to him?’

I stare at her. ‘Christ! Does nursing training include mind-reading as well?’

‘It’s not so difficult. Your face is an open book, Rosa.’ She raises her hands in mock admission. ‘That’s one of the reasons I hired you. Emotional accessibility, within the parameters, is great for customer relations. I doubt I’m the only one who can read you. Whatever happened in Rome, it left you sore and wary of men. Am I right? You’ve been avoiding potential, you know, involvement. Am I right again?’

‘I was a vibrant, happy girl a year ago. Now I’m a boring old spinster.’

I shrug, unable to speak. My throat is thick with tears.

‘You’re not old or boring, Rosa. You’re a beautiful young woman, if only you came out of your shell and realised it.’ Nurse Jeannie pauses. ‘And you’re not alone, remember that. You’re never alone.’

‘You mean we’re one big happy family here?’

‘I’d like to think so. In the staffroom, anyway.’ Nurse Jeannie stands up. ‘Would it help if I told you, totally off the record, that Pierre Levi’s comments on your performance are the most complimentary of all?’

I stare at her smiling face and feel my own face flooding red hot.

‘Really? Even though I’ve only really met him once?’

‘Funny. That’s exactly what he said.’ Nurse Jeannie keeps her eyes on me. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Be careful there, Rosa. He has a reputation.’

‘Yeah. I’ve been reading Wow! magazine, too.’ I catch myself, but she’s still grinning. ‘Honestly, Nurse Jeannie. He’s got two broken legs, post-traumatic stress and insomnia. How dangerous can he be?’

Nurse Jeannie closes my folder and holds it against her chest. ‘He’s recovering from severe injuries but you can’t deny the charisma’s still there. For those who could be susceptible. And I don’t just mean you.’

I tip my chin up in an effort to look defiant, and to hide the twinge of jealousy.

‘Why? Who else is likely to fall under his spell?’

‘Anyone who gets too close to the flame might get burned. That’s all I’m going to reveal. Our rules are in place for a reason. On the record you must remember at all times that he and all the others are our patients. What the French call les malades. We, the staff, we’re the strong ones. Not just physically. Mentally we’re in charge, too, until our charges are better and ready to leave us.’

My blush increases and I turn away to open the door to her office. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Nurse Jeannie. I’ll be the epitome of professionalism from now on.’

She comes over and puts her arm round me.

‘Listen, my assessment of your probation period isn’t solely based on Mr Levi’s comments, though I’ve singled them out because he’s, well, higher profile than most. Everyone has noticed the escalation in his progress since those first grim weeks when he was admitted. He’s sitting up, he’s eating more, he’s doing well with his physio to strengthen his upper body – in short, he’s thriving. We like to think we achieve all that as a team, but you’re part of that team, Rosa, and judging by what he’s written here you’re very much part of his recovery, too.’

I let her push me out of her office and we stand together for a moment. She’s still got her arm around me. No one is around. I don’t know how professional or otherwise this is, but I press my lips against her round cheek and give her a kiss.

‘Thank you, Nurse Jeannie. That’s really given me a boost.’

‘Good. And our Mr Levi has had a bit of a boost, too, this morning. He’s just received some momentous news.’ She squeezes me then pulls away, rubbing at the newly peroxided tips of her hair. ‘His attacker, Margot Levi, the woman they arrested? She’s just died in prison.’

I look away from her, down the corridor. ‘Divine justice.’

‘By all accounts she was an absolute monster. But Mr Levi wanted his day in court. He would have revelled in seeing her punished properly for what she did. Personally I think it will be better for his state of mind if he is spared all that.’

‘I wonder if he’s OK?’

‘You can go and see him when he’s next on your list.’ She taps my rota sheet. ‘But know this, Rosa. I will be asking him for full feedback afterwards.’

‘Received and understood. And Nurse Jeannie?’ I grab at her arm again. ‘Thank you.’

She pauses, leans in against my cheek and whispers, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but I – well, I like you, Rosa. I really like you.’

She puts her finger to her lips and walks away. I dance a little jig while nobody’s watching. Now I can’t wait for my next rota slot to admit me to room 202. In fact I’m due to finish soon, so, if he’s going to write nice things about me, I want Pierre Levi to say them to my face.

I knock on room 202 and slide in.

It’s the evening, and the sun is shafting in through the garden door, right across his face. But Pierre Levi isn’t avoiding the daylight today. In fact, he’s sitting up in bed, his bright-blue silk pyjama top unbuttoned to halfway down his chest. The frame has been pushed to the end of the bed, the sheet drawn off his poor legs, but he’s facing the sun. Somewhat unnecessarily he’s wearing sunglasses. Is it really to shield his eyes? Shield himself from prying eyes? Or an attempt to regain some of his cool?

‘Haven’t come to try and wash me have you, Rosie?’

I laugh and come up to the bed. ‘No. I’m just clocking off, actually. I just wanted to thank you for the glowing report you provided for my assessment.’

‘Not a problem. I know how important independent validation can be.’

‘That sounds very formal.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to. You cheered me up the other day. Not an easy task.’ He pauses, leans back against the pillows. ‘So what do you do when you clock off? Turn into a pumpkin?’

‘Sort of. I have to change out of this horrible uniform and put some other clothes on and get to my other job.’

‘Another uniform? Do tell me about it, Rosie.’ He waves me towards the visitor’s chair beside the garden door. ‘Tell me about life outside this infernal room.’

‘Nothing much to tell. I live on a houseboat.’ I sit down and the shiny leather squeaks. ‘On the river Thames, obviously, down on Cheyne Walk.’

‘Eccentric. But adorable.’ He yawns, rolling a red grape between his fingers so listlessly it’s as if the fruit weighs a ton. ‘On your own?’

‘I used to live there with my sister, Francesca. The one who saw you performing in New York. But then she went to Rome, and then I followed her, and we lived together there until she met Carlo, and then she went to New York and I came back here. Back to the houseboat.’

He doesn’t say anything. Just pops the grape into his mouth and holds it there for a moment.

‘Shall I go, Mr Levi? You seem –’

‘What about this moonlighting lark? You said you worked in a bar?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, come on, Rosie, Give me more than that. What do you do? Serve drinks? Mix cocktails? Wipe down the tables? Bounce undesirables out of the door?’

‘Not exactly. I told you, it’s pretty hush-hush. I’m not really allowed to say.’

He swallows the grape, spits the pip out on to the floor. Tears another one off the bunch.

‘What do you wear? For work? When you take that hideous overall off?’

‘A dress. A smart dress. Look, Mr Levi, I ought to go. I’ll be late.’

I stand up, pushing the chair roughly against the wall. At last Pierre seems to notice me. The black glasses turn towards the noise I’ve made.

