Chapter 43
Eve
I didn’t plan for this to happen.
When I thought of coming to Windermere, when I looked at train times and invited Adam along, I really thought we could do it. Two hours up, two hours back, with an hour in the middle to drop the cat and go.
But even by my standards, I was being ambitious.
Adam sits on the bench, his head buried in his phone, searching for hotels. I have Old Sausage on a lead I bought on Amazon and am coaxing her to poo at the edge of the most famous lake in the country.
‘Come on. A wee, at least,’ I beg. She stares at me.
We’re staying over. This isn’t a huge deal — I’ve been to enough conferences to have lost the novelty of a night away — but something about it feels clandestine, like we’re sneaking off during a school trip without the teacher’s permission.
There was a moment, earlier, while we were standing outside Old Sausage’s house, when something weird happened. I realised that I’d fucked up — that my timings were off, and we couldn’t get home before tomorrow — and just for a moment, while we stood under the streetlamp, I felt this unfamiliar jolt of excitement about it all. My mind stopped turning, I stopped filtering for solutions, and out of nowhere I thought, I’m glad.
And then the weirdest thing: Adam looked at me, and said, ‘You’re amazing.’
You’re amazing. What did he mean by that?
‘Right, there’s only one pet-friendly hotel with a vacancy.’ Adam looks up from his phone and jolts me back to the present. ‘The Palmgrove. Funny name, considering the marked absence of palm trees and groves of any kind in the area.’
‘How much is it?’ It’s practically dark now, and I’m struggling to see Old Sausage. It looks like she might be squatting. ‘I think she’s doing it!’ I cry.
‘Hallelujah.’ Adam gives me a lopsided grin. He taps at his phone again. ‘It’s only sixty quid a night. Looks a bit crap, but it’s got a lake view.’
‘If we’re going to pay a hundred and twenty, why don’t we just sod it and see if we can get a taxi?’ I muse, but a part of me is wondering whether I really want to go home.
‘No, it’d be sixty quid for the both of us,’ Adam says slowly, cautiously.
‘That seems cheap?’ I squint into the darkness. What is Old Sausage doing?
‘There’s just the one room.’
It takes me a second to process what he’s said. Old Sausage starts scrabbling at the grass, signalling to me that she has, in fact, done the deed.
‘There can’t be.’ My heart is in my throat. I pull out my phone and check. He’s right. One vacancy in the vicinity that allows pets. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘I’ll stay there with Old Sausage, you get another room somewhere else. We can split the cost of the total.’
Adam stands up. He walks towards me until we’re almost touching. In the darkness, his eyes are black. If, later, you were to ask me what was going on around me, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. ‘If you’re more comfortable with that, that’s OK. But just to throw it out there, we can pull the beds apart. We’ll sleep for a few hours and then jump on the first train?’
I turn it over in my mind. I want to — shit, I realise I want to — and the strength of the feeling scares me. ‘Two beds,’ I say.
‘Yes.’ He looks at me intently.
I crouch down, running my fingers through Old Sausage’s fur. Thinking. I pick her up around her middle and stand, so that we’re facing again. ‘Alright,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’
* * *
The bed doesn’t pull apart.
It’s one shabby-looking double, smaller than the one I have at home. On either side are two bedside tables, and there’s a desk by the window. A small en suite sits next to the door to the terrace, where the lake is inky under the moon.
Adam immediately calls down for a camp-bed. ‘I’ll sleep on it.’ He sits at the desk and twiddles the complementary pen between his fingers.
‘No, it’s fine, honestly,’ I say. ‘I barely sleep anyway, it makes sense for one of us to get a good night.’
The way I say it sounds charged, and Adam looks away, a small smile on his face. I feel myself flush.
‘Shall we order a beer?’ He picks up the creased room service menu and flicks through it.
‘Sure.’
He calls down again, and five minutes later, two men arrive. One carries a camping cot, the other two bottles of Budweiser. They set up the bed in the corner and then leave.
‘So . . .’ Adam says, once they’re gone.
The awkwardness is palpable. ‘Shall we check out the terrace?’
We step outside onto wooden planks leading onto a pier that sits directly on top of a small outlet for the lake. The overhead light doesn’t work, but the temperature is nice, so we sit on the patio chairs and leave Old Sausage to explore the room.
‘Well,’ Adam says once we’ve sat down. ‘Cheers to the weirdest evening of my life.’
