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Everything in the world span on its head and Nick squeezed his eyes shut with yet another groan, hunching closer until the cold porcelain pressed against his skin and made him shiver.
It had been a mistake to attend Gatsby’s party tonight, but it was too late now.
-
It wasn’t necessarily misfortune to be in love with one’s neighbour, however it was certainly an event that relied upon fortuitous circumstances to end well. He’d tried as hard as a man rapidly approaching his thirties could to remain unbitter about the situation and some days perhaps even thought he managed it.
This included tonight, he realised as he blinked awake. His next thought was I feel terrible and then that was superseded by the greater horror that he had fallen asleep in Jay Gatsby’s bathroom. Not that the man didn’t have a slew of other bathrooms available in his mansion, or that Nick was causing great inconvenience to his host or anyone else in attendance at this party, however that wasn’t the point. Head still spinning, Nick pulled himself to his feet and leant all his weight on the sink; the surface of the expensive mirror cool against his forehead. He grimaced- that mirror alone was no doubt worth his cottage thrice over and here he was putting sweat marks all over it.
-
When it had become apparent that the weakness which’d been snapping at his heels was resolving itself into a full-blown bout of sickness he had immediately sequestered himself away in the most secluded bathroom he could find, with the hope to wait the terrible feeling out until he felt well enough to bid goodbye to Gatsby and go be miserable at home instead.
Nick forced some thoughts past the cotton wool in his brain and tried to focus, the way dying out to a haze of grey; he couldn’t hear the brass band playing any longer, nor the raucous rollercoaster of the wasp’s nest of guests that had thronged in for the party. It was over, then.
He had outstayed his welcome- yet another mark of impoliteness to add to the night's tally chart- and he could finally go home. The relief rushed to his head and brought him to his knees on the tiles again, barely avoiding an accident between his head and the sink and the movement flipped his stomach upside down and scarcely had he crawled to be next to the toilet again was he heaving again, his throat trying to pull his intestines into his mouth.
Even in France as a soldier, Nick had never felt quite so terrible or ill as he had been for this last week. What made his ailment acutely worse was the full cognizance that he had only himself to blame: he had commuted to work, did his work, commuted from work each day; sweat wanly in his leather office chair until his lunch hour and that hour marking the chance to escape to the slightly cooler streets and let his shirt unstick from his back. It was a ritual he had performed each day with a successive tiredness and pallor, until the office girl at the front desk had told him to get back home before the Boss found him.
Nick curled his legs around him and leant his head on his elbow, the retching finished and not quite trusting himself how long for.
Yesterday had been wasted on the sofa counting the books on his shelf when he felt well enough to be half awake, dead to the world when he did not. He felt sick again and wondered- absently disgusted with himself for doing so- just where it could all come from , for if he had eaten or drank anything this past week he had no recollection of it.
A sudden attack of vertigo had him feel as if he was about to plunge into the depths of the mansion's plumbing system and he squeezed his eyes shut with an unmanly sound; gave in to the wretched feeling and curled up on the tiled floor, whimpered anew at how cold it felt. Nick felt too awful to even chastise himself for lying on his neighbour's bathroom in his good suit and causing the horrid smell in the air- the door was locked and no one least of all his neighbour could see him in such a state. His stomach cramped at the same time it sent more nausea to hover at the back of his throat and he curled in on himself tightly, trying to pretend a cool hand was on the back of his neck.
***
He hoped none of the guests could detect the sense of loss he was experiencing- had been experiencing all evening.
“Goodbye,” he said to another faceless man, another and another departing hot on his heels. “Goodbye. Goodnight. I’m glad you had a good time. Goodbye. Goodnight- Cheerio to you, too, old sport! Yes, yes, I think the same. Goodbye.”
When the last of them had snaked out and the grand front doors were snapped shut, Gatsby deflated with a long exhale. If he’d been a poorer man who shut his own front doors, he perhaps would have sagged back against them and sunk down to the floor.
Thankfully he was not a poorer man and he had the liberty to sink into the nearest velvet chaise . One of the butlers glided over and placed a drink in his hand.