‘I’m sorry, Rosie. I’m not great company, am I? A bit down today. But I’ve been waiting to catch you alone. I wanted to ask you something.’

I step between the garden door and the bed, so that I can see him clearly. I can see my questioning face reflected in the blackness of his glasses.

‘I’m not about to break any other rules, if that’s what you’re getting at. Nurse Jeannie’s on to me as it is. She’s watching me like a hawk.’

I watch for it, and here it comes. The slight smile, twitching at the upper lip. I can get to him. I know I can.

‘Is it breaking the rules to ask you why you looked so sad the other morning? When you went off into a daydream and Nurse Jeanie had to drag you back to the more pressing business of cleaning my cock?’

I half gasp, half giggle at the sudden introduction of the word into the quiet room.

‘Hah! Got your attention, didn’t I? I don’t have much to think about in here other than my own deep dark secrets. I’ve tried asking the other carers to spill, tell me something about their lives, something really searing and intimate, preferably X-rated, but it’s like Big Brother’s watching them. No one will play ball.’

I get a grip.

‘And you think I’ll spill because –’

‘Because if you don’t share, if you don’t let out all that angst, it’ll poison you. And you’ll never be able to love again.’

‘Pierre Levi, the soothsayer.’ I realise I’m leaning on the bed, my hands by his leg. ‘Who said anything about angst?’

‘Written all over that lovely face of yours.’ He grins as he waits for me to get my breath back. ‘Well? Was it to do with the bloke in Rome?’

‘What bloke in Rome?’

‘The one who broke your heart? Come on. Humour me, Rosie.’ He picks up a pair of dumb-bells. ‘Tell me what that bastard did to you. Get it all off that magnificent chest of yours. Oops, another rule, I dare say. Thou shalt not comment on the contours of the sexy female staff.’

‘Rule 63, I think you’ll find.’ I lower my head so he can’t see me smiling. ‘You don’t want to hear about my miserable little life.’

‘It’s not a request, Cavalieri.’

‘You remember my surname?’

‘I remember everything about people I meet. Especially the pretty ones. It used to be my job. I used to read faces. Paint faces. Create faces for a living.’ He puts one of the dumb-bells down, reaches out and takes my arm as I straighten. ‘Which is why I want to know more. I need entertaining in here, Rosie. Otherwise I’m going to go mad.’

I hesitate. I was lying about the evening job. I’m not due at the bar tonight.

‘Think of it as research,’ he presses. ‘I’m thinking of writing a musical set in a clinic.’

I burst out laughing. I’ve not laughed much in the last year, especially not in the presence of a single white male.

Pierre grins at me, lifting the dumb-bells up and down, his biceps bulging.

‘And I like you, Rosie. There aren’t many people in my life I like or trust, I can tell you.’

‘Damning with faint praise?’

‘It’s the best you’re going to get.’

‘I’ll take it. You’re the second person today who’s told me they like me.’

And if that gets his attention, so much the better.

I push myself away from the bed and stretch, running my hands absent-mindedly under my hair, loosening it from its pins. As it starts to fall down my back I realise it’s going to make me hot again, so I catch it before it comes completely undone.

‘Come back here, ragamuffin. Let me sort you out. You want to look smart for work tonight, don’t you?’ Pierre puts the dumb-bells down, beckons to me to come over. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m sure a touch of hairdressing is allowed. Call it, I don’t know, grooming. No, that doesn’t sound right. Why am I always so inappropriate when you’re around?’

‘Maybe it’s your default setting?’

I bundle my hair into my hands, still with my back to him. I try to pin it up again, but the grips scatter all over the floor.

‘Toilette. That’s the right word. Get over here and let me do it, Cavalieri.’

I turn reluctantly. ‘This is all a bit random, isn’t it?’

‘I never do anything at random.’

‘What if Nurse Jeannie walks in?’

‘I used to work on fashion shoots. My French pleats are second to none. If the dragon questions it I’ll tell her I’m prepared to offer the same service to everyone in here. For a vast fee.’ He removes his sunglasses and folds them into a case. ‘Now come and sit here where I can reach you, and start talking.’

‘It’s hardly entertaining,’ I say as I sit down. ‘The massacre of my relationship.’

Pierre Levi pulls all the pins out of my hair, puts them in his mouth like an old seamstress and combs it out, away from my hot scalp. His fingers slow as he runs them down to the ends, nearly touching my waist. My head tips involuntarily, relishing the contact, the touch, little electric currents running up my hair to the sensitive roots.

‘The bloodier the better! Think of yourself as, I don’t know, Scheherazade. You know, A Thousand and One Nights.’

‘Cosa?’

He separates my hair into strands and rapidly starts to plait it.

‘Tell me a story every day. Otherwise I’ll have to kill you.’

‘On one condition. That every time I tell you about myself, or even on the days when I don’t, you do ten extra abdominal crunches or whatever the physios tell you to do. That way you can exercise your way out of this gloomy, self-pitying –’

‘OK. OK. Deal. I’ll work out. I’ll get stronger. Now start talking.’

He has stopped stroking my hair and is working briskly, tugging it away from the roots, twisting it into a tight plait, coiling it Heidi-style on top of my head.

‘I was living with this guy in Rome. Daniele. He was, he is, a chef. I met him when I was working as a waitress in his restaurant.’

‘You’re a grafter, Cavalieri. I’ll give you that.’

He gives me a little pat to show me he’s finished. His hand rests for a moment in the small of my back, warmth permeating the unyielding fabric of my uniform.

‘I came home early from a trip. To surprise him.’

‘Fatal.’

‘I didn’t call out when I got to the apartment because it was the crack of dawn and I figured he’d still be asleep. I went into our galley kitchen and put some coffee on. The place was a mess. That’s when I should have smelled a rat. Daniele’s your typical tyrannically organised chef. But there was dirty crockery in the sink, empty wine bottles in the rubbish, the remains of a meal on the table.’ I get up. His hand slides off my back as I move away from him to the garden door. ‘I didn’t even stop to wonder why there were two wine glasses and two dinner plates. I just noticed they were smeared with the remains of his signature aubergine sauce. How stupid am I?’

I pause, watching a pigeon sidestepping along a branch of the spreading beech tree in the centre of the garden.

‘Go on.’

‘He’d left the knives and forks at right angles on either side of the used plates in the continental fashion. That was odd, too, because our little private joke was that he had learned to place his knife and fork primly together at six o’clock, in the English style.’

‘The little details,’ Pierre remarks, dropping a couple of extra hairgrips into a saucer on his side table. ‘They hurt, don’t they?’

