Pierre

‘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.’