Tonight his staff’d been under strict instructions to weed out every guest- no more errant partygoer or wayward Klipspringer lost in the huge mansion. He’d grown tired of such folly, lately. Perhaps it was connected to his secret meetings with Daisy growing more passionate and he was simply afeared to let the fact leak out. Yet as soon as he’d thought the idea he’d dismissed it- the lost feeling in his heart wasn’t abating any.
He told the butler to send Carou, the head butler, his way when he saw him. A nod, then he scurried off.
As was common, lately, Jay Gatsby was left to watch the fleet of cars depart alone, the lights growing smaller and smaller until they were extinguished completely like stars drifted out too far. Bitterness started on his tongue and worked its way outward- his long hours musing over this feeling had all been in vain, as he was still no closer to an answer. It left him in a waspcloud of emotion; hazy and confused without a clear thought or idea to pin it on.
It scared him. Never had he felt so lost.
“Sir?”
With a tilt of his head Carou came into view. The head butler was less a man and more personification of a shadow; his suits were always back and prim and his hair was black and his face was white and his nails always trim and clean and his brow hung over his eyes and cast them into darkness. He looked like he’d killed a man, which was the quality Gatsby always searched for in his butlers. He ran the mansion with military efficiency and in the two years since hiring him, Jay had never seen any emotion cross his face except the same mild distaste he could see now. It amused him to wonder just what exactly had occurred to put that expression there. It always had.
“Ah, Carou. Everyone gone?” Maybe he’d order the whole staff to bed and leave the cleaning for Sunday morning. That’d never happened before and he hoped it would elicit more distaste out of Carou.
“All except one, sir.”
Which meant, for some reason, Carou hadn’t asked the chap to clear out. He raised his eyebrows: an invitation to continue. “There is one guest left, sir- the third floor bathroom besides the smoking room.” There was a pause as he relieved his employer of the empty tumbler. “I believe it is Mr Carraway, sir.”
Gatsby started to run.
Up until this point, he hadn’t spared a thought for his neighbour all week and yet now reminded of him again his thoughts pinpointed with a clarity so acute it was startling. Nick, of course!
Marble floors passed in a blue beneath his expensive shoes as he wound round corners and took staircases three steps at a time. There was a quality to Daisy’s cousin that he appreciated dearly, though he couldn’t name it even though it was clear his poorer upbringing had given him a strangulated view of the world and he never believed a good thing could happen twice.
He was running so fast over his marble floors it was like flying over the sea.
Aside from a brief glimpse of the back of his head when he arrived and Gatsby was already occupied talking to a senator, he realised he hadn’t seen Nick at all that evening despite probably half of New York thronging in and out. Nick’ll have the answers . He was a writer, even if he blushed and denied it, a writer who would have all the answers Jay wanted. The solution now it had presented itself was so simple Jay was amazed he hadn’t through of it before.
He tripped on the last step of the staircase and skittered down the hall as he tried to balance; caught his elbow painfully on the door jam of the bathroom. Suppressing a curse, he was surprised to find the door still closed- how long did a man take in his neighbour’s bathroom, anyway?
“Nick?” Knocking once, then again, he couldn’t hear anything beyond the door. Perhaps Carou had been wrong? Thought dismissed at once, his fingers were inches from the handle when he finally heard the shuffle of feet and a quiet murmur that could have been ‘just a minute’ . Gatsby hummed in contemplation and rocked back on his heels as the latch clicked and the door pulled open a crack.
Impatience winning out, he pushed the door open himself. “Old sport, I absolutely need your help.”
Although his bathroom- like all his other bathrooms- had more than enough space to comfortably accommodate ten people, he stopped just over the threshold. Nick had his back to him, leaning against the basin as he fussed at his appearance and behind him, in the reflection, he could see that his neighbour looked absolutely dreadful.
He watched a ghostly man swallow by way of the mirror, then his expression hardened into one of pure resolve. “Alright,” Nick spoke softly, turning to face him and still leaning heavily on the sink at his back. “What can I do?”