‘In the fridge was a bowl of tiramisu. How lovely of him, I thought. It’s my favourite. But why had he made such a big pudding when we were supposed to be going on holiday to Puglia? Anyway, while the coffee brewed I took off my sweaty clothes and pushed them into the washing machine. Decided to get my one clean négligé out of my bag –’

I turn from the door, the back of my neck prickling, but Pierre isn’t looking at me. He’s staring straight ahead, at the opposite wall, puffing his cheeks out as he lifts the dumb-bells, apparently counting his lifts.

‘Go on. About the négligé. You’re talking my language now. I never tire of hearing about lingerie. The flimsier and more see-through the better.’

‘You’re putting me off.’

‘Sorry, signorina. Proceed.’

I kick at the doorstep, unsure whether to wrap up this story – or ramp it.

‘I made him a tray. Can you believe it? So devoted. Two slightly stale pastries and the espressos. I tiptoed across the hall. The bedroom door was ajar. I pushed it with my knee.’

‘Your poor bare knee under that silky négligé. About to get a horrible shock.’ Pierre’s voice has gone very deep, very quiet. ‘Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t stop it hurting.’

I turn round so I can see him while I tell him this bit.

‘Daniele wasn’t asleep.’

Pierre Levi’s black eyes meet mine. His face is calm, but serious.

‘Of course he wasn’t. What was he doing, Rosie? What exactly was he doing in your bedroom?’

‘What are you – why would you want to know the gory details?’

‘To help you, of course. And because I’m a pervert.’

I laugh. Right in the middle of telling a virtual stranger how my boyfriend cheated on me. Pierre grins back at me, but he doesn’t join in the laughter.

‘You’ve been in this situation, haven’t you?’ I say slowly, peering closer into his face. ‘You’ve been caught just like Daniele.’

Pierre’s shadowy black eyes hold mine for a moment, then slide away.

‘Right first time. I’ve always been the other man. I’m the one who cuckolds the husbands.’

I lean back against the door frame.

‘You really are a bastard.’

His eyes snap back to mine. ‘You’ve got it, sweetheart. That’s me.’

We stare each other out. He’s daring me to falter. I’m daring him to regret what he’s done in the past.

‘The bedroom was in darkness. I didn’t believe what I was seeing at first.’ I keep my voice steady and low, keep my eyes on his. ‘There was just a seam of light glowing around the edges of the shutters. We painted those shutters together. Duck-egg blue. There’s a balcony outside where we used to sit with wine or coffee at night, looking at all the lovers and students and tourists sitting and smoking and chatting on the Spanish Steps.’

Pierre thumps the dumb-bells on to his table. ‘I’d love to visit Rome.’

‘Daniele was wide awake. He was never wide awake at that time of the morning! He was kneeling up on our bed, taking his weight on his arms. I could see his bottom sticking up in the air. Butt naked, white against the dimness.’

I stop. The phone on the nurses’ station rings. We’re both reminded of where we are and what we’re supposed to be doing. I shouldn’t be here. My shift ended hours ago.

‘Don’t be shy. Let it all out.’

I hesitate. ‘Just one thing, Mr Levi. If you’re so into all this sharing, letting it all out, if this is such marvellous therapy, why aren’t you co-operating with Dr Venska? Why don’t you articulate all your issues with her instead of refusing to talk?’

‘I thought those notes were confidential.’

I drum my fingers on my arm, bite my lip while I wait for him to cave in. The silence stretches to the brink of awkwardness, and then he shrugs.

‘We’re talking about you right now, Cavalieri. Not me. But who knows? Maybe I’ll try it next time Venska comes steaming in here. Maybe I’ll give her what she wants!’ He grins so devilishly that a minuscule part of me feels sorry for the haughty therapist. ‘Go on, Rosie. What else did you see in that bedroom? Apart from your cheating boyfriend’s naked backside?’

My face is aching with the effort of keeping some semblance of cool before this interrogation.

‘There was a girl underneath. Legs wrapped round him. I knew those short stumpy legs. I knew exactly who it was. She was from the restaurant. The sous chef. She’s always been after him.’

I shake my head, feel the hot angry tears pricking my eyes.

‘What was he doing to her, Rosie? Use the exact words!’

‘He was fucking her.’ I stop. Let the word reverberate.

‘Again. Say it again.’

‘He was fucking her like he used to fuck me, hard, like a fight. She was bouncing about, moaning, head tossed back, he was inside her, my boyfriend. Mine. I wanted to be sick.’

Pierre is silent for once. He nods, his hands resting loosely on his broken legs.

‘It was awful, compelling, like watching a car crash.’ I grip the back of the visitor’s chair. ‘I should have run away, shouted something, but I just stood there. They were so engrossed they didn’t see me. Our bed was creaking, my favourite pillow had slipped off; the wooden frame was banging against the wall. Bang, bang, bang. He and I painted that wall.’

‘I can see it all. So clearly,’ Pierre murmurs. ‘I can hear it, too. I bet the bitch came first. A proper little screamer.’

I shouldn’t, but I smirk, because it’s true. She did scream, because she thought no one was listening. I’ve gone over that scenario so many times, but hearing Pierre’s take on it, his nasty additional flourish, has taken the sting right out of it.

Pierre has closed his eyes now. Beads of sweat dot his brow, and one of his hands slides off his leg on to the sheet.

‘I should go.’

I stand up and lean closer to him, pat the bed near his hand. His hand shoots out and grabs mine.

‘Tell me the end. What did you do? Tell me you didn’t just creep away like a thief in the night, Rosie.’

I look down at our hands. Mine is enfolded inside the stern cradle of his like a child’s, as if he’s the adult about to stop me running across a busy road.

‘She may be a screamer, but I’m not a runner, Mr Levi.’ I wiggle my fingers, expecting him to let go, but he holds on tighter, his eyes still closed. ‘I turned round, went back into the kitchen, got the tiramisu out of the fridge, took it into the bedroom and tipped the bowl over them. Chocolate and mascarpone and wet sponge fingers everywhere.’

Pierre opens his eyes. They’re bloodshot with fatigue now, but he grins, lifts his hands, and claps.

‘Brava, signorina! Brava!’

Even though it’s mock applause I drop into a silly curtsy, making the nylon of my uniform crackle. I back away from him across the shiny floor.

‘Hey, Cavalieri!’ Pierre Levi calls as I get to the door. ‘How do you feel now?’

The drugs trolley and the arriving night shift, the phones and the squeaking of rubber-soled shoes all trickle into the quiet bedroom as I open the door.

‘Better, Mr Levi. Much, much better!’

CHAPTER THREE

‘You’re breaking up!’

Francesca’s face freezes on my laptop. She continues speaking even while her mouth remains fixed in an O, as if she’s choking on a walnut.

