Joey threw Dawn a cheery goodbye and left, her heart thumping hard under the cheap lace of her brand-new bra. It was Friday night, she was on her way to meet Tom and she was so scared she wanted to throw up.
Tom had booked them into a remarkably beautiful hotel on the harbour. She hadn’t been expecting the Bristol Harbour to be something so grand; she’d been imagining a Holiday Inn or a Novotel type of affair. Something modern and convenient. Something suitable for a discreet one-night stand. But this was a grand boutique hotel, high ceilings, arched windows, teal velvet and bronze light fittings, perfumed with scented candles. This was a honeymoon hotel.
‘I have a reservation,’ she said to the girl behind the desk. ‘In the name of Mr Darwin?’
‘Yes,’ said the woman, staring at her computer. ‘Yes. Just the one night?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just the one night.’
Joey handed the receptionist her card. Tom had said he’d pay her back with cash, that it would keep things cleaner, and simpler.
Their room was on the first floor. It had a view over the twinkling lights of the city. It had a tall, golden, buttoned-velvet bedhead and a red velvet armchair with turquoise silk cushions. It was the nicest hotel room Joey had ever been in. She took off her boots and let her feet sink into the soft patterned rug.
Alfie texted again: Are you on your way home?
No, she replied, I’m going shopping.
Food shopping?
No. Clothes and stuff.
How long?
No idea. As long as it takes.
Text me when you’re on your way back.
Will do.
Love you.
Joey couldn’t quite bring herself to return the sentiment so typed in a love-heart emoji instead and turned off her phone.
Tom had said he’d get away when he could. He’d said he’d text when he was on his way. It was twenty past seven. She looked in the minibar. Then she looked at the price list for the things in the minibar and decided not to take anything out of it. She went and put her toothbrush and toothpaste in the marble bathroom. She checked her reflection. She looked fine. The dress she’d chosen in a wild, blue shopping panic yesterday was actually quite nice. Her skin was OK. Her hair was behaving. She put on an extra coat of red lipstick and went and sat on the bed.
And then the nerves kicked in. Big, sickening waves of terror and uncertainty.
What exactly was she doing here? What on earth was her objective? Tom had said that they would do this only once and then move on. But move on to what, exactly? They would still be neighbours. She would still bump into him in the wine shop. See him in the bar at the Melville. There would be a couple – maybe more – of intensely awkward years and then Tom and his strange wife and odd son would move out and on to the next place and the next school and she would never see him again.
Joey suddenly realised that the ache inside her, the burning flame of desire that had informed her entire existence for the last three months – it wasn’t profound. It wasn’t meaningful. It was simply an itch that needed to be scratched, no more profound than any other itch she’d ever had. And surely her life should be more than just a long, unfulfilling process of itch-scratching.
She checked the time. It was nearly seven thirty. She put her hand to herself, looking for the hot, urgent tautness that had been there for weeks. But it was gone; she could almost feel the dregs of it, ebbing, drizzling away.
And then there was a gentle knock at the door.