“There is- lately I’ve…” now he had the chance, words wouldn’t come. He had seen a gum jam once; fighting near a village in France not even the locals remembered the name of and he felt like that: frozen in time, on edge and dangerously close to coming a cropper at the hands of an entity out of his control.
Nick waited patiently, saying nothing. Jay took his speechlessness as an opportunity to observe him , in his wan and wilting state, colour leaching from his face from grey to white. It was strange- Nick was no stranger to drinking to excess during his parties, yet he’d never failed holding his liquor so spectacularly. The brief thought crossed his mind that he was being horribly unfair making him wait on him here like this when no doubt he would rather be at home in bed, sleeping towards an impressive hangover.
“I just…” utterly helpless, he shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in front of him and was not surprised to see them shake a little. “I just don’t know what I’m doing.”
Nick frowned, the curve of his mouth matching the hunch of his back, “What do you mean?”
“I just feel completely… lost.” This time, he dragged out the sentence as a deliberate act, distracted by how Nick leaned a bit more heavily on the sink and swallowed as he shifted from foot to foot. “As if my life as it is now is just… I suppose what I mean to say is… I say, old sport, are you quite alright?”
“Fine” Nick gasped, looking the opposite of fine. Waves of vertigo broke against him with no reprieve and he felt the floor sway dangerously beneath his feet. He felt the horrid desire to vomit rising again, the nausea and pain adding to the vertigo until he felt faint. “’M fine,” he repeated vainly, closing his eyes.
Gatsby watched him with mounting concern as the electric lights of the bathroom bleached his complexion another shade of pale and his shoulders hunched some more. “You don’t look ‘fine’ to me, old sport.”
He started to shake his head, gasped and then doubled over with one arm round his waist, his free hand pressing against his mouth.
Perhaps Jay wasn’t the smartest of men, but he knew what that meant, “Old sport I really think-“
He was cut off with a weak yet determined shake of the head. “No. I’m- I’m fine. Really, I just need to go ho-“ the words turned into a heave. Jay could hear how it scraped at the back of his throat and a rose-pink flush bloomed on his cheeks on top of the chalky whiteness. When he started to apologize, he realised Nick was embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” another retch got in the way of whatever he was about to say next and then another and another until tears sprang to his eyes from the pain of it.
He felt more than saw Gatsby move closer, “Just how much have you had to drink, old sport?”
He didn’t dare open his mouth.
The lack of an answer spurned him closer and closer- or maybe that was the lack of polite protest at the proximity. Every time they had gotten this close before, Nick had always averted his eyes and seemed to flinch at any contact no matter how friendly and well-intentioned.
“I’m sorry,” he wheezed, words hardly audible.
Gatsby felt a queer desire to comfort him- it wasn’t a feeling he could claim to have familiarity with. “It’s alright, old sport.” Deciding to push his luck, he took another step closer and put a hand on Nick’s shoulder. He felt his brows pull together, “Are you- he checked. Yes . “You’re feverish.”
Nick shook his head again, battling against every element to stay upright and insisting he was perfectly okay. At least, he hoped he’d managed to say it out loud. All this thinking was just hurting his head and, in deference to his trembling legs, he let himself sway to the side and rest his trembling form against Jay Gatsby’s firm body. It felt wonderful. Almost as wonderful as being in bed would feel. It could not last forever.
Swaying he tried to stand up straight. White star-bursts began to explode in front of his eyes; he heard a distant murmur, then a strong hand grasping his elbow. “You need to be in bed, old sport.” He nodded. Yes: he needed to go home and stop being so impolite to his host.
How much of this he was able to get across in a coherent manner was a bit of a mystery, but lucky for him Jay seemed to get the idea as a hand wrapped around his waist and its thumb stroked in small circles, the bathroom door opened, the long walk down a very long hallway beginning.
***
Not for the first time that night, Jay Gatsby felt practically useless. This is getting to be a habit he mused privately, half on watch over the sleeping figure in the bed. He had had little part to play in the proceedings: he’d ordered servants around, ordered them to call a doctor, chose the room closest to his room, taken Nick’s shoes and belt off. And then sat in vigil in the comfiest chair in the room for the rest of the night up until now. He hadn’t even cleaned the vomit from his own carpet and he wondered why that was so important to him.
