The Dilemma(32)

‘I will. But first I’m going to rinse your swimsuit.’

‘I can do it,’ she protests. ‘Anyway, I rinsed it at the spa.’

‘I’ll hang it up to dry then.’ Before she can tell me that she’ll do it later, I reach into her bag and gather her phone into the folds of the plastic bag containing the swimsuit. ‘I won’t be a moment.’

In the utility room, I put her phone on silent, bury it at the bottom of the laundry basket, then drape her swimsuit on the drying rack.

‘Done,’ I say, walking back out onto the terrace and sitting down opposite her. ‘So you had a good time, then? At the spa?’

‘I loved the facial but I wasn’t as keen on the massage. I feel very relaxed, though. And we had a lovely lunch, with champagne.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘This isn’t your first glass, then?’ I say, trying to joke with her as I usually do, about how she quickly feels drunk on small amounts of alcohol.

‘No, and Jess and I had to drink Kirin’s because she’s—’ She stumbles over her words, ‘—she was driving.’

‘She could have had one glass, surely?’

‘She had a little, but she’s very strict about drinking and driving. She needs to be; she’d be stuck if she couldn’t drive.’

I nod. ‘How’s Jess?’

‘Not so good. She didn’t look great and her balance was a bit off.’

‘Poor Jess. It’s just as well that Rob is working from home now.’

When Jess was first diagnosed with MS, we were all in shock and none of us really knew what to expect. Jess lost some of her mobility fairly quickly, and her confidence along with it, and everyone around her reacted in different ways. Rob, initially supportive, changed jobs within his company, which meant he began travelling a lot, leaving Jess alone and vulnerable. We were in the pub together when Nelson challenged him about it.

‘Surely if you explained Jess’s situation to your boss, he’d give you your old job back?’ he said.

‘I’ve already told you – this job is a promotion, which is exactly what Jess and I need, with her future being so uncertain,’ Rob explained petulantly, unused to his normally protective and adoring big brother disapproving of him. ‘She’s managing to carry on working for now, but how long will that last?’

‘But with you not around to help, won’t her health deteriorate faster?’

‘It’s a chance we have to take. I’ve talked it over with Jess, she’s fine with me being away a couple of days a week. And if her health does get worse, then I’ll see about asking for a desk job again. Jesus, Nelson, let it go, OK?’

I get on alright with Rob, but I’m not close to him, not since he tried to drive a wedge between me and Livia during the early years of our marriage over the motorbike. It used to drive me mad when we were younger, the way he tagged along whenever Nelson and I met up. Nelson, for some reason, has always felt responsible for him. Rob can be funny, but most of the time he irritates the hell out of me. It’s not just the way he plays on his film-star good looks, pulling out his aviator sunglasses at the first ray of sunshine, or the way he turns on the charm, it’s more the way he has to be the centre of attention. But I was probably the only one who worked out that the reason he accepted his new job without complaint was because he was glad to get away, glad to have a break from the worry of Jess’s illness. I could sort of understand, even if I’d never do the same to Livia, if she was ever in Jess’s position.

Rob finally bowed to family pressure, from Jess’s family as well as his own, and went back to his desk job in January this year. The only time he left Jess was at the end of April, when he took Cleo to see Marnie in Hong Kong for her birthday, because Jess didn’t want Cleo going on her own.

Jess moved in with us while Rob was away, and although there weren’t any problems, there’s been a bit of a shift in the relationship between her and Livia, not on Jess’s part, but on Livia’s. It’s really sad, but I think being with Jess on a daily basis for ten days made Livia realise how much Jess can’t do for herself, and is having a hard time coming to terms with what’s happening to her friend. Because ever since, she’s been keeping her distance, arranging for us to see her friends from the office at weekends instead of Jess and Kirin, like we usually do, almost as if she wants to have an excuse not to socialise with them anymore. When I asked her about it, she didn’t deny it.

‘Don’t you sometimes feel that the six of us live a little too much in each other’s pockets? Surely it’s good to widen our circle of friends.’

I couldn’t disagree, because I like her colleagues and we always have a great time with them. But I miss our weekend dinners and impromptu lunches with the others. It’s why, a couple of weeks ago, I told Nelson and Rob to bring Kirin and Jess over for a barbeque at the weekend. Livia was fine when I mentioned it, but we ended up cancelling on the day because she wasn’t feeling well. I’m not saying that she pretended to be ill, because she did look awful. But it felt too much of a coincidence and I hate that Liv can’t cope with Jess’s illness.

Liv touches my arm. ‘What are you thinking about?’

I realise I’ve been miles away. ‘Sorry. I was thinking how good the garden looks.’