Belle's flat overlooking Eaton Square has the uncanny feel of a dwelling deserted during wartime. The remains of her three-day-old breakfast are laid out on the kitchen table. An upended juice glass draws fruit flies. Her cast off flannel robe is crumpled on the living room rug, and a cordless phone is resting nearby. A chair is overturned.
She didn't think to switch off the radio when she bolted out the door for the hospital, and the clipped voice of a BBC newscaster reads tomorrow's forecast. More rain and sleet. It's going to be an unusually cold October.
There will be time for cleaning up the mess and opening the mail and returning phone calls from concerned friends. Right now, Belle walks to the fridge and takes out two bottles of lager. She drinks the first bottle while sitting on her overstuffed sofa, not bothering to remove her tweed jacket. While she drinks, she thinks about people who sleep under bridges and long ago bedtime stories and the smell of James's hair after he spent the day playing out-of-doors in the sunshine.
She takes a long pull from the bottle and thinks about Nosty and the muttered asides of the overworked nurses. It seems no one would have been especially troubled if he had finally "popped off," as one weary-looking hospital attendant so eloquently put it.
It's far easier to think about Nosty and what sort of help there might be for a homeless man with episodes of mania and depression — much easier than it is to think about her dead brother. So Belle thinks about Nosty while she clears away her old breakfast dishes, and she thinks about him while she eats her pitiful, late supper over the kitchen sink, and she thinks about him while she enjoys her first shower in three days, the hot water scalding her skin as she scrubs away the lonely, antiseptic smell of the hospital.
Early tomorrow morning, her brother Matthew will arrive at Heathrow on an overnight flight from the Americas. With him will be Belle's sweet, sensible sister-in-law Mary. Between the three of them, somehow they'll manage to give James a proper send-off.
Lying in bed, feeling flushed and woozy from her second beer, Belle listens to the beginnings of a rainstorm. She remembers Nosty's honey-brown eyes: so vigilant, so intelligent, and so, so angry. They remind her of James's after he had slept rough for a few nights, then turned up hungry on her doorstep.
It's an awful, hollowed out feeling when someone you love dies. Belle tugs the spare pillow down beneath the quilt, clutching it tightly to her chest and belly. It feels better, somehow, to cradle and kiss the cotton fabric and pretend that she is offering comfort to someone who needs it. "Shhh," Belle tells the pillow, "Shhh…" and then her 'shhh' becomes a long, shuddering sob, and she buries her face in the soft cotton and weeps until she is too tired to do even that.
Her blue eyes are bloodshot when she greets Matthew and Mary the next morning, but, then, so are theirs. They form a tight, clinging huddle in the middle of the airport lobby, and although Belle thought she was all cried out after last night, she realizes straightaway she was wrong.
"I'm glad Dad isn't alive to see…" Matthew begins, and Belle quickly agrees, "I know."
After her family has checked into their hotel room and Mary has had a shower, they make their way over to King's College Hospital. Matthew has promised to settle the medical bill and take care of any necessary arrangements. Explaining that she wants to visit a patient who was with her when James passed on, Belle bids them goodbye at the front desk with an agreement to ring her brother when it's lunch time.
Nosty is sleeping when she enters his room. The other bed has already been filled, and the privacy curtain is drawn. At rest, his pale face appears younger. He's twenty-five, if that. Belle draws up a chair and takes his hand.
The young nurse who enters the room a short while later to replace Nosty's saline drip is startled to see her patient has a visitor.
"He had a difficult night last night," she explains hastily, perhaps thinking that Belle is looking askance at the metal restraints. "He was disoriented and unable to keep down fluids. His vitals are improving though. Give him a week or two, and he should be well enough for discharge."
"Where are his belongings?" Belle asks, staring at the flimsy hospital gown they've dressed him in and remembering yesterday's trip to the toilet. The nurse points to his things: a black leather jacket, scuffed boots, and a stained, red kilt.
Next to his clothing, Belle places a small, cloth book bag. From her purse, she draws out a ballpoint pen and scratches out a note on a page from her daily planner: "For Nosty. I'll be back later tonight. Love, Belle." She props the note up against the cloth bag where he's sure to see it and hesitates for a moment before bending down to gently peck his gauze-wrapped wrist.
"You're still here," she tells him quietly, "No 'popping off.' I'll bring something better than hospital food tonight." She leaves him to his rest.
Her day is a blur of appointments: with her boss to arrange for additional time off, with the sextant to prepare for James's burial adjacent to her father's gravesite, and with the minister to discuss the memorial service. Matthew and Mary are a tremendous help, but they succumb to jet lag early in the evening, and she bids them an early goodnight. The busyness of the day is a welcome distraction from grief, and Belle is glad that one final errand will keep her away from her lonely flat for another hour at least.
When she steps off the hospital elevator, she hears furious, hoarse shouting. Belle arrives at Nosty's doorway out of breath, her heart pounding.
"Don't you fucking touch me you, you bawface cunt! Come at me again, and I'll slit your throat so fucking fast and deep you'll think you was Anne-fucking-Boleyn!"
"You've got nits, Nosty!" It's the stern-looking nurse from the other night, the one who tried to make Belle see sense about James. "We can't have you infesting the entire wing. You can either calm yourself down, or I'll bring in some orderlies and a sedative to do it for you. Either way, the hair has to go."
"The fucking hell it does!" The metal restraint scrapes along the bed rail as he lurches forward, snarling.
The nurse turns on her heel and sees Belle, immobile in the doorway.
"Talk to your friend, luv," she growls, "I'd rather not put him out, not with a sepsis diagnosis, but I will if need be." She brushes past Belle, who surprises her by plucking at her elbow.
"Sedatives won't be necessary," Belle says in a soft, even tone, and Nosty echoes the sentiment with a great deal more profanity. "My brothers were sent home from school with nits far too often. If you can spare a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a shower cap, I'll take care of it, and you can see to your other patients."
The nurse's face softens somewhat, and she admits, "My mum used the same remedy on me when I was a wee thing. Ugh, how I hated it. Just see that he keeps his yap shut. The bloke in the bed over needs his rest."
She brings Belle the bottle and the shower cap and looks beyond relieved to leave them to it.