The doctor who’d visited gave a perfunctory exam at best, declaring it was nothing akin to the Spanish Flu and completely survivable once the fever had passed. In the meantime, Nick would just have to suffer. Boiling with anger, Jay had kept silent until the door closed behind him, at which point he had scooted his chair as close to the bed as possible- knees hitting the mattress- and stayed there.
For all the good he seemed to be.
Once installed in his guest en-suite, Nick hadn’t stayed coherent very long; the more Jay had tried to soothe his fears of being impolite with shallow but sincerely meant platitudes then the more agitated he’d become. Finally he had worked himself into weak delirium before the butler even showed the doctor up the drive. At the very least, the physician had injected him with a liquid cloudy in the syringe and Jay had watched the lines of his face smooth out and his breathing deepen. Part of him disliked the doctor, even for that, for now he was at a total loss as to what to do and nothing that required him, his money, or his hard work.
He thought about everything long and hard as what was left of the night wore into morning and as the sun was beginning to emerge from The Sound and send chintzes through the lace curtains like darting silver fishes, Jay woke himself up from his half doze with a laugh. He had finally found the words to describe the empty feelings within himself after all.
***
Nick swum out of sleep and found little comfort when he met the waking world again. The face of god peered kindly down at him, “How are you feeling, old sport?”
“I-” he grimaced as he became aware of the raste in his mouth.
Laughter rumbled low, luke thunder coming across The Sound, “You’ve been out of it a while.”
How long was ‘a while’? Grimace turning to a groan, he took in his surroundings as fast as he could blink the grit from his eyes. There was an ache in his middle, an ache in his head, the threat of nausea that could boil over at any moment, a soft, soft mattress underneath him and cool silk sheets matching the canopy of the four poster bed above and giving the air a smell nothing like his own laundry.
Jay’s house. He felt himself blush at once, unable to remember anything after the second time he threw up on the expensive carpet, “I hope I didn’t put you to any trouble.”
He waved his hand to dismiss the thought, the way a MahaRajah might have done in India, “Don’t mention it, old sport. Would you like something to drink?”
He weighed up the thought of vomiting again against the thirst, “If it’s no trouble.”
“Not at all, old sport.” Soft clinking echoed as he poured them both tea, the sounds going through the back of his skull like a bullet.
Resigning himself to the embarrassment of his circumstances, Nick sat back against the headboard and tried his best to steady his hands so as not to spill any Earl Grey on the bed sheets. To his delighted surprise, instead of returning to the chair Jay took his own tea sat on the foot of the bed, legs crossed and looking princely.
“You’ve been here since last night,” he explained. As if it was a perfectly natural occurrence to take in your foolish and ailing neighbour.
By the way the sun was burnishing Jay’s golden hair a soft copper he could tell it was almost evening again. The worry in the pit of his stomach grew; he’d lost a whole Sunday, with no memory of it whatsoever. “Okay.” Christ, but he could have done or said anything, told him anything at all. He did not need to remember or ask to know he had had one constant companion the whole time.
Jay nodded at this soft noise and continued blithely onwards, “I went looking for you and found you rather worse for wear. In truth, old sport, I thought you’d just had too much to drink.
Well at least he’d found one situation more humiliating than the one he was already part of. Nick nodded slowly, not taking a sip of tea because it was scalding hot. “Yes… I remember that.” In the rare flash of genius that could on occasion seize a young man, he grabbed a way to change the subject. “I remember… there was something you needed my help with, wasn’t there?”
Jay took a sip of his own tea and poorly-disguised a wince. He waved his hand a little; a gesture that threatened to upset his teacup. “Oh, that. It’s nothing important, old sport.”
He nodded at the rest of the room, pleased to find it didn’t set off fire bells between his ears anymore, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well, I suppose not…” Putting the cup down on the arm of the chair, he adjusted his tie and then picked the saucer back up. Then put it down on the other arm of the chair and adjusted his tie and tightened his cufflinks until they squeaked.
