Don't Get Me Wrong (33 page)

“What?”

“The Porsche. It's very old.”

She looked away, disgusted. Always, always, turning everything into a joke.

“That's it? That's why you hate me?”

And because you were cheating on Eva. But maybe you weren't. Officially. If you were just friends. Kim's head ached. It was all too difficult to work out. “It's enough, isn't it?”

He stared down at the floor. He said, sounding tired, “There's not much point defending myself. You made up your mind a long time ago.”

This made her angry. He was accusing her of prejudice. “So go on, then. Surprise me.”

He didn't say anything for a moment. Kim thought perhaps the conversation was over. But then he started speaking again. “I never knew my father. My stepfather hated me. I left home when I was fourteen and lived with foster parents. Finished school, got on a train, and came to London. I met Eva. She was my family after that.”

She heard the words, but they made no sense. Eton. Old money. That's what her mother had told her.

“I don't work for a bank anymore. I left a year ago. I work
for a company making medical equipment for the early detection and diagnosis of cancer. Finding investment so the company can grow.” He looked up, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. The emotion in his eyes was so raw. “I can go on. I can tell you every single detail of my life. But it won't make any difference, will it? Because it's got nothing to do with what I stand for. It's about me.”

She felt cornered. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You just don't like me.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Harry.” Her voice was rising. “What are you saying? That this is all my fault? What I feel is completely irrational?” She stood up, furious. “You're the cause of all this. Not me.”

He looked up at her, narrowing his eyes against the light.

“You tried to turn Eva against me.”

“When?”

“You said I was a fantasist. Insane.”

He looked mystified.

“I heard you. In her room. Years ago.”

“I was probably talking about your mother.”

“Really?” Kim's voice was loud, mocking. “You always seemed to get on with her so well.”
Dear Harry. So charming. So kind. So rich.

“I try to get on with everybody.”

Kim was contemptuous. “You've never tried to get on with me.”

Again, that blank look in his eyes.

“Oh, come on, Harry.” What did this all matter, anyway? Raking up the past. Who cared how it all started? “Be honest.
Admit it. You wanted to be with Eva. And I just got in the way. You've never really liked me, have you? Ever.”

“I love you.”

She stared at him.

“Ever since I first saw you. I've loved you for years.”

The air was ringing in her ears. She had the sensation of things falling all around her. She could see his face, so she knew it was Harry. But at the same time she knew it wasn't him at all. This wasn't real. Any moment now, he would laugh. You believed me? You'll fall for anything. I was just joking. Winding you up.

But he didn't laugh. He just sat there, looking up at her.

She couldn't speak.

“I don't expect you to love me back. I'm just tired of lying. Trying to pretend it's not true.”

Still, she couldn't find her voice.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.”

She felt for the chair behind her. Her legs wouldn't support her anymore.

“Really. Just forget it. I'm sorry.”

They sat in miserable silence.

Eventually, Kim said, “I'll go and see Otis.”

He nodded.

“I might sit with him for a bit.”

“Yes.”

All she knew was that she had to get away. It was too huge, too much.

When she reached the door, she looked back. He was bent right over, his head in his hands.

•  •  •

When Kim got back to the waiting room, Harry was lying down full-length on the chairs against the back wall. Hearing her open the door, he swung himself up to sitting. His face was anxious. “Any news?”

She shook her head. “No change. He's stable.”

“Are you OK?”

She sat down. “I'm fine.”

There was a pause.

She said, “I was thinking about what you said.”

He took a deep breath. “I wish you wouldn't. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. Especially not now.”

“But you did.”

They held each other's gaze across the room.

She said, “I don't understand. You always treated me like a child. Like everything I said was stupid.”

“Self-defense. So you wouldn't see how I felt.”

“Why didn't you want me to know?”

“In case you turned me down.”

Round and round in circles. “What about Eva?”

“You mean, did she know?”

Kim nodded.

“She wanted me to tell you. But I couldn't. There was never a right time. Do you remember the earrings? On your eighteenth birthday? I thought about it for months. Something to show you how I felt. That you weren't just Eva's little sister. But it all went wrong. It couldn't have gone worse. I kept hoping that one day something would happen to change
your mind. So that you'd see me in a different way. But nothing ever did.”

But you were always so arrogant, thought Kim. So sure of yourself. You could have said something. Surely you could have said something.

He said, “I made Eva promise. She wanted to tell you. So many times. She said it drove her mad. She used to say, You've got to find out one way or the other. Otherwise you're just wasting time. Both of you.”

Kim sat very still. She thought about Eva and the way she clammed up whenever they talked about Harry. She remembered her graduation from Edinburgh, arguing in the restaurant. The rows when Eva was pregnant. She remembered the terrible Christmas, her mother's wedding, the funeral. It was like trying to read a history book upside down.

Right at the end, Eva had said, Don't cut Harry out of your life. I thought she meant for Otis's sake, thought Kim. But she was trying to give him one last chance.

After a while, she said, “Why?”

“Why?” He looked confused.

But she couldn't say the words.

“Why do I love you?” He looked sad. “I don't know. Do people ever know?”

They try to explain sometimes.

“There's no one else like you. That's all. No one else comes close.”

It made no sense.

“I have tried, very hard, not to. But it's like trying not to breathe. It doesn't work.”

Kim looked away.

“I'm sorry,” said Harry. “Bad timing. Especially now you're back with Jake.”

