Page 74 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
Nina had made a tentative arrangement earlier in the week to go to a rockabilly rave in Kings Cross with Marianne and Claude but earlier in the week was a millenium ago.
‘Of course you’ve got plans,’ Verity said without waiting for Nina to confirm. ‘You, Nina, stay in on a Saturday night? It would be like the ravens leaving the Tower. England would fall!’
It took ages for Verity to be gone. First she had to have her half-hour decompression lie-down, then she had to pack her overnight bag and ponder where she and Johnny might go for dinner, which depended on where they might go for brunch tomorrow and did Nina want to meet up with them and though Verity was an introvert, God, the girl could talk, Nina thought as she grunted in the places where Verity expected a response.
Then, at last,at last, Verity was running down the stairs because she was late and a minute later the shop door closed behind her and Nina was alone.
All those years Nina had spent wondering what love really felt like and now she knew. It felt like hell. It felt like the worst thing on earth. It felt much, much worse than anything she’d read about inWuthering Heights.Compared to what she was experiencing on a lonely Saturday night, Cathy and Heathcliff had simply been a pair of idiots who’d needed their heads knocking together.
Nina lay in bed unable to sleep. It wasn’t even all the pain and regret she’d been bottling up since Noah had told her ‘This isn’t going to work’ that kept her awake. Her torment was less emotional and more physical. She was either so hot that it felt as if she was being roasted alive, sweat stinging her eyes and making her kick off the covers, or she felt so cold that her body would suddenly rattle with shudders that were a pretty close cousin to convulsions and she barely had enough energy to pull the duvet tighter around her.
Come Sunday morning, sleep deprivation was the least of her ailments. Nina had a skull-crushing headache, made worse by the coughs that wrenched her inside out. Her limbs had been stuffed with sawdust and getting from bed to hall to kitchen was as arduous as her walk across the moors two days before. Making a cup of coffee took what was left of her depleted strength so she barely had enough energy to drink it. Then the shivers started again and Nina all but crawled to the sofa because the living room was nearer than her bedroom.
Then she must have fallen asleep because she was plagued by dreams where she was lost on the moors. She could hear Noah’s voice calling her, but each time she tried to stumble towards him, she realised it was just the wind wuthering at her and that Noah was nowhere to be found. Or she’d see him in the distance but when she got closer, it wouldn’t be Noah but an old gnarled log or a slab of stone.
‘Where are you?’ dream Nina cried. ‘Don’t leave me. My heart’s broken.’
‘What is she going on about?’ asked a piercing, familiar voice.
‘I never thought that a broken heart would feel like this,’ Nina whispered to the cruel, uncaring wind.
‘It’s not a broken heart, it’s the flu,’ said the same voice and when Nina forced her eyes open, there was a face staring down at her, which was mostly obscured by a surgical mask. ‘Open your mouth!’
Nina opened her mouth, only to have a thermometer rammed in it.
‘Your bedside manner sucks,’ said a voice from the doorway and Nina turned her head, groaning around the thermometer because her neck ached, to see a cluster of people standing there. Posy, who’d just spoken, Verity and behind them, a tall, dark figure …
‘Heathcliff,’ Nina mumbled.
‘No, not Heathcliff, it’s me, Merry!’ and a hand on Nina’s chin turned her head back to the person standing over her. Nina blinked sleep-encrusted, swollen eyes as she stared up at Merry, or Mercy as she’d been christened, one of Verity’s many sisters. Mercy was a medical researcher at nearby University College Hospital and their go-to person whenever they were feeling poorly. ‘Let’s be having this.’ The thermometer was yanked out of Nina’s mouth. ‘Just nudging thirty-nine degrees. Are you achy?’
‘So achy. Hot. Then cold. Everything hurts,’ Nina realised. ‘Oh God, this is just like when Emily Brontë caught a chill, which turned into tuberculosis and then she died.’
‘It’s not TB. I keep telling you, you have the flu. You’re not going to die,’ Merry said comfortingly. ‘Although actually, flu isn’t to be taken lightly, people can die from the flu,’ she added not so comfortingly.
‘Morland, I absolutely forbid you from entering this disease-ridden hovel. Go downstairs this instant,’ commanded the tall, dark figure at the living-room door, who wasn’t Heathcliff, but Sebastian Thorndyke. ‘I’m not having you dying on me.’
‘For God’s sakes, Sebastian,’ Posy hissed, but she took a couple of cautious steps back. ‘I wish you’d think before you speak.’
‘Well, of course Tattoo Girl isn’t going to die,’ Sebastian said witheringly. ‘You’re far too robust to be snuffed out by the flu. Though, quite frankly, a light dose of the flu is just desserts for what you’ve done to poor Noah. He’s trying to put a brave face on it, but he’sdevastated.’
Nina hadn’t thought it was possible to feel any more rotten but her visitors were doing a good job of proving her wrong. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She wanted to ask after Noah, demand to know what he’d said about her, though it couldn’t be anything good, but the effort was too much and all she could manage was a feeble cough that hurt like hell.
‘Well, Nina is devastated too and she absolutely isn’t going to die,’ Verity said firmly, but she didn’t move from the door so she could take Nina’s hand or mop her exceedingly sweaty brow. ‘And I’m sure people who die of the flu have underlying medical conditions or are very old. Do you think she should see a doctor, Merry?’
‘Nothing a doctor can do for her,’ Merry said cheerfully and in an odd sort of way, it was also quite comforting to have everyone talk about Nina as if she wasn’t a very present, hot and sweaty lump on the sofa. ‘Flu’s a virus so she can’t take antibiotics. Just paracetamol or ibuprofen to lower her temperature and plenty of liquids to stop her from getting dehydrated.’
‘Poor Nina,’ Posy cooed from the door. ‘We’ll make sure you have plenty of Lemsip. And I’m sure we can scrounge up some chicken soup from somewhere for you.’
‘Such a pity that you and Noah only lasted three dates,’ Verity noted sorrowfully. ‘I bet he’d be the kind of boyfriend you’d really want around you when you had the flu.’
‘He thinks I’m a horrible person.’ Nina couldn’t raise her voice above a creaky whisper. ‘Because I am. No one will ever love me.’
‘Oh, Nina! That’s not true,’ Posy gasped. ‘We all love you.’
There was a rousing chorus of agreement from Verity and Mercy though Sebastian protested that ‘love is pushing it, especially as you’ve just broken Noah’s heart,ooof,’ this from an elbow in the side from Posy, ‘however, generally I think you’re a cracking girl.’ Then Tom’s distant voice called up the stairs, ‘Is anyone but me going to do any work today? Posy! There’s a delivery.’
‘All right, all right,’ Posy snapped. ‘I’d better go. You too, Very. Text us if you need anything, Nina.’
