The House Swap(69)
Shaking my head, I force myself to get up. I’ll go down to the pool, spend some time swimming and in the sauna, then maybe ask at reception if they have any magazines I could borrow for an hour or two. This enforced solitude feels strange. Once, I would have loved the idea of a day to myself at a hotel, but right now all I want is for Carl to be here. I picture him driving, a flicker of indecision crossing his face, his hands on the wheel turning the car around, coming back to me. I can see it so clearly that when I push open the door and the corridor is empty and still, I am almost surprised.
The hours pass slowly, falling like stones. I check the time every five or ten minutes, barely able to believe that it has moved on so little. I have some lunch in the hotel restaurant, go for another swim, until my hair is saturated with chlorine and I have to wash the smell out in the shower afterwards. I lie back down on the bed and think about last night until I’m humming with desire, and I touch myself swiftly and mechanically, exploding the tension in seconds and putting me right back where I began. I order a bottle of wine and drink it in the space of an hour or so, even though I don’t really want it, just for something to do. It’s nine o’clock by the time it starts getting dark. My head is lightly blurred, and I don’t think I’ve moved in hours.
When I hear the footsteps approaching outside the door, it’s a red alert, setting all my senses on fire. I sit bolt upright. The possibility hits me, dreadful and unforeseen, that he isn’t alone. He’s seen a girl at the party across the dance floor, made eye contact. Kissed her in the darkness of a hallway, offered her a place to stay for the night. I’ve never asked him if he has seen anyone else in the past six months, because I know there’s nothing I could say to justify how I feel when I think about the idea of his hands on some other woman’s skin. I don’t want to have to confront it, but now, in these few seconds when I hear the click of the key-card in the door and see the handle turning, I wonder if I’m going to have to.
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.’