She bit her lip. “I'm not.”

“Aren't you?”

“I didn't take the job either.”

He looked surprised. “I thought it was definite.”

“No.” She was shamefaced. “I wanted you to think it was. So when you made assumptions, I didn't correct them.”

He smiled. “How devious.”

The old Harry. Teasing her. “I felt bad about the whole thing anyway. He's a real shit. A manipulator. And the job was rubbish. I should never have considered it. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He didn't say anything.

“I thought you'd be pleased.”

“I am.”

“So what is it?”

Harry looked down at the floor. When he looked up, his eyes were dark.

She felt frightened. “What?”

He said, slowly, “You haven't said no.”

“No?”

“ ‘No way I'll ever feel the same. Forget it. You must be joking.' ”

They stared at each other.

Kim said, in a neutral voice, “I'd really like some coffee.”

If he was surprised at the change of subject, he didn't show it. He stood up, reaching for his jacket. “Black? No sugar?”

She nodded.

When he'd gone out, shutting the door behind him, she closed her eyes. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. This wasn't real.

•  •  •

All night they took turns to sit with Otis.

Once, when Kim came back and Harry stood up to leave, she said, “Why did you go to New York?”

“Because I couldn't stand it anymore. Waiting for you. Eva said, Put some space between you. See if that helps.”

“You were gone so long.”

He looked at her. “You were with Jake.”

After he'd left the room, she sat there, staring at nothing.

Later, when he came back, he said, “I thought I'd never see you again. Either of you. When you left London.”

“Don't.”

“It was—”

“I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry.”

He nodded. And they didn't talk again for a while.

Once, in the early hours, she asked about Ethan. Harry was hesitant at first. But he sketched in Ethan's background and then talked about Leon and Tommy's Gym, which somehow led to talking about his own childhood, growing up in Essex with a stepfather who hated him. She watched his face as he remembered. And she thought, When I first met Harry, when he blocked out the light, he seemed so grown-up. But he was just a boy.

“Eva changed everything. Made me see that you have to let go. Move on.” He smiled. “She only let me buy the Porsche if I gave a hundred grand to charity.”

Kim caught her breath. “And did you?”

“I was going to give some of it to you. But it's all gone now. The homeless. Environmental campaigns. Ecovillages.”

She couldn't tell if he was joking.

They talked about the funeral. She wanted to explain why she'd been so angry, but he just touched her hand, and they sat silently instead. He said, “I couldn't stay when they started playing the songs,” and she said, “I know, I know.”

At the lowest point of the night, the time when it feels that day will never come, Kim said, “Why wouldn't you listen?”

He looked confused. “When?”

“When Eva was ill. She was tired. She needed to rest. But you made her get up, get dressed, go out.”

The lines of exhaustion on his face were like scars. “She made me promise. Right at the beginning. She said, There will come a time when I want to give up. Don't let me. It's too precious.”

She wept, then, the tears cold on her cheeks.

•  •  •

At dawn, when Kim came back, Harry pulled the cord at the side to open the slats of the white blinds. The sky outside was getting lighter, a blush of rosy pink. There was a little window right at the top. Harry reached up to open it, and they could hear the first birdsong, echoing through the silence.

He said, “It's more than twenty-four hours now.”

She nodded.

They weren't talking much anymore. The hours had shifted them to a different place.

Harry switched off the overhead light. The room, which had
been glaring at them all night—officious, bright white—sprang back into the shadows. They both looked over to the window.

Harry said, “It's the end of the night shift. Maybe we should go in together.”

His face was dark with stubble. It made him look different—nothing like the Harry she knew. She felt suddenly awkward. She said, “I need to text my mother. Just to tell her that there's no news.”

He nodded. “I'll see you in there.”

Harry picked up his jacket. His white shirt was crumpled and creased, a mass of tiny lines and folds.

After he'd gone, Kim went to the window and rested her forehead against the glass. Below her, in the street, she could see the lines of cars, neatly parked, belonging to all the staff who'd been keeping the hospital alive all night. She was almost too tired to find her phone. She fantasized, for one wild moment, about telling her mother what Harry had said.
Well, of course I always knew he loved you. It was obvious right from the start.
But she'd be lying, thought Kim. Because nothing is ever that clear. Not when it comes to people. You think you know someone. But you can get it all wrong. And maybe that's what Harry and I have to do now. We have to go right back to the beginning and start all over again.

She stopped, startled. It felt as if Eva was right beside her. There was a lightness in the room, lifting her up. Kim stood there, bemused, her heart beating faster. What's happening? It's because I'm so tired. I'm not thinking straight anymore. But she couldn't shake it off. A rush of joy. A feeling of energy. And something else she didn't recognize, something clear and certain flooding through her like sunlight.

Behind her, the door banged open. Harry was standing there, dark, disheveled, excited. He said, “He's awake. He's calling for you.”

Hope, she thought, with wonder. That's what it is. It's hope.

He held out his hand.

Thanks to Yvonne Wilcox, Alexandra Fabian, Sally Eden, Stephen Ireton, Pavi Sidhu, Manolo Pedrini, Simon Pinkerton, Eve Zeese, and Tony Williams for all their help with the first draft. Thanks also to the UK charities Meningitis Now and Breast Cancer Care for answering specific queries. Love and thanks to all my family, especially Joe Kavanagh, Ben Kavanagh, and Alice Kavanagh and, as always, my husband, Matt.