I take a break from my monologue and she continues her side of the conversation while the moon rises on her side of the Atlantic and she lounges on the deck of their luxurious Hamptons home. Her hot American day of lunches and swimming and trying out kiwi fruit cheesecake, or maybe courgette ribbon pasta recipes for her new cookbook, has become a relaxing evening.

Five hours ahead in London I’m knackered after falling through the door of our cramped boathouse after a full day’s work at the Aura Clinic followed by a long night of moonlighting as a svelte, swaying artiste.

‘Surely you’re allowed to fraternise with patients without getting into trouble? The sun obviously shines out of this Pierre fellow’s ass.’ The Skype image jerks forwards a little. Fran’s mouth is now primly pursed between breaths, and I can see my little nieces waving robotically in the background. ‘It’s not like you’re a qualified medic with ethics and Hippocratic oaths or anything.’

‘The rulebook says, and I quote, that relationships between staff and clients are discouraged and disciplinary action will be taken if there’s an abuse of trust or the duty of care, and when the client is particularly vulnerable. I’m sure that applies everywhere, but because the Aura Clinic is private, and costs a fortune, they police the regulations with a rod of iron.’

‘Except no rods are allowed, apparently!’

I don’t cackle along with her innuendo. ‘I wish I hadn’t mentioned him now. We just get on quite well, that’s all.’

‘More than that. You haven’t stopped talking about him. I haven’t heard you this animated since –’

‘Since Daniele?’

I kick off first one agonising shoe and then the other. The elegant, elongated posture the high heels have afforded me all night crumples back into my more usual casual slouch.

On the screen my sister nods jerkily.

‘Yeah, since that scumbag pissed all over you. So what’s the story with Poirot?’

‘Pierre!’

‘I mean, what happens next? You go on being his nursemaid, wait until he’s discharged and then lose him? Or you live a little, seduce him, break some silly rules?’

‘He doesn’t see me like that. He just wants to talk.’ I rub the circulation back into my toes. ‘He even got me to spill my guts about Daniele and the sous chef.’

‘No wonder he wants to hear some gossip, poor guy’s flat on his back all day. And not in a good way.’ Even from this distance I can tell Fran’s trying to keep a straight face. ‘This all sounds pretty lame, Rosa. You need to ramp it up a bit.’

‘That’s exactly what I did. He was goading me, and I told him everything. He wound me right up like a clock, until I told him exactly how I found Daniele fucking that bitch.’

‘Holy shit! You go, girl!’ Francesca lifts her hand to give me a transatlantic high-five. ‘But you need to go further! Invent your own rules. Tell anyone who catches you that it was discreet, safe and consensual. Where’s your chutzpah? Give the sick guy what he wants, then give him some more!’

‘All he wants is for me to tell him a story every time I see him, like Shazzan or someone?’

‘Scheherazade, you muppet! Christ, he sounds kinkier that I thought. Don’t you know the story of Scheherazade and the thousand and one nights? That the Sultan killed each new lover after he’d slept with her, but Scheherazade kept him awake night after night with her sparkling storytelling and so she was spared in the morning. Basically she talked her way out of trouble.’

‘I haven’t got a thousand and one things to tell him. In fact, I’ve got zero going on in my life at the moment.’

I place my delicate shoes side by side in a box. It felt good wearing them earlier, teetering out of the wings into the spotlight. Then kicking them off in front of all those expectant faces.

‘It doesn’t have to be real, silly! Just talk dirty, if that’s what he wants, embellish, embroider, sex it up till he can’t bear it. Until he has to take you right across his knees in that bloody wheelchair!’

I start to laugh as I wrap the shoes in crackling black tissue paper. My sister’s on a roll now with her long-distance advice.

‘OK, boss! I take your point!’

‘Flirt with him. Bustle about. Bend over a lot. Are you sure he’s not getting a hard-on every time you swish by in your tight little uniform?’

I think of the unmistakable reaction when I washed him that first morning. The soft shape warming up, firming up in my hand like a delicious pastry.

Any man with red blood in his veins would get hard, being handled like that. It was nothing special. I unzip my dress. As soon as the expensive, silky embrace falls away from me I stop being the poised, confident woman I was when I was wearing it.

‘I think he quite likes me, but it’s just a job, Fran. I’m just his carer, a servant really, just like I am to all the other spoiled, rich malades in there.’

‘Don’t be so tough on yourself, cara. You’re coming down after your glittering performance tonight, that’s all. Anyway, if this Levi bloke won’t look at you twice, someone else will. You’re a catch for anyone.’

‘Maybe. It won’t be that long before he’s discharged or I’m sacked or I quit. I won’t see him again and then I can go properly hunting.’ I hang up the dress, aware that if the connection is working my sister can see me in my bra and knickers. ‘Look, Fran, I can’t chatter on. The signal’s hopeless tonight. You might all be chilling out over there, but I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m absolutely done in.’

‘How did the gig go tonight? You look great, by the way. Although satin and silk isn’t normally your style?’

‘I was going to pick up something from the Kate Moss range at Top Shop but my employers insist on high-end cocktail dresses so they sent me to Bond Street. They give me a credit card and a personal shopper. The dress code at the club is very strict for everyone on the premises, staff and members alike. They’re all men.’

‘Who, staff or members?’

‘All the members are men. And most of the staff. They have to wear black tie. Or white tie, if they have military medals, no matter what time of day it is, because the idea is that the minute you walk through those doors you are in another zone. Day and night become meaningless.’

‘Classy! Or pretentious. Sounds like the Starship Enterprise!’ Francesca chortles. ‘All a bit antiquated, though, isn’t it? Black tie? What’s wrong with kilts, or some sharp tailoring? They sound like a bunch of pompous gits. So where is it again?’

I reach into the thin fitted wardrobe for my kimono. If I don’t cover up it won’t just be my sister who sees me semi-naked. If I don’t close the shutters on these portholes anyone motoring down the river or walking along the Embankment at this time of night can see me, too.

‘I’m not supposed to say, but you know what? I don’t give a shit. It’s the London branch of the Club Crème.’

‘Christ, sis! Why didn’t you say? That’s a really prestigious place! Of course I know how secretive the club is! Carlo’s a member!’

‘Really? You happy about that? I’ve heard they get up to some pretty debauched stuff in the entertaining suites.’

‘He’d call it exclusive, rather than secret, but yeah, so long as he doesn’t come home with one of those famous white dildos rammed up his backside. It’s a great place for networking. You know how ambitious Carlo is.’ We both snort with laughter. ‘So, what else? Do they lay on make-up and hair, too? I can’t believe you chose that vampish lipstick all by yourself. Chanel, is it?’

