“I want to watch Bucky.”
“Later. Jodi’s tired.”
Jodi hadn’t long woken up, but he couldn’t deny his brief encounter with Indie had left him craving a nap. He gently tugged one of Indie’s looped bunches. “Go on, love. We can watch it in a bit.”
Indie left reluctantly, glancing over her shoulder as she went, like she was afraid Jodi would disappear the moment she turned away. Rupert watched her go with an odd expression on his face, then turned back to Jodi. “She’s going to be here for a few days, that okay with you?”
“Of course,” Jodi said. “You don’t have to ask me that. This is your home too. I can’t believe you’ve been having her at Sophie’s place all this time.”
“It was the best thing for everyone,” Rupert said. “You wouldn’t have wanted her to see you while you were so ill, and later ... I don’t know. Perhaps I should’ve told her the truth, but it was just something else I couldn’t face. After a while, staying at Sophie’s became normal for her.”
“Like sleeping on the couch? Does that feel normal for you now?”
Rupert shrugged. “Not much feels like anything, boyo. It just is.”
A cloud of overwhelming sadness descended on Jodi, like the sudden darkness that came before a rainstorm. And with it came the certainty that he wasn’t the only one whose life had been stolen by the accident. Jodi didn’t remember the life he’d lost, but Rupert did. He remembered everything, and the loss in his haunted gaze hurt Jodi more than any physical pain ever had.
“I’m so fucking sorry.”
Rupert shook his head. “Don’t do it to yourself. Trust me, it won’t help. We can’t look back and fix what isn’t there anymore. I’m going to take Indie to the park. Will you be okay by yourself for a bit?”
“Um, yeah. Are you—?”
“Jodi.” Rupert held up his hands. “Please. Just don’t, okay?”
He left the room. A few moments later, the front door slammed. The sound reverberated in Jodi’s head, like his skull was empty now that Rupert had gone. Like Rupert had taken everything that mattered with him. Then the silence took hold and it was deafening. Jodi pressed his fists into his eyes, willing his brain to just fuckingremember, but nothing happened. The silence remained.
Jodi let his hands drop with a heavy sigh. The room came slowly back into focus, along with the clothes he’d been wearing since yesterday morning. Rupert had stopped reminding him to shower, trusting Jodi to follow the lists he’d written with his occupational therapist, but it didn’t take much for Jodi to forget until something—like a grimy T-shirt—prompted him.
He made his way to the bathroom and took a shower, standing under the spray until the water ran cold. It wasn’t his wisest move. Since the accident, the cold had bothered him. Some days, he just couldn’t get warm.
He walked out of the bathroom, distracted as ever by the riddles in his brain. Then he caught sight of the clutter piled up in the hallway and something clicked. In the bedroom, he threw on a T-shirt and a pair of trackies, then went back to the hallway. He picked up a pile of coats and hung them on the nearby hooks. They didn’t look right, so he took them down and hung them again, this time in size order. With that done, he moved quickly around the hallway, scooping up dirty clothes and stray shoes. He chucked the shoes in the cupboard and shut the door. Opened it again and put them neatly on the rack.
Then he stood back, and the calm order of his surroundings filtered into him. He’d grown used to the clicks his brain sometimes sounded when a piece of information he’d given up for lost suddenly reappeared. They usually came one at a time, and sporadically, but now, as he stared around the tidy hallway, his senses came alive. Purpose, perspective, compulsion. Everything seemed brighter, clearer, and though the gaps in his mind were still too vast for him to comprehend, a new sense of purpose overcame him.
Jodi paced the flat, picking up dirty dishes and clothes, newspapers, post, and shoes—more shoes?—until he saw carpets or floorboards in every room. He loaded the dishwasher and studied the buttons. Gave up and googled the fucker. With the dishwasher running, he tackled the washing machine, which proved far simpler as he could remember using one before.
That left the bathroom and a wrangle with the vacuum cleaner. Jodi fetched the hoover from the bedroom cupboard. He plugged it in and switched it on. So far so good, then he pulled it along the wooden floor and the wheels stuck, and the resulting crunch in his brain was so loud he jumped.
He stepped back from the hoover and pressed his hands over his ears. Images filled his brain—a mad rush to do something ... something he couldn’t quite see, and then the hoover—this hoover—running over his foot. Talking into the phone—“Henry tried to kill me this morning. Ran over my foot, bloody dick-splash…”—but who to?“Be safe, Rupe. I love you.”Jesus. It wasn’t a conversation, it was a message, and he’d left it for Rupert.
Oh God.Revelations had been battering him all day, but somehow, this one hit the hardest, like a train—no, fuck, like a speeding car. Jodi sank to the floor as another chunk of reality slotted into place with a thud that shook his insides. He’d left the message right before the accident, he was sure of it, and the sickening crunch in his brain hadn’t been an epiphany at all, it was a memory, a real one, and Jesus Christ, ithurt.
Jodi sat on the floor for a long time. His mind-bending headache faded, and no more memories came to him, but the sensation that something had yet again changed remained. He gazed around the half-tidy flat. Over recent months, he’d come to accept it was his home, that it had been way before the accident, but until this moment, it had never felt familiar, safe, or warm, especially when he was home alone ... alone without Rupert.
He was warm now, even without the hoodie he usually wore indoors. His newfound energy had returned. He stood and considered the hoover. The brush attachment was fucked and the hose bound together with duct tape. Damn thing looked like a prop from a sci-fi film.Henry. The name was emblazoned on the side of the battered machine. Jodi wondered why they hadn’t bought a new one. Perhaps he’d ask when Rupert came back.
If Rupert comes back.Jodi pictured the bewildered frustration in Rupert’s gaze before he’d fled the flat. Despite Jodi’s almost constant state of introspection, and the lingering disquiet from discovering Rupert had kept something so huge from him, Jodi felt Rupert’s distress like it was his own. Rupert had lost as much as Jodi—perhaps more.
I wouldn’t blame him if he ran for the fucking hills.
Though common sense told him Rupert could’ve abandoned him long ago if he’d really wanted to, the thought of Rupert doing just that was too much to bear. Jodi plugged the hoover in and switched it on. A whistling shriek filled the room, along with the scent of a damp dog, and Jodi wrinkled his nose. It smelt like the bag hadn’t been changed for months ... It probably hadn’t.
He searched the cupboard for spare bags. Found them and replaced the old one. The hoover still stank, but it was likely as good as it was going to get. He set to work hoovering every available surface in the flat.
He’d just finished the skirting boards in the bedroom when the front door opened and Indie’s bell-like voice filtered through the flat. But she didn’t come looking for Jodi, and disappointment swept over him, an emotion that puzzled him as he unplugged the hoover, retracted the cord, and stowed it away in the cupboard. By all accounts, he hadn’t seen Indie since a week before the accident, and, of course, he didn’t remember that meeting—or her—so why did he crave her company so much now, twenty-four hours after her mother had forced a pretty fucking awkward reunion?
“What happened in here?”
