The Road Trip(31)

‘Addie, I—’

‘Holy shit.’

She moves so fast she’s up and flattened against the bedroom wall before I’ve even processed what she’s said.

‘Addie? What? What is it?’

‘There! Out there! A face!’

‘Outside? We’re two floors up!’

My heart starts to beat faster. I’m not good at this sort of thing. I’m not the man who slips out of bed in the night to investigate the noise downstairs, I’m the one who says, It’s probably nothing, and stays under the covers, quietly quivering.

‘I one hundred per cent saw a face,’ Addie says. She’s very pale. ‘It was right up against the glass for a second, then it was gone.’

I edge off the bed and reach for my boxers, tossing Addie her dress. She slips it on with shaking hands.

‘I swear I saw it,’ she says.

‘I believe you.’ I don’t want to believe her, particularly, but any hope that she’s joking evaporates as soon as I see her terrified expression. ‘Maybe it’s Terry joshing around?’

‘It wasn’t Terry.’ Addie rubs her arms. ‘Where’s the key?’

‘What?’

‘The key to the doors,’ she says impatiently. ‘To the balcony.’

‘Oh, good God, no, you’re not going out there,’ I say. ‘Absolutely not. What if there’s a murderer out there?’

She stares at me blankly. ‘What’s your plan, wait for him in here?’

‘Yes! No, I mean, it’s safe in here! There are walls and locked doors between us and the murderers!’

Addie half laughs at that. Her jaw is set now and she lifts her chin. ‘I’m not waiting, trapped in here. That’s way worse. Dylan, sweetie, come on – give me the key.’

She’s never called me sweetie before, and I’m not sure I like it – it feels like something she would say to a friend, or maybe to a rather frightened child. I straighten up and pull back my shoulders.

‘I’ll go. See who’s out there.’

Addie raises her eyebrows slightly. ‘Yeah? You sure?’

I’m surprised to discover that I am indeed sure. It’s a humbling realisation: this is love, then. That explains a great deal about many irrational acts throughout history – every man who ever went to war must have really fancied somebody.

I take the key from the bedside table and walk to the balcony doors, trying very hard to remember to breathe.

Just as I fiddle around with the lock there’s a thump on the glass. Two hands thrown flat against the windows. A chalky pale face. Eyes wide, the whites showing. Teeth bared.

I jump so much I trip on the rug and go tumbling backwards, falling with a thud that sends a dull shock of pain up my back. Addie’s screaming, a truly guttural, terrified scream, and for a horrifying moment I really think I might wet myself. The slam, the eyes, the teeth. I looked away when I fell; for an endless second I can’t bear to look back.

When I do, the face is still there, grinning, shaking the handles of the doors. It takes another moment – teetering, ice-cold – to meet its gaze and realise exactly who is standing on my balcony.

‘Oh, Jesus Christ . . . Addie. Don’t worry. It’s Marcus.’

I stand gingerly. Marcus is still cackling and slamming his hands on the balcony doors, and I shake my head as I try to unlock them.

‘Stop messing with the handles,’ I tell him. ‘You’re making it worse.’

‘You know that man?’ Addie asks.

I glance back at her. She’s clutching at the neck of her dress, pale, her eyes wide and round; she reminds me of something wild, a tarsier, an owl. Her hair is ruffled and tangled from the night in bed, and for a strange second or two the adrenaline shifts to something more like desire, and I want her again, Marcus on the balcony forgotten.

‘Well, hello,’ Marcus says, pressing his face to the glass, his eyes on Addie. ‘Where did he find you? You’re like a little doll, aren’t you?’

‘Excuse me?’ Addie says, moving to stand beside me. ‘Who is this guy, Dylan?’

As I finally manage to unlock the doors and Marcus barges his way into the room, I feel absurdly proud of Addie. Try not to get too bored without me, Marcus had said when I flew to Avignon, and now here I am with Addie, with her fierce blue eyes and her liquid dark hair, and I found her all on my own.

Marcus stretches out a hand to her and gives her his most charming, leonine smile. He smells of booze, an acrid scent like rotting fruit. ‘Forgiven?’ he says.

Addie raises her eyebrow. ‘On what grounds?’

‘Hey?’

‘Forgiveness is earned, typically,’ she says, reaching for her underwear at the foot of the bed and balling it up in the pocket of her dress. ‘That balcony thing . . . it wasn’t funny.’ She heads for the door.

‘Hey, hey,’ I say, rushing to her side. ‘Hey, don’t go. I thought you were going to sleep here.’ The day has slipped away, ripples through my fingers, and I still haven’t said the words hanging heavy in the air. I want to say them now, Don’t go, I love you, but—

‘I need some time to calm down,’ she says.

Now I’m closer, I can see fine tremors running up and down her limbs; the flush on her cheek is too lurid.