Nick leaned forward and felt a frown scrawl away the lines of his face- though leant closer gingerly, in deference to his sore and tender mid-section. “What is it?” How absurd: the thought that he wouldn’t do anything within his means to help this man! He could no more refuse Jay than he could an order from the president himself.
“I just- oh, old sport it’s nothing, only-” he laughed. It twinkled like a tuning fork struck upon a star. THey were sitting so close Nick could pinpoint when his blue eyes turned sorrowful to match the colour of the darkening sky. “I wanted to ask your advice, old sport. I’ve just been… lost. As if none of this-” he gestured to mean his mansion, his cars, his parties, his gold hairbrush, his hold over New York City “-means anything at all.”
“What about Daisy?” There were times Nick knew himself to be his own worst enemy.
“She is… it’s hard to make her understand.” His gaze fell away, “She’s coming to one of my parties, soon. As soon as we can arrange it- and of course you’ll be there too, old sport. Once she’s been, I think she’ll understand.”
Having nothing to say Nick elected to say nothing, his brain too fogged over to conjure up the words that’d be a balm to a man’s floundering soul.
Now he had started, Jay didn’t seem capable of stopping. “Everything lately has just felt so empty and I can’t explain why . Why I feel so empty. What is missing from everything and why I can’t work out what it is! As if, one day, someone came along and took your biggest, most expensive diamond from your safe. Then the next day you track them down and confront them about it- in front of everyone. And him and all the rest of the world say you never even had a diamond in the first place!” He leaned forward to compensate for his company’s lack of being able to do so; the sea in his eyes grew deeper and deeper with beseechment. The way he hadn’t slept in nearly 48 hours, how his hair was in disarray and his suit untidy, he looked a wild man.
Nick swallowed, feeling his infatuation grow the more he drowned in those eyes. “Well… you’re only 32, Jay. Every man feels like that a little, I think. Especially now the world is going along so damn fast. You’re just not used to not being able to fix everything.”
The dismayed expression did not look out of place on the extraordinary man’s face as it would on anyone else’s. Every expression on his gorgeous visage was as natural as the meander of a river. “Hmmm. ‘Not used to’... I felt the same last night, seeing you so badly off. Nothing I could do would make it better.”
Even vaguer memories appeared in the fog of his brain: feeling wretched, horrible and wrung out, and the cool hand of a saint on his back and the cool burble of a stream murmuring comforting words in his ear. His head being held while someone turned the pillow over to the cooler side. “You did alright in my book,” he said.
He was rewarded with the glimmer of a smile, “I’m glad, old sport. I felt pretty useless.”
“You did alright,” repeated Nick. “I suppose I should really…?” He started to push the bed clothes away.
“Ah- no .” Jay made short work of his escape attempt, having him pinned back down under the covers in milliseconds. “You’re staying here for a few days, old sport- I insist.”
“ Jay ” he blustered, blushed so hard it must have looked like the fever had made a recurrence. “I can’t- I’ve already imposed enough and-”
“Doctor’s orders,” his voice brooked no arguments. “At least another three days of bed rest. Then and only then will I consider letting you out of this bed.”
He blushed some more, though slumped back against the pillows and didn’t protest as Jay took his cup and saucer from him and deposited it on the bedside table.
“Nick.” A strong hand cupped his jaw and forced him to meet his eyes, “After how much I’ve worried over you, it’s not fair if you’re not a burden for a few more days.”
Nick closed his eyes. His fever had broken as the sun began to rise this morning which was less poetic than the writers made out when you had been up by his bedside all night. It had taken near the entire day for him to get to the point of coherency and the struggle had worn him out. “Alright,” he murmured, yawning before the word had even finished.
It made Jay yawn too and he laughed, standing up straighter and cracking his back with a stretch of his arms. “Good. Now that that’s settled then… If you don’t mind excusing me, old sport, I’m going to get some sleep that’s not in a chair.”
Something feverish sparked across Nick’s expression. “Well the bed’s big enough for two,” he offered in a shy attempt at humour, nodding to the mattress space around him which could comfortably fit four or even five people.
Jay laughed and started for the door and his own room and his own bed, “Goodnight, old sport,” he called over his shoulder.