‘Actually, yes, it is, and yes, they do.’ I look away from her to unfasten my necklace. ‘There’s this lovely dressing room for performers, all flowers and scent and deep comfortable chairs, and a very petite Japanese lady who checks you look just so before you go out on stage.’

As I twist the necklace round and fiddle with the clasp I notice that the programme on the TV, which I’ve turned down so we can talk, is panning round a state-of-the-art industrial kitchen, not dissimilar to the one my sister operates from to test recipes for her restaurant in midtown Manhattan.

‘Well, you look great. I bet you knocked their monocles off!’

‘Thanks, Frannie! Hey, there’s a new cooking show just come on. Wonder if the chef’s anyone you know?’

‘Don’t go there, hon. You should know by now that, despite what they do for a living, most chefs are poison.’

I snort. ‘Says the chef who married a chef. And introduced me to one.’

‘So it takes one to know one! And going back to Daniele, it’s been a year now. This born-again virgin vibe doesn’t suit you. It’s obvious how you’re going to get him out of your system for good. Get laid.’ My sister leans towards the screen, her eyes gleaming like a she-devil. ‘Go after Pierre Levi.’

When we were kids people thought we were two peas in a pod. Same dark-brown eyes, same black hair and olive skin inherited from our late Italian mother, usually covered in mud or chocolate, whichever we happened to be eating at the time. At thirty Francesca is five years older than me, but I’m taller than her. We were always more like twins, and like twins we were inseparable. This boathouse doesn’t feel the same without her.

‘I don’t want to make a fool of myself over some guy.’ I sigh when there’s a break in her list of suggestions. ‘Again.’

Slumped alone on this faded tartan banquette with its mismatched scatter cushions while London still sparkles and hustles around me, I feel like Cinderella, deposited by the carriage after my glamorous night out.

Not that Francesca is an ugly sister, though we’ve often called each other that, and worse. Quite the reverse. She’s beautiful, glossy, successful and sweet. But she’s so far away from me now. Not just geographically. She’s removed socially and financially, too. Since she met Carlo at a cooking school in Rome, left our shared flat, married him and moved to New York, they have spent the last ten years opening restaurants, having babies, being feted across the globe.

Finally my big sister draws breath.

‘Don’t let me down, Rosa. By the next time we speak I will expect you to have made progress with this guy, by fair means or foul. I expect you to fight for him. You still there?’ Francesca waits for me to grunt in response. ‘And if this Pierre Levi’s not up for it, how about tickling the fancy of another patient? Or a visitor? Then there’s no moral quandary. Or one of those bow-tie-wearing plonkers in your gentleman’s club. You’re only twenty-five, sis. Too early to shrivel up. Deal?’

‘Oh, bloody hell, if it’ll get you off my case. Deal.’

‘Tell you what. I’ll give you till the end of October. If you’re still lovelorn and celibate then, I’ll send you a free ticket over here. There’s plenty of hunky New Yorkers we can introduce you to.’

‘Thanks, sis, but I don’t need –’

‘Come down off your high horse. You need all the help you can get. I want you to report back that you’ve got that little prick Daniele out of your hair and got someone totally hot, rich and deserving.’

‘Copy that, captain.’

I blow her a kiss, close the laptop, turn to the TV and nearly jump out of my skin.

Because the chef who has stepped up to the televised workstation wielding a rolling pin and kneading dough, fixing those Italian charmer eyes on the viewers under his corkscrew black curls, fixing those eyes on me, grinning like he’s been listening all this time, is none other than my ex-boyfriend. Daniele. And standing next to him, dicing and chopping, is the bitch who stole him away. The woman Pierre Levi called the screamer.

I go to turn up the volume and hear what he’s saying in that velvety accent of his, but decide against it. It will only remind me of what he used to whisper to me when we were in bed together.

Daniele rolls out the pastry and scatters ceramic beans to blind-bake a pie. He shoves it into the oven while the camera focuses on his companion mixing apple, cinnamon and raisin before spreading it on to delicate sheets of filo pastry and brushing it with egg. They exchange some kind of lascivious joke as she rolls it all into a strudel and he taps a sieve over it to sift the icing sugar.

I used to love watching him cook. Only at work. He never cooked at home. He always expected me to do that, which is why we lived on spaghetti carbonara occasionally alternated with schnitzel, my two specialities.

But at work he was the masterful, bad-tempered chef that all TV shows love. And yes, he made you want to get close to him, to tame him. Until we got together I was just one of a group of waitresses at the restaurant who had the hots for him. Those hands, cutting and slicing and gutting and stuffing, you couldn’t help fantasising about them moulding, feeling, slapping and stroking.

And then one night Carlo and Francesca, mini-celebrities by then, swept into the trattoria to check out my new job and it turned out Carlo knew Daniele from catering college. My status elevated me instantly. It’s obvious now that Daniele thought I was a good way to hitch his wagon to Carlo.

Francesca and Carlo have obviously dissected my situation, even if I haven’t.

Well, they can diagnose away. The good news is I no longer miss Daniele. The sadness has gone through the permutations of anger, grief, weary acceptance and, since sharing that story with Pierre, something approaching disdain.

But I miss having a man in my life, in my little wooden double bed. If I’m going to take up Francesca’s challenge, the next man to lie next to me is going to be better than Daniele.

What am I waiting for? I’m in the middle of this vibrant capital city juggling two exhausting but unusual jobs. Apart from when I’m on this boat I’m never alone. My sister’s right. There are men in the clinic, men at the club. I could get them all to want me.

I’m not a nun. I’m a horny young woman with lips made for kissing and a body ripe for someone new. According to our prime patient, a stupendous chest and sexy contours.

Yep. There’s only one man I want.

Someone totally hot, rich and deserving.

* * *

The appointments chart indicates that Pierre Levi’s free. I’m about to knock at his door when Dr Venska comes clacking down the corridor in a spindly pair of strappy white sandals. Not exactly regulation footwear. Nor is her white wrap skirt, which flaps open at the front as she hurries along and I catch a glimpse of a tiny white lace thong slicing up between her thighs.

‘What are you doing hanging around here?’ she asks, coming to a halt and looking down her nose at me. ‘Haven’t you got some commodes to empty?’

‘I need to speak to Mr Levi,’ I mutter, standing my ground as she reaches past me to grasp the door handle. ‘I don’t think he’s expecting you this morning?’

‘Therapy works far better with the element of surprise,’ she replies, opening the door. ‘And I can assure you Mr Levi is always delighted to see me at any time. Day or night. Don’t you worry about that.’

An overpowering waft of perfume hits me as she passes.

‘How about I get your notes for you, then, doctor? I see you haven’t got your file with you.’

‘What’s that?’ She is widening her eyes and pouting in the round mirror of her powder compact. ‘Oh, yes. Sure. If you must.’

