Chapter 20
20
‘Oh my God,’ Erin said, star-fishing across a king-size bed in another clean-lined, non-personalised room. ‘This is so much nicer than Delphine’s.’
‘Delphine’s room had character,’ Orla remarked, putting her case into one of the large wardrobes that spanned the whole of one wall.
‘It was full of crap you mean. I found a puppet under the bed. A puppet. Let it sink in how creepy that is. I took a photo and showed Burim. He said it looked like a dead baby.’
Orla rubbed at her eyes as she sat down on what little of the bed there was left for her to currently occupy. She was suddenly utterly exhausted.
‘I don’t believe the window story by the way,’ Erin remarked, scrolling on her phone.
‘What?’
‘Delphine’s double-glazing situation,’ Erin said like she was explaining to a toddler. ‘It’s all bullshit. Like the reindeer.’
Orla was getting to the point where the word ‘reindeer’ was feeling like a code word for an ex or a new Class A drug.
‘I need to come up with a plan,’ she said, a yawn escaping her lips.
‘What sort of plan?’ Erin asked, curling up her legs and doing a body roll towards Orla.
‘One that’s going to get me a proper story to give to my boss whether it involves reindeer or not. Because as soon as I do that, the sooner we can get out of here.’
‘But… we’ve only really just got here,’ Erin said. ‘And now we’re at this much better place with Wi-Fi that actually works and this much bigger, better bed and?—’
‘And you know this isn’t a holiday, Erin,’ Orla interrupted. ‘It’s my work. And you aren’t actually meant to be here.’
‘Wow, OK.’
Orla hadn’t meant it to come out so harsh. Her little sister had enough going on in her life without her being snappy with her. Even if this wasn’t a holiday, what she had waiting for her when she got back to England was their parents in crisis.
‘Sorry,’ Orla apologised. ‘I didn’t mean that. I told you, I’m just tired, that’s all.’ She tipped herself backwards, aligned her head so she was face to face with Erin. ‘What do you think to Jacques’s brother?’
‘Tommy?’ Erin said, as if there were a line-up of brothers to choose from.
‘Yes, I mean, he’s your type, isn’t he?’
‘No.’
‘But he has, you know, the fluffy hair you like.’
‘Used to like. When I was like thirteen. Anyway, I have Burim now.’
‘But, Burim, he’s in Morocco.’
‘What?’
‘Burim lives in Morocco, right?’
Erin suddenly sat up. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘Because Mum said he’s Moroccan.’
‘I knew she didn’t listen to me,’ Erin said, sounding annoyed. ‘I told her about Burim once. I didn’t want to, not really, but I thought, I don’t know, share something with my family. And she doesn’t even remember anything I said!’
Orla sat up too. ‘But, if he isn’t Moroccan then?—’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ Erin thumped the pillow. ‘I don’t know why it matters what nationality he is. He likes me. That should be enough. Unless I’m so utterly unlovable that my family can’t comprehend that someone fit like him would be into me.’
‘No, Erin, it’s not that! Of course it’s not that! You’re so beautiful, inside and out. Mum’s just Mum and she worries and wherever Burim is in the world he’s so far away and?—’
‘So she would rather I smashed one of the local goblins who hang outside H&M vaping and sending a constant mist of tropical fruits into the air?’
‘I don’t think anyone said anything about smashing.’
She swallowed. Was Erin thinking about sex? She was sixteen. Of course she was thinking about that. And suddenly Orla felt completely out of her depth. What advice could she impart when her last in-person intimate encounter was with someone dressed as a convict at a Halloween party in Berlin whose name she hadn’t even asked…
‘Well, Burim and I have talked about it and we both want to do it. We talk about it all the time actually.’
‘Of course you do,’ Orla said sighing. ‘But, Erin, it might not be that…’ She stopped herself continuing.
‘What?’
‘I just worry that, you know, with internet relationships, there’s usually one person who is more invested than the other.’
‘And you think that’s me?’
‘Well, I know how enthusiastic you get with things.’
Erin’s mouth turned into a firm line before she said the next words. ‘You just called me obsessive.’
‘No,’ Orla said. ‘Not at all. But guys can be very… expressive. And they can paint a lovely picture of all the things you’d like to see in your future and, you know, you might not be the only girl they’re painting the picture for. When you meet someone in real life it’s different.’ She swallowed. If that’s how she really felt why did she always fall into these Instagram situationships where she never met anyone in person? And the sad fact was, the people she had so far met in real life and had relations with had lasted less time than any of the online-based guys. She had known a lot less about someone she’d actually swapped bodily fluids with than the men in her DMs.
‘Oh!’ Erin said, almost vaulting off the bed to stand. ‘Oh, it’s different, is it? You don’t think a liar can lie as well when he’s looking at you over a box of Chicken Selects as he can when he’s talking with his thumbs?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say?—’
‘I know more about Burim than I know about anyone. I know what brand of toothpaste he likes, I know how many cousins he has and all their names, I know that on Tuesdays he always eats pizza and on Thursday nights he does boxing. I know that because he tells me everything and he asks everything about me too. Why isn’t that real just because we haven’t met in person yet?’
‘Erin, I wasn’t saying that?—’
‘I don’t want to talk any more,’ Erin said firmly. ‘And I’m going to get changed in the bathroom.’
‘Erin.’
Orla’s last attempt to not end the conversation was met with the slamming of the door of the en suite. It seemed that she was getting everything wrong in all aspects of her life at the moment. Rolling towards the edge of the bed, she got up too and made her way to the window. Looking out at the snow scene, so soft and pristine, yet also so incredibly hard and stark, it was a bit like a reminder of life and all its layers. And it seemed like she was the one always in charge of peeling them away or sticking them back into place…
Suddenly a light went on and Orla could see the other ‘wing’ of the wooden house. It was a bedroom, not unlike this one, large bed, neutral furnishings, and… then Hunter appeared. Was this Jacques’s bedroom? Before Orla could make a decision to step away or close the curtains, Jacques was there in the room… wearing only a pair of low-rise trunks. She swallowed, watching him put on a pair of glasses, stroke Hunter before the dog curled up on a pet bed in the corner of the room and then pluck a book from a stack on the nightstand… He did have books. He was a reader. There was something about a man who read that she had always found attractive. She watched him sit on the edge of the bed, honed abs on full display, already apparently fully invested in his reading as she did a further reconnaissance of his body. She swallowed as she remembered what had happened in the kitchen. He’d apologised, she had got upset about her parents and then suddenly she was spread out on the kitchen table while he performed some ear voodoo. Except the overwhelming recollection was the way it had felt to have someone that close to her again. Someone appealing, in a physical sense at least, because his stubbornness was not attractive in the slightest and he wasn’t making her assignment here super easy. Someone so close in her personal space that she had been able to feel his breath on her chest…
And then she bolted from her position and grabbed at the curtains, pulling them closed. Because while she had been letting her mind wander, Jacques had looked up from his book and stared straight at her.