‘So far,’ I say, intending for it to come out jokily, but in the darkness, with my voice lowered, it sounds like an invitation.
I clink my beer against his hurriedly, steamrolling through the moment. ‘How the hell did she end up in Manchester?’ I muse.
‘Back of a lorry, probably.’ Adam takes a swig of his drink. ‘I’ve heard of it happening before.’
‘Little road-tripper,’ I say fondly. Part of me is glad she’s still with us, that we haven’t had to give her away.
I can feel Adam’s gaze on me, and I turn to meet it. In the dark, it’s easier, less exposing. ‘What shall we do with her?’
I shrug. ‘One of us could keep her.’
‘Custody battle.’
‘I’ve been thinking about your situation,’ I say, suddenly, the cogs in the back of my mind still turning. ‘Have you looked at self-employed mortgages?’
Adam laughs, and I see the sudden whiteness of his teeth in the dark. ‘You’re remarkable.’
I’m instantly on guard. ‘How so?’
He’s silent for a moment. He just looks at me. I take a sip of my beer. ‘You’re... sharp.’
‘Is that a compliment?’ I ask. Sharp as in with it, on the ball, or sharp as in pointy, could stab?
He smiles. ‘Of course.’
We watch as the moon ripples on the water, sipping in silence. Adam wants to get to know me. I can feel him prying — no, not prying, asking questions, like any person would — and I can feel myself resisting them. He’s kind. He has a brother that he cares for, and a job that makes a difference. He thinks of others before he thinks of himself. I’ve just failed an intense mission to destroy my best friend’s career. What would he make of me if he knew that?
‘There’s an investigation going on at work. Into me. My behaviour,’ I say, not looking away from the water.
Adam is quiet for a moment. ‘I’ll get us another drink.’ He disappears inside, and two minutes later there’s a knock, and he returns with two more beers. I thank him, keeping my eyes averted. He sits back down.
‘I work for Florina.’ I’m talking almost mechanically, as though this is a story I’m reading from a webpage. Or a confession, maybe. I haven’t yet admitted to anyone what deep down I already know: that I did the wrong thing. ‘I got put forward for a promotion. Head of Marketing for the whole company. A member of my staff, my best friend, actually, went behind my back and applied for it as well. A war sort of broke out.’
Adam doesn’t say anything for a few beats, and I worry that he’s judging me. ‘And did you win the war?’
I laugh softly. ‘No, I didn’t.’
His chair creaks as he leans back. ‘I used to think you could get anywhere by being kind. By having good intentions,’ he says, and this time he’s the one gazing at the water. ‘I still think it’s true, for the most part. But sometimes it doesn’t work like that.’
‘No.’ I study him. I suddenly want him. I really, really want him. And it terrifies me, because it doesn’t feel like a Graham kind of want, or a Tryst kind of want. I don’t know what it feels like.
‘Shall we go to bed?’ He turns to me, and everything inside me liquifies. I shiver.
‘Yeah, OK.’
We walk back through, but in the stark light of the bedroom everything has changed. My ease evaporates. Old Sausage is curled up on the desk chair. I sit on the edge of the camp-bed.
‘Uh-uh.’ Adam pushes me gently. ‘Up.’
I grip the edges of the mattress. ‘Honestly, I don’t mind.’
‘Don’t make me use my brute strength.’ He plonks himself onto the bed next to me and shoves me softly sideways.
‘Oh yeah? What about mine?’ I shove him back, harder.
‘Can’t compete with that.’ His eyes burn into mine, a playful smile creeping across his lips.
‘Move then.’ I laugh.
‘Make me,’ he challenges.
A dull, longing ache thuds in my lower abdomen. ‘I will.’
‘Go on, then.’ He leans forward, his eyes fixed on mine, daring me. I put my hands on his shoulders and push. He pushes back, and our faces inch closer, closer, until I can feel his breath on my lips.
Suddenly, he grins, and picks me up by the waist. I squeal, and he drops me on the double bed.
‘That’s not fair!’ I scramble up again, but he’s lying on the camp-bed, clutching it for dear life.
‘All’s fair in love and war,’ he says jokingly, and our eyes lock for a second before I turn away. I’m short of breath, my head spinning, my judgment undeniably impaired by the weirdness of this situation.
Neither of us says anything for a long while.
‘Well, we’ve no toothbrush or pyjamas,’ he mumbles eventually, when I think he might have fallen asleep. ‘Shall we turn off the lights?’