She edges through and shuts the door in my face. I find the file in the cabinet, go back to the door and knock. There’s no answer. I knock more loudly. Still no answer. When I try the door handle I realise it’s locked from the inside.

I dither for a moment. What are they doing in there? Why haven’t they heard me knocking? I’m about to give up when my sister’s words nudge me.

Embellish, embroider, sex it up till he can’t bear it …

I’ll take the file round to them through the garden.

The garden of the clinic is large for central London and surprisingly peaceful, despite the rush and roar of the capital city all around us. There are flower beds bursting with roses, formal dark privets and bays clipped into exotic birds and beasts, spreading or weeping trees. A big pond in the middle of the garden is the favourite spot, where a fountain shaped like a dolphin splashes water gently all day. You know which patients are feeling better because this is where they’ll be sitting as soon as they can escape the confines of their rooms.

In this heat I’m tempted to take my clothes off and dive in, or at the very least paddle, but before my break I’ve got to deliver this file.

The French windows to room 202 are open. I’ll give Dr Venska the notes and as soon as she’s finished with him it will be my turn. I don’t know yet what I’ll say. Tell him another story if I have to.

I can’t hear anything. Not Pierre’s gruff murmur. Not the slightly high-pitched, accented voice of Dr Venska. The others nickname her Elsa because she looks and behaves like the cartoon princess. From her white toes with their white nail polish right up to her ice-blonde hair, coiled and pinned tightly to the back of her small, pointed head, it’s like she’s frozen, carved from ice.

I step closer, waving the file to remind them why I’m here.

The bed has been moved, away from the light. I can just about make out Pierre’s legs, one in the white cast, the other now in bandages, a sheet draped loosely over them. He’s wearing different pyjamas today. More jaunty. Different shades of red stripes.

And there’s Dr Venska, pacing the shiny floor between the bed and the window. For a moment I think she’s walking towards me, but her face is turned to the bed. Her white limbs, white face, bottle-blonde hair are all bleached colourless by the sun falling into the room. I can hear her now, talking in a low voice, running her hands down her sides, over her high pert bottom, stretching her long legs as she walks so that her short skirt rides up.

When she approaches the garden door I lift the folder like a shield, but she’s still not looking at me. She spins round towards the bed, lifting her hands in the air and smacking them against her legs, bending down, her tight white blouse straining across her breasts. Her head is jutting forward.

It looks as if they’re having a row. I can’t hear Pierre, or see his response. His right leg, the bandaged one, rises rhythmically as if he’s doing some exercises, but I can’t see his hands, which would indicate his response. His jolly red pyjamas contrast with the whiteness of his bed and the paleness of his companion. Like blood on skin.

More silence. Hectoring him hasn’t worked. Dr Venska is trying a new technique. My God. She’s facing him, slightly sideways to the window, and she’s unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it open.

I step backwards, still clutching the file. So this is the stage they’ve reached in his treatment. Pierre Levi has opened up to her, just like I told him to. Too successfully. Because she’s about to open herself up to him, in every sense of the word.

Whatever she’s about to do, whatever alternative sexual therapy she’s about to administer, whatever rules she’s about to break, I should know better than to hang around to witness it.

I turn too quickly, and stumble over the bench. The file flutters open, revealing the few sheets clipped inside. I tear my eyes away from the sight of Dr Venska’s blouse slipping off her shoulders and look down at the notes. I wonder if they mention the kind of therapy that involves the psychiatrist stripping for her patient?

They don’t. Because there aren’t any notes. Well, hardly any. On the first page, dated during the week Pierre Levi was admitted to the clinic, Dr Venska has written ‘psychosomatic erectile dysfunction?’ But she has apparently failed to answer her own question, let alone cure the suspected condition, because beneath the subsequent dates, up until the date I first met him, is scribbled the conclusion we’ve all become familiar with: ‘unresponsive’.

I glance back into the room. No wonder she didn’t need the notes today. She doesn’t need a folder or a textbook to tell her how Pierre Levi is doing. Her question has already been answered.

I can’t speak for his mental progress, apart from the fact that he told me he’d talked more to me in half an hour than he ever had to her. But what about his physical progress? I scratch at a peeling corner of the file. I mean, there’s nothing dysfunctional about Pierre Levi’s cock. I’ve seen the evidence. My body tightens at the thought of it, rising in greeting that first quiet morning.

What’s the point of gloating over that? Someone else is about to benefit from it. Not me.

There are one or two other illegible notes that refer to the drugs Dr Venska is prescribing, or that the other medics have given him for his pain relief. The word ‘hypnotherapy’ is scrawled in capital letters on some entries. But following that the remaining pages are blank.

It’s no secret that Venska uses hypnosis as one of her special techniques. Quite the opposite. She boasts about it. None of us has ever witnessed the therapy because she insists it has to be conducted in private, one to one. And I can see why, now. She’s been putting her special technique to good use in their private sessions. Sex and hypnosis. What an explosive combination. But for whom? Who benefits? Hypnotist or hypnotised?

How real is the sex in those conditions? And actually, why resort to hypnosis when I made him hard just by holding him?

Dr Venska stands in front of Pierre Levi. Her white blouse drops to the floor. She reaches behind her back to unclip her lacy bra. She slides it away from her breasts and tosses it towards him. His hand lifts and catches it easily, like a cricket ball.

He doesn’t seem remotely surprised.

No wonder she never has any notes to write up afterwards.

I glance around the garden. There are a few patients and staff on the other side of the big beech tree, and there’s the glass corridor that encircles the rest of the garden like a horseshoe and serves both to let light in and to keep an eye on what’s going on outside, but there’s no one on this side of the tree.

No one else to see what’s going on in room 202.

My sweaty fingers make prints on the cardboard. I can’t tear my eyes away. Dr Venska sits on the bed, perfectly visible from the window, and faces him. Her breasts are high and pert, and I can clearly see the dark red darts of her nipples. She lifts her hands and starts to massage her breasts, pushing them together, licking one finger and rubbing each nipple to make them harder. She’s talking, talking, all the time, in a low voice I can’t quite catch.

I pluck the pen from my breast pocket and dash off my own observations for today’s date.

‘Responsive today. Extremely responsive. See sex therapy. Hypnosis. Recommend introduction of hallucinogenics and stimulants.’

I stand up with the file, turn to tiptoe away.

Venska is still whispering. Pierre is not replying. Either he’s deep in a trance or he’s getting aroused, lost for words.

No wonder the door was locked.

Venska is leaning back and now she’s undoing her skirt. It falls open easily, and she parts her legs. I can see the white flesh sticking slightly before her thighs part. She hooks one finger into the little lace thong and pulls it aside. There’s a glimpse of blue-white pussy. Bare. Totally waxed.

