‘I love you, Louisa Clark,’ he said softly.
‘Twenty minutes, hmm?’ I said, smiling, and hooked him in tighter.
But he dropped into sleep like someone stepping off a cliff. I watched him for a while, wondering whether it would be possible to wake him, and what means I might employ to do it, but then I remembered how disoriented and exhausted I had been when I’d arrived. And then I thought of how he had just done a week of twelve-hour shifts. And that it was only a few hours into our whole three days together. With a sigh I released him and flopped onto my back. It was dark outside now, the sounds of the distant traffic floating up to us. I felt a million things and I was disconcerted to find that one was disappointment.
Stop, I told myself firmly. My expectations for this weekend had simply risen, like a soufflé, too high for sustained contact with the atmosphere. He was here, and we were together, and in a few hours he would be awake again. Go to sleep, Clark, I told myself. I pulled his arm over me, inhaling the scent of his warm skin. And closed my eyes.
An hour and a half later, I was lying on the far side of the bed, scrolling through Facebook on my phone, marvelling at Mum’s apparently infinite appetite for motivational quotes and photographs of Thom in his school uniform. It was half past ten, and sleep was uninterested in stopping by. I climbed out of bed, and used the bathroom, leaving the light off so that Sam wouldn’t be woken by the screeching fan. I hesitated before climbing back in. The sagging mattress meant that Sam had tipped gently into the middle, leaving me a few inches on the edge unless I pretty much lay on top of him. I wondered idly if an hour and a half’s sleep was enough. And then I climbed in, slid my body against his warm one and, after a moment’s hesitation, I kissed him.
Sam’s body came to before he did. His arm pulled me in, his big hand sliding the length of my body, and he kissed me back, slow, sleep-filled kisses that were tender and soft and made my body arch against his. I shifted so that his weight was on me, my hand seeking his, my fingers linking with his, a sigh of pleasure escaping me. He wanted me. He opened his eyes in the dim light and I looked into them, heavy with longing, noting with surprise that he had already broken into a sweat.
He gazed at me for a moment.
‘Hello, handsome,’ I whispered.
He made as if to speak but nothing came out.
He looked off to the side. And then suddenly he clambered off me.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What did I say?’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Hold on.’
He bolted for the bathroom, hurling the door shut behind him. I heard an ‘Oh, God,’ and then sounds that, for once, I was grateful that the screeching extractor fan largely obscured.
I sat there, frozen, then climbed out of bed, pulling on a T-shirt. ‘Sam?’
I leant into the door, pressing my ear against it, then backed away. Intimacy, I observed, could only survive so much in the way of sound effects.
‘Sam? Are you okay?’
‘Fine,’ came his muffled voice.
He was not fine.
‘What’s going on?’
A long gap. The sound of flushing.
‘I – uh – I think I may have food poisoning.’
‘Seriously? Can I do anything?’
‘No. Just – just don’t come in. Okay?’ This was followed by more retching and soft cursing. ‘Don’t come in.’
We spent almost two hours like that: him locked in some awful battle with his internal organs on one side of the door, me sitting anxiously in my T-shirt on the other. He refused to let me check on him – his pride, I think, forbade it.
The man who finally came out shortly before one o’clock was the colour of putty, with a Vaseline glaze. I scrambled to my feet as the door opened and he staggered slightly, as if surprised to see me still there. I reached out a hand, as if I had any hope of stopping someone his size falling. ‘What shall I do? Do you need a doctor?’
‘No. Just … just got to sit this one out.’ He flopped onto the bed, panting and clutching his stomach. His eyes were ringed with black shadows, and he stared straight ahead. ‘Literally.’
‘I’ll get you some water.’ I stared at him. ‘Actually, I’m going to run to a pharmacy and get you some Dioralyte or whatever they have here.’ He didn’t even speak, just toppled onto his side, staring straight ahead, his body still damp with sweat.
I got the required medication, offering up silent thanks to the City That Didn’t Just Not Sleep But Offered Rehydration Powders Too. Sam chugged one down, and then, with an apology, retreated to the bathroom again. Occasionally I would pass a bottle of water through a gap in the door, and in the end I turned on the television.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, when he stumbled out again, shortly before four. And then he collapsed onto the Bedspread of Doom and fell into a brief, disjointed sleep.
I slept for a couple of hours, covered with the hotel robe, and woke to find him still asleep. I showered and got dressed, letting myself out silently so that I could grab a coffee from the machine in the lobby. I felt bleary. At least, I told myself, we still had two days to go.
But when I walked back into the room Sam was in the bathroom again.
‘Really sorry,’ he said, when he emerged. I had pulled the curtains and in daylight he looked, if anything, greyer against the hotel sheets. ‘I’m not sure I’m up to much today.’
‘That’s fine!’ I said.
‘I might be okay by this afternoon,’ he said.
‘Fine!’
‘Maybe not the ferry trip, though. Think I don’t want to be anywhere where …’
‘… there are communal loos. I get it.’
He sighed. ‘This is not quite the day I had in mind.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, climbing onto the bed beside him.
‘Will you stop saying it’s fine,’ he said irritably.
I hesitated a moment, stung, then said icily, ‘Fine.’
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. ‘Sorry.’
‘Stop apologizing.’
We sat on the bedspread, both looking straight ahead. And then his hand reached across for mine. ‘Listen,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m probably just going to hang here for a couple of hours. Try and get my strength back. Don’t feel you have to sit with me. Go shopping or something.’
‘But you’re only here till Monday. I don’t want to do anything without you.’
‘I’m good for nothing, Lou.’
He looked like he could have punched a wall, if he’d only had the strength to raise his fist.
I walked two blocks to a newsstand and bought an armful of newspapers and magazines. I then bought myself a decent coffee and a bran muffin, and a plain white bagel for when he might want to eat something.
‘Supplies,’ I said, dropping them on my side of the bed. ‘Might as well just burrow in.’ And that was how we spent the day. I read every single section of the New York Times, including the baseball reports. I put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, watched him dozing and waited for colour to return to his face.
Maybe he’ll feel better in time for us to have a walk in daylight.
Maybe we could grab a drink in the hotel bar.
Sitting up would be good.
Okay, so maybe he’ll be better tomorrow.
At nine forty-five when I turned off the television chat show, pushed all the newspapers off the bed and burrowed down under the duvet, the only part of my body still touching his was my fingers, entwined with his at the tips.