The door swings open and he’s standing there. Alone. We stare at each other in silence. The first emotion that flickers over his face is shock, but it’s soon given way to the kind of happiness you can’t fake: his mouth breaking open into a smile, his eyes crinkling with delight and surprise.
He comes forward into the room, places his bag carefully down on to the dressing table. ‘Well well,’ he says. ‘And what are you doing—’ but he doesn’t even finish the sentence before I’ve leapt up from the bed and launched myself into his arms, and I can tell from the way he clutches me to him instantly – the wholehearted force of it, the quick dip of his face into my neck – that he’s abandoned the idea of playing it cool. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ I think I hear him saying, his voice muffled in my hair, and I’m saying it, too, pulling back to trace my fingertips over his temples and take him in, wanting to etch this moment on my memory for good.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he says. ‘You know, it was all right today, but I kept thinking about you, about how much I wished you were there with me, and in the end I thought, there’s no point in staying, I may as well come back and be fucking miserable in the room by myself.’ He laughs, self-mocking. ‘Now I wish I’d come back hours ago. Why are you here?’
‘Because I want to be,’ I say simply, and suddenly it all rises up, my heart in my mouth, and I realize I’m going to tell him that I want us to be together, that I’m never going to turn away and pull on my clothes and leave his room at midnight to go home to another man ever again. I’m going to tell him tonight.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks, because my thoughts have choked my throat and I’m silent, staring into his eyes and trying to read what’s in them, wondering how this will go.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. Restlessness is sweeping through me – the exhilaration of these feelings, after the long, aimless day; the desire to get out, clear my head before I say what I want to say. ‘Look,’ I say impulsively. ‘Let’s go out. I haven’t eaten. We can drive to a pub or something – there must be one nearby. Sit outside. By the river, maybe. Come on,’ I encourage urgently, tugging at his sleeve.
He smiles, but rubs a hand over his eyes, half flopping back on to the bed. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I’m pretty knackered. Been driving for the past hour, and it’s felt like a long day. Besides, I can think of things I’d rather do than sit in the pub …’ He reaches for me, sliding his hand up underneath my top, his fingers stroking a gentle path of exploration over my skin and reaching the base of my bra. His eyes are dark and shining, inviting me to agree.
I’m tempted, but I can’t quite shake that sense of needing to be somewhere else, if only for a short while. It’s only now he’s here that I realize how oppressive these four walls have been. The air is thick with the day’s torpor, and I want this to be perfect; I want to look him in the face and tell him I love him, shout it out into the open air. I’m flooded with the power of these words and what they mean. I’ve never felt like this before – the world suffused with light and colour, the sharp brightness of possibility.
I leap up from the bed and pull on my shoes and coat. ‘I’ll drive,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to do anything. Just sit back and let me take you.’
He stands up and comes over to me, and I can tell that, whatever this is that has gripped me, it’s infectious. Excitement is shifting behind his eyes and he’s looking at me as if he’s never seen me before. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘if you say so. Whatever you want, baby.’ He pulls me towards him and kisses me hard. His lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth. ‘Not for too long, though,’ he warns me, ‘and when we come back, I expect you to behave, right? Can’t have you thinking you’re in charge.’
‘You’re the boss,’ I tell him, and we’re both smiling, unable to resist these games we play. I grab the car keys from his top pocket as we walk quickly down the corridor and out into the car park.
‘You sure about this?’ he asks, as I scramble into the driving seat.
‘Yes,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s fine.’ As I start up the engine, I suddenly remember the bottle of wine I’ve drunk. I hesitate. I don’t want to tell you I’ve been drinking – don’t want you to think that anything is clouding my judgement or my decisions. My head feels completely clear; in fact, it feels like I haven’t thought this clearly in years. And the roads will be practically empty at this time of night, especially here.
Uncertainty is twitching at the back of my mind, but I push it aside. I’m filled again with that sense of power, the knowledge that everything is finally coming together and nothing can stop it. I switch the headlights on, and the road coiling ahead away from the hotel is illuminated in pale yellow. Shadows are shifting on the horizon, the blowsy branches of trees swaying darkly in the faint wind. I steer the car out on to the road, and there’s a rush of air through the open crack at the top of the window, setting the hairs on my arms on edge.
‘We’ll go to that town we passed on the way,’ I say. ‘There’s bound to be something open there. OK?’
Carl laughs, leaning his head back against the headrest. ‘I don’t have a say in this, remember?’ he says. ‘I’m putty in your hands.’ He stretches out his hand and cups my knee, pushing the fabric of my skirt up towards my thigh. ‘This is crazy,’ he says wryly. ‘Driving out into the middle of nowhere when I could be fucking your brains out right now.’
The words send another jolt of electricity through me – savage, dirty, a fierce pulse of need – and for an instant the road ahead blurs. I shake my head slightly, tighten my hands on the wheel. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the needle on the speedometer quivering, and I pull the car back. Shouldn’t go too fast. There’s a strange, itchy feeling spreading through my bones, telling me I’m not entirely in control.
‘Don’t,’ I say. I hear the breathlessness in my voice and I find myself gasping, sucking in a sharp, cold burst of air.
He’s watching me. I can feel his eyes on me, travelling over my body. ‘I love how much you like this,’ he says. ‘I don’t just mean the sex. I mean …’ He trails off, turning his face to the window, staring out into the night.
I know what he means, even if he doesn’t, and all at once I’m willing him to say it, wanting to hear him say he loves me before I have to say it first – and I’m twisting my head to try to catch his gaze, my eyes sliding away from the road ahead. And in another moment I catch a flash of something right at the corner of my vision and I realize there’s a bend looming ahead, tucked away from the streetlights.
My eyes snap back and my body floods with adrenaline. I know that I’m going to have to turn fast, and my hands tug at the wheel, swinging the car sharply to the left – calculating in a split second that I’m going to veer on to the pavement but that I’ll be able to stop before we hit the side of the road. It’s going to be OK. But Carl is sitting up in his seat and I hear him shouting something I can’t quite decipher, and as he does so I see her, walking fast along the pavement with her head ducked down and her hands in her pockets, her dark hair and her green scarf blowing together behind her in the wind, and with a sickening lurch of instinct I realize that she’s too close, that there is no way I am going to be able to get out of her way.
I’m slamming the brakes on, and the sound of my screaming is filling the car, and I hear and feel the impact in the same moment – the sudden speed and force of it, the way she smashes against the windscreen and slides down instantly, the bright spatter of red that splashes across my field of vision. The car has jerked to a halt and we’re sitting in complete silence and stillness, but it’s too late.
My hands are shaking crazily and there’s an ache shooting up the entire length of my spine. My eyes are fixed on the wheel. I can’t raise my head. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I hear myself say. ‘Fucking hell.’ It doesn’t sound like my voice at all.