‘I’m really sorry, but I will need some sort of guarantee if you’re to book a room. It’s the rules. My boss will kick off if I make a booking without a registered card of some kind. And anyway, the computer won’t even allow me to book the room without that. It can’t actually be done on our system.’
I am quite aghast. This really is a problem. I hear a very large sigh gusting from the man waiting behind us then and embarrassment prickles over my skin.
Melissa’s eyes are filled with storm clouds now and electricity seems to spark around her. I fear she has finally reached her limit. But she must not lose her temper now, not when we have got so far.
‘Are you sure there is absolutely nothing you can do to help us, dear?’ I interject, smiling hopefully at the young girl, whose jaw is set mutinously. I sense her toes digging in under the desk. This person is not going to budge.
‘Can’t be done,’ she says and then, ‘Sorry.’
Never has that word been less meant than now. She pretends to tidy her desk, which quite clearly contains almost nothing but a magazine and a few plastic coffee cups. Her eyes remain cast down, her cheeks now crimson.
‘For God’s sake, love,’ says the man behind, suddenly, in a northern accent that pronounces the endearment as ‘loov’. ‘Let them book a room on my bloody card. I’ve been driving all night and I just want to get my head down.’
Leanna looks uncertainly from the man to Melissa and then to me as he comes to the counter, noisily clattering his small case, which has a resisting, squeaking wheel.
‘Well,’ she says uncertainly, ‘I suppose there’s no reason why I can’t do that if you are happy to do it.’
He glances at us and nods. He’s quite handsome, if you like the big ginger type of man. Sort of like Henry the Eighth in his slimmer days.
‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘You don’t look like you’ll cause too much trouble.’ He winks at Melissa, who laughs and thanks him profusely.
I hope it’s only me who notices how unnatural and high that laugh sounds as I add my own thank you.
A few minutes later, our knight in shining armour disappears into the lift, while Melissa is given the key to our room: a credit-card sized piece of plastic.
Loudly calling out that I will just go and get something from the car, for the Unlovely Leanna’s benefit, I make my way back out into the violent daylight for the next, difficult, part of our plan: getting Bertie past that young martinet.
I open the van and a heinous smell greets my nostrils.
‘Oh Bertie!’
He lays his head on his paws, ears flattened. His tail thumps slowly but his eyes beam shame and fear of rebuke. I put my hand on his head, fighting back my disgust.
He’s a very sensitive boy and all this travelling must have gone to his tummy.
I realize now how very quiet he had been since we left the riverbank. The poor animal must have been feeling quite poorly.
I hunt in my bag for antibacterial wipes and do my best to clear up the wet offering on the seat. Thank goodness there isn’t very much of it. I manage to get it all cleaned up, while Bertie watches me gratefully. I toss the soiled cloths in a bin and then clean my hands.
I have a very strong stomach. It is one of the very unfair ironies of life that dirty nappies and sickness would not have bothered me one iota. The way some mothers complain about their children’s natural bodily processes, you would think they were nurses in a field hospital at the Somme, rather than people who have been privileged enough to become parents.
Still, no point thinking that way now. I must get to Melissa.
‘Right, boy,’ I say to Bertie, wrapping him up in my cagoule. He wriggles and kicks and tries to get free. ‘Bertie!’ I have to speak very sharply to him then. ‘Mummy needs you to be very good and very still!’ I have no alternative but to tap him hard on the nose, which hurts me much more than it hurts him. With a pitiful whine, he rests his head on my arm and I flap one of the sleeves over to cover his head.
I peer nervously at the desk as I walk in but Miss Leanna isn’t there and the desk is empty. Another piece of much-deserved luck.
No one is in the lift either. Things are really starting to look up.
We will rest and then begin the day with clear heads.
I allow myself a little smile as I make my way to our room.
MELISSA
Hot water runs over Melissa’s lips, her mouth a square of anguish. She has to press her hands against the plastic wall of the tiny shower cubicle to stop herself from buckling at the knees. Sobs rip through her, hard like birth contractions, and their force begins to frighten her a little.
When the crying finally peters out, she stands with water running over her face, eyes jammed tight shut. But she can’t stop seeing that lifeless face and his body bobbing and twisting until the grey, cold water finally swallowed it up. Then she pictures his triumphant expression as he moved beneath her last night, his chest damp, hot, and hard under her hands. Filled with life. And that’s even worse.
The acid rises up without warning and she shoves the glass door open, stumbling out of the still-running shower just in time for the vomit to splash into the toilet bowl. There’s hardly anything to come up and her stomach heaves another two or three times until she knows she is spent. Miserably, she flushes the toilet and turns off the shower.
She longs for a toothbrush to help cleanse the foul taste from her mouth and thinks it doubtful you can get one from Reception in this sort of budget craphole. Miserably, she cranes her neck and lets tap water run into her mouth. Her neck aches and her back aches and her head feels as though someone has filled it with wet sand and then given it a few kicks.
How did she end up here? It feels as though some kind of whirlwind began in her kitchen last night that scooped her up and delivered her here without her really meaning any of it to happen. But an unforgiving little voice in her ear tells her she let it all happen. She was a willing participant. She can’t blame anyone else for this.
It’s only now she realizes there is a sound coming from outside the bathroom: a gentle knocking. Oh God, Hester, she thinks. How long has she been in the shower?
Wrapping the thin, inadequate towel around her body she hurries to the door. Hester almost falls in, wild-eyed, clutching a wriggling package that’s presumably full of dog.
‘Goodness!’ gasps Hester. ‘I’ve been out there for ages! Didn’t you hear me, I was …’
She seems to bite off the end of her sentence as she takes in Melissa’s appearance. Her cheeks flush hard and she drops her eyes. The dog bursts from the package and lands four-footed on the floor, where it begins to sniff about excitedly. Melissa flinches when its nose touches the bare skin of her foot.
‘Oh you poor girl,’ says Hester, still avoiding her eyes. ‘You’ve been crying. Are you all right?’ She is still blushing fiercely, which Melissa has never seen before. One of her hands drifts up towards Melissa’s naked shoulder, a little shakily, and Melissa finds herself stepping back as she nods. Please don’t hug me, she thinks, knowing that any kindness like this will cause her to split at the seams.
‘I’m fine,’ she says croakily, her throat dry and sore from sobbing and sickness. ‘Really. I just need to rest for a while, that’s all.’
Fervently hoping Hester won’t want to have some sort of post-mortem of events, Melissa crosses to the furthest single bed and reluctantly puts on her knickers and bra again.
This probably shouldn’t matter because she feels as though she will never be truly clean again, anyway.
Even though Jamie’s body was thrown in the water, she feels as dirty as if she had dug a grave with her bare hands, soil blackening her fingernails and working into the creases of her skin. She stares at her hands now, as if looking for the evidence and, thank goodness, the practical girl inside her comes to the fore and tells her to cut the Lady Macbeth stuff and get a grip on herself.
Suddenly aware that Hester’s eyes are on her, Melissa looks up and then, flustered, puts on her t-shirt, jeans, and socks. Finding a comb in her handbag, she drags it through her hair and then lies down on the single bed, facing the bathroom.