I feel a punch of nausea. I step away, and notice too late that one more blank sheet is on the ground. I pick it up and, as I straighten, something – the whiteness of the paper, my movement – finally catches Dr Venska’s eye.

‘You! How long have you been hanging around out there?’

Her voice is a whiplash, screaming out of the room.

‘I was just coming to give you this!’ Thank God for the folder, my prop. I lift it, and wave the stray piece of paper. ‘The door was locked.’

She swears loudly, leans down to pick up her blouse from the floor and shoves her arms into it, buttons up her skirt, kicks her shoes back on.

‘Did it not occur to you that it was locked for a reason?’

‘The rules state that doors should never be locked, in case of emergency. Staff should always be able to get in –’

‘I am staff, you imbecile. And you? You were creeping around!’ She snaps, turning her back on Pierre and marching towards me. ‘You were spying on a confidential therapy session!’

‘It’s only spying when something nefarious is going on,’ Pierre says suddenly, his voice carrying across the room. ‘Who’s out there, anyway?’

‘The little cleaner. The drab one in the hideous uniform. The one you described as, now what was it? A hot piece of Italian ass when she comes out of her shell?’

‘He said what?’ I gasp, my cheeks burning.

‘Rosa?’ Pierre calls out. ‘Is that you?’

I step towards the door, but Dr Venska is still blocking my way. She scowls at me, at the new uniform that Nurse Jeannie gave me this morning. No longer so hideous, thank God.

‘Oh, don’t think you’re unique. He’d say that about anyone. Anything with a pussy and a pulse will do. All it proves is that my treatment is working.’

‘You mean I’m returning to my super-stud ways?’ snorts Pierre, but there’s an edge to his amusement, I can tell. ‘I can start chasing girls again? Oh, wait. I can’t walk.’

‘Oh, you’ll walk again, unfortunately for the female sex. And then it’ll be business as usual. You have me to thank for that, Mr Levi.’

‘Actually, it’s not you I wish to thank –’

‘You were broken when you came into this clinic. Head and heart. I brought you back. I showed you how to be a man again.’

‘What do you want, a round of applause?’ Pierre’s voice is dark. ‘It’s what you’re paid to do.’

Dr Venska takes my arm and pulls me into the room, over to the bed.

‘But I’m not paid to do the menial tasks.’ She shoves a bowl of soaps and gels into my hands. ‘I thought it would help. You know, water, bubbles, a bit of role play. But no, he won’t be touched.’

‘I could have told you that,’ I murmur, taking the equipment, avoiding Pierre’s eye. ‘It makes him feel degraded.’

‘Check you out in your bright white uniform, Cavalieri. Nicely tailored, sky-blue piping, the halo logo of the clinic right there on the pocket.’ Pierre whistles. ‘Cute little buttons instead of that rusty old zip.’

I blush. Run my hands down the softer fabric in an echo of what Dr Venska was doing to herself earlier.

‘It’s my reward for completing my probationary period.’

He nods. ‘And it makes you feminine rather than frumpy. Fits you like a glove.’

‘And talking of gloves,’ snaps Dr Venska, ‘he’s all yours. I’m done here.’

She rips a pair of latex gloves out of the packet and throws them at me.

‘Don’t you need this, doctor?’ I ask, holding out the folder. ‘For today’s session?’

Pierre sniggers. I risk glancing at him. His black eyes are dancing at me. He’s biting his lips hard to stop laughing. Dr Venska snatches the paperwork, unlocks the door and shoves her way past Nurse Jeannie, who steps inside the room, tutting.

‘What on earth is going on? What have you two done to Dr Venska?’

Pierre and I shrug at each other like naughty schoolkids.

‘Rosa was simply delivering some notes. Dr Venska is unhappy because I’m not responding as she would like to her suggested therapies,’ Pierre says after a moment, his face straight, his voice calm. ‘I think the legal term for someone like me is vexatious.’

Now it’s my turn to stifle a giggle. I cover it by pulling on the gloves and going to fill the bowl with water from the bathroom.

When I return Nurse Jeannie has gone. Pierre Levi is lying on his bed, the sheet rolled down and with it, oh God, his pyjama trousers. His cock isn’t erect but it’s long and firm, lying across his thigh. How could I have compared it unfavourably with Daniele’s aggressive little weapon? Even at rest this is a magnificent sword unsheathed, ready for engagement.

I can imagine my sister chortling at my overblown Sir Lancelot imagery. I must be more frustrated than I realised, because I can’t take my eyes off it.

‘What are you doing, Mr Levi? We agreed!’ I frown, standing by the door. ‘Cover yourself up!’

‘Strict orders. Nurse Jeannie’s doing spot checks this morning. Lucky you entered stage left just then, ready to perform my toilette,’ he says with a grin, folding his arms behind his head. ‘So you’d better get on with it, because she could be back any time!’

A spasm of desire drags at me at the sight of his nakedness, so brazen, so calm, the dark line of hair running down his flat stomach like an arrow aiming at the target, the black hair curling round something that I can imagine, oh so clearly, getting hard, hot, nudging against me pushing inside me –

I step closer, forcing my eyes up to his face.

‘I doubt she’ll be back. So we can stop pretending now, can’t we?’

He drops his hands, grabs for the sheet. ‘You’re repulsed. You can’t bear to touch me. God, I’m such a –’

Our clients are way more vulnerable than they care to admit.

‘No. No. No! Don’t you ever say that again! Don’t you ever think it!’ I’m there like a shot, taking the sheet from him, pulling it back down to reveal his nakedness. ‘I’m not repulsed. Look at you. Look at your cock. It’s beautiful.’

There’s a long pause. The room is thick with the silence. Outside a mower starts up and begins to carve green stripes in the lawn.

‘Rosie. You’re just being kind, but I –’

‘I’m not being kind. I’m being truthful. I only hesitated because you told me you didn’t want to be touched.’

The smile is fading. His black eyes are steady. They pull me towards him.

‘I’ve changed my mind. Take the gloves off, Rosie.’

I do what he asks, peeling the gloves off my fingers one by one.

His tongue runs across his lips, but I detect nervousness there as well as bravado.

We, the staff. We’re the strong ones.

‘You sure about this, Mr Levi?’

‘Despite your brave, encouraging words you still look as if you’d rather eat your own hair, Cavalieri, but yes, I want this. I want you to wash me. Please, Rosie. I won’t bite –’

‘Unless you want me to!’ We finish the sentence in unison.

But our smiles fade as I take hold of him. It’s so warm. I can feel the pulse throbbing through it. My sex tightens at the feel of it, at the intoxicating mixture of innocence and lust in the action I’m about to perform.

