The Day After Boxing Day
‘Nice hotel you’ve picked for yourself. Very swanky.’ It was a Georgian townhouse, imposing and elegant. ‘I get the Black Dog, you get this four-star coaching inn.’
‘Budget room, last minute.’ Silence. ‘They can get you a taxi if you …’
‘Train’s not for ninety minutes. I thought I’d have a look around. There’s a wool shop that looked exciting.’
‘Okay. Okay, I’ll come with you.’
‘No, no, you fire up your jacuzzi—’
‘Or we can get tea or—’
Hesitancy. ‘No, let’s say goodbye. Though I might leave my bag here for a bit.’
The lobby was low-lit and wood-panelled, with a cigar-box smell. She didn’t belong in this place, and Michael, now stiff and shifty, clearly thought so too. Was this shyness? No one said goodbye at airports any more because no love was worth the journey there, but surely there’d be some acknowledgement of what had happened, even if it was ‘Let’s be just friends.’
Instead she asked the receptionist if she might leave her bag for an hour, ordered the taxi, stood around while Michael checked in, both of them self-conscious and tongue-tied. The room key was in his hand.
‘What’s the theme here?’
‘Grape varieties, weirdly.’
‘There’s posh. What are you?’
‘I’m in …’ He showed her the fob. ‘How would you say this?’
‘Gewürztraminer?’
‘Gewürztraminer.’
Rooms named after grape varieties. Instinctively she began to scroll through the jokes she might make about this but, honestly, what was the point? She felt very tired, the soles of her feet bruised, so that standing hurt more than walking. Time to go home. She didn’t want to go home, but there was nowhere else to go.
‘You’re sure you don’t want me to come out into town with you?’ he said, looking to the staircase.
‘No, no, you go up to Gewürz-is-name, I’m going to hit the streets. I hear talk of a strong hill!’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘Finally!’ He took a step forward and they embraced, stiff and somewhat formal, the kind of embrace you see at a funeral. The fireplace lean was back. ‘We had fun, didn’t we?’ he said.
‘I don’t remember that,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t expecting any fun at all.’
‘I’m sorry to disrupt your plans.’
‘I’ll see you next time you’re up in York.’
‘Or you’re down in London. I know it’s frightening, with the big red buses.’
‘If I get the nerve.’
‘I’ll see you there.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
‘See you.’
‘Bye.’
And then she was out, a grey afternoon in a strange town. She wandered around but even the celebrated indoor market, even the cheese vendors and fudge shops, couldn’t shift her sense of disappointment. She bought a sausage roll and ate it out of the bag, scalding the roof of her mouth with the hot pink paste, then scalding it again with hot tea, then worrying at the scald with her tongue, waiting for the time to tick away before her taxi arrived, feeling like she did as a child after Christmas, not just sad it was over but disappointed at how it had been, a sense of something unachieved, the difference being, she supposed, that Christmas would come again.
No, it couldn’t end like this. If it was over, if it was all a mistake, if she’d imagined it, then she would hear him say it. The taxi was due in fifteen minutes. She tossed the greasy parcel into the bin, then strode back to the hotel, walked past Reception and crossed directly to the staircase. There was a system, French grape varieties on the first floor, Italian on the second, Spanish and Portuguese on three and German on four, and she felt a moment’s indignation on behalf of Riesling wines, and began to climb the stairs. A corridor took her past Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Shiraz, then up to Chianti and Valpolicella then Rioja and Tempranillo, Garnacha and Albari?o and finally in a corridor in the eaves of the hotel, Gewürztraminer. Next to the lift she’d missed, a hallway mirror, where she took a moment to catch her breath, swipe the perspiration from her forehead and the grease from her lips. The sausage roll had been a mistake. Her breath would smell of pork and tea. Would it even matter? She crossed the corridor and knocked.
Someone entirely new opened the door.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, is your dad in?’
‘Marnie—’
‘I was looking for Mr Bradshaw but … What have you done?’
Smooth-faced and handsome, straight from the shower, he’d already changed into the famous shirt and even this looked new and pressed.
‘I thought I’d … freshen up.’
‘I hope you shaved it off in stages. Sideburns, mutton-chop, little toothbrush moustache …’ He’d seemed delighted when opening the door, but now stood unamused, almost irritated, and she glanced into the room, saw a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, and wondered, How did he know I’d be back?
Later, on the train to London, she would struggle to recall the exact words she’d used, but within moments she was walking away, jabbing at the button and stepping into the lift that seemed to be waiting to escort her from the premises, down, down, down, through the vineyards of Spain and Italy and France.
In Reception, she retrieved her rucksack from behind the desk just as the taxi-driver arrived, followed by a woman of about her own age, neat, carefully dressed and visibly pregnant. The woman smiled and somehow Marnie smiled back. Then she followed the driver out to the minicab and on, in dazed silence, to the station and the train that would carry her home.