Page 84 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

They stopped giving Arthur anything at all for the pain, or to help him sleep. He realised that they’d cut him off when he spent an entire day awake, Sidney sitting stoically at the end of the bed, unsmiling, saying nothing when he made demands. He raged and raged against the physician, tried to drag himself out of bed to really make a point of it, but all they’d give him was endless broth.

Gwen visited and insisted on hugging him, even though he was grumpy and sweaty and generally unpleasant to behold.

‘Get off,’ he grunted, unable to defend himself. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself.’

‘I don’t care,’ Gwen said, smiling at him fondly. ‘God, I’m so glad you’re still alive to be horrible to me. It won’t last. Get your digs in now, while you’re all pathetic and I feel sorry for you.’

She insisted on hugging him again before she left. He breathed in the clean, now-familiar smell of her hair, and felt strangely calmer.

He got better in increments, the days beginning to take shape and form. He even voluntarily drank some damnbroth in the end, even though it was late at night and the serving girl had been sent away, and Sidney had to spoon it into Arthur’s mouth himself.

‘This is weird,’ Arthur said, as Sidney used one hand to tilt his head up and the other to feed him.

‘I’ve been doing this for weeks,’ he said. ‘It was weirder when you had no idea who I was, or what a spoon was.’

‘Right,’ Arthur said, taking a deep breath. ‘So I suppose it wasn’t the ghost of my dead mother cradling me and cleaning me and weeping all over me for nights on end.’

‘No,’ Sidney said grimly. ‘That was me. D’you want some wine?’

‘No,’ Arthur said quickly, surprising himself. The thought of it turned his stomach, but it wasn’t just that. ‘No. I think … might be as good a time as any to try life without. Seeing as it was never much help before. What do you think?’

‘Christ,’ said Sidney. ‘Is that all it takes, to knock some sense into a person? I need a head injury.’

‘Youarea head injury.’

Sidney eventually fell asleep in the chair, which looked uncomfortable; Arthur woke him up by shouting his name as loudly as he could – which, as it turned out, wasn’t particularly loudly – and told him to go and sleep on a horizontal surface. He looked as if he might be about to argue, but then shrugged and walked into the adjoining room to collapse on to his cot.

Arthur took this as a good sign. If he were in any imminent danger of dying, Sidney wouldn’t have fallen asleep at all.

Hours later, as Arthur lay awake feeling simultaneously exhausted and as if he’d never sleep again, he heard the dooropen. He knew who it was by their footsteps alone. He’d certainly heard them enough by now.

‘You’re up,’ Gabriel said, seeming surprised. He looked so tense and drawn into himself that Arthur wanted to reach up and push down his shoulders.

‘Not by most definitions of the word,’ Arthur said, and Gabriel gave a humourless exhalation of a laugh.

‘Are you in pain?’ he said, sitting down carefully in the chair.

Arthur tried moving his limbs experimentally. It felt like he was dragging them through thick treacle, but they didn’t hurt.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Just … feel like I’ve been stampeded. By horses. Extremely large horses.’

‘And that doesn’t hurt?’

‘The stampede was a month ago.’

‘Ah,’ said Gabriel. ‘Right.’ He didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. He certainly wasn’t looking at Arthur. ‘Your father is here,’ he said eventually. ‘I saw him at dinner. I suppose he came to see you today.’

Arthur didn’t think he had it in him to feel angry, but he managed it anyway. Hisfather– here. His father, inside the castle, presumably to visit his deathly ill son, but inexplicably absent from his bedside. He simultaneously wanted to rage his way through the hallways until he found him, and ask for him to be barred from entering the room.

‘Not yet,’ was all he said.

‘Well …’ said Gabriel uselessly.

‘How do I look?’ Arthur bit out. Gabriel reluctantly looked down at him. His expression could have beenmistaken for dispassionate, if not for the slight tightening of his eyes.

‘We thought you were going to die,’ he said quietly. ‘Ithought you were going to die.’

‘Yes,’ Arthur said, trying to sit up a little straighter and managing it at an agonisingly slow pace. ‘Well. I didn’t.’