He’s got two broken legs. Post-traumatic stress. Insomnia. How dangerous can he be?

‘You’re not just a cleaner by the way, Rosie.’

‘My God. Everyone in here can read minds.’

You can’t deny the charisma’s still there. For those who could be susceptible.

‘Nurse Jeannie wouldn’t let you tend to me like this, on your own, if all you were good for was scrubbing the bogs.’

I squeeze soap on to him and rub along the shaft with the tips of my fingers. It shifts against his leg, stiffens with its forgotten strength, lifts into the palm of my hand. I swallow. This is a swifter reaction than last time. Beneath the soft new cotton of my uniform my pussy heats up equally swiftly, throbbing between my legs.

‘You came in the nick of time, Rosie. I thought Dr Venska was going to attack me.’

‘Seriously? It didn’t look like that to me. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

‘Just how much did you see, Rosie?’

He lies back and closes his eyes.

I rub at the soap, covering his cock with lather. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly.

‘I saw her taking her shirt off. And then her bra, and then I saw her touching herself. I assumed you had a, an arrangement. That this was your usual therapy.’

‘She hypnotised me, yes. I responded, but not to the extent she wanted.’ Pierre’s eyes flash open, burn into me. ‘Not like I respond to you, instantaneously. Like Pavlov’s dog.’

I cough, lower my eyes to the task in hand. ‘Pavlov’s dog?’

‘Pavlov was a scientist who conditioned his dogs to salivate instantly when he rang a bell, because through various connections they associated the bell with food.’

‘So am I the food or the bell?’ At least this daft conversation is distracting me from the erection growing slowly but surely in my hand.

He laughs. ‘Apparently the dogs started salivating whenever they saw the lab assistant. I like to think she was a female lab assistant – because they associated her with bringing the food.’

I laugh. ‘And Dr Venska couldn’t have worked this out as a solution?’

‘She’s not only incompetent, she’s violated every professional ethic in the book, but I’m not going to report her, and nor are you. Because I have only myself to blame.’ Pierre sighs and closes his eyes. ‘I’ve made her job impossible.’

I can focus better without those lovely black eyes boring into me. I can convince myself that he is just a patient. Client. Whatever.

‘Go on.’

‘That feels so good, Rosie. I can’t think why I told you to stop the other day.’

I soap the balls as gently as I can, but his cock is lifting, glistening with soap.

‘What’s really wrong with Dr Venska, Mr Levi? Why is she so angry?’

The rounded end of his knob is pushing out eagerly. I have a sudden, terrible urge to lick it.

I clench my teeth, dip the cloth into the warm water to rinse off the bubbles.

‘Because I turned her down. She was trying to seduce me, Rosie. She thought she could fuck me out of my sexless state.’

‘Sexless state? Nothing sexless about this!’

It’s out before I can stop it.

‘That’s your doing, Rosie. You and your sexy new uniform got me going. Not her.’

He is rigid now, pulsing in my hand.

‘Not sure you should be saying that, Mr Levi.’

It’s so gorgeous, so male, so phallic, perfectly shaped for penetration, pleasure. I can’t help it. I stroke it.

‘Not sure you should be doing that either, Cavalieri.’

I encircle it with my fingers more firmly and squeeze.

‘She was undressing in front of you, Mr Levi. I think it’s your turn to tell me a story.’

Pierre Levi groans.

‘How about this then, Scheherazade? If you hadn’t come wandering in from the garden at that precise moment, my shrink was going to go down on me.’

I start to rub the shaft, up to the end, and down again. He shifts in the bed, his eyes fluttering but still fixed on me. More colour than before streaks his cheeks.

‘Well, she does have sex therapist on her CV,’ I murmur, moving my hand up, down, up again. His cock is filling my small hand now, pushing out of my grip, pushing for something more. ‘Has she done that before?’

‘She’s touched herself up, yes. That’s why she dresses in those tarty little skirts. Easy access. She started off standing, then sitting in that visitor’s chair, and today she’d graduated to my bed. She pokes her fingers inside and she tells me to look at her. “Look at me, Levi,” she purrs. “Focus on me.”’

I giggle at his perfect imitation of her Eastern European accent. One hand wipes the soap off him, the other hand is fondling his stiffness, making it grow thicker, longer, making it harder, making it push and throb, searching for release.

‘She likes to show me every little bit. Her cunt. Her labia. All the time she tells me what she wants. I think she’s forgotten she’s supposed to be helping me. And yes, I get turned on, any man would, and yes, it’s a relief to know my responses are normal, as the medics say. But I’ve known that for – I’ve known that for a while now.’

‘How long? How long have you known that?’

My hand moves faster, faster, Pierre Levi is breathing heavily now. His hands come up as if to stop me, drop down again, start tugging at his pyjama jacket.

‘God, you’re wicked, Rosie. I don’t know if this is right, I’m not strong enough to stop you, even if I wanted to. What if Nurse Jeannie comes in?’

‘Just doing my job.’ I murmur, bringing my other hand into play now, massaging his balls, which are shrinking up into his body as the pleasure mounts. ‘So go on with the story.’

He groans. ‘One time she did the stripping thing and then she started gyrating in front of me like a lap dancer. She’s bloody good at it, and I should know. I’ve hired enough of them. In fact I would put money on her having worked as a stripper for real, maybe to earn money while she was training. Anyway she danced up to me, took my hands and put them on her bare buttocks, guiding them all over her to fondle her. It was the first time I’d touched a naked woman since –’

‘Since June?’

He nods, panting a little now.

‘She had her back to me, I was in the chair, I’m usually in the wheelchair for these sessions, it makes me feel less, you know, useless and helpless, and she lowered herself on to me. I was hard by then, Rosie, like I am now, and oh God, what are you doing?’

‘Keep talking.’ I’m nearly there. He’s bucking as I pull at him, up, down, the little bead glistening at the end. My gorgeous victim is biting his lip, groaning, covering his mouth to smother the sound.

‘Somehow she got my cock out of my PJs, I’m lying, I wasn’t as hard as this, not as hard as, oh, God, Rosie, stop, no, don’t stop, please, OK, she was like a gymnast on a beam, you know, because I was in the chair, so she had to grip the arms and balance on her high heels and I pushed myself between her white butt cheeks, her legs were spread so as not to put any weight on my sore legs, oh, she’s very flexible, you know, and then –’

I imagine myself, just for a moment, as Dr Venska. Rejoicing as this thick, pulsing shaft pushes up inside me. My pussy is wet now, my knickers sticky with desire, the remembered sensation of a man’s cock, thrusting with lust, hot for me, throbbing as he’s about to fuck me.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.