by Alex Lake
Her boyfriend – a maths teacher called Matt – claimed that he had to decamp to the couch five nights a week in order to get some sleep. He had, he said, been collecting data on his sleeping arrangements and was using it to teach statistics to his students. He showed it to Kate once: he’d plotted a bell curve, showing that five nights per week was the mean average, with a standard deviation of three sigma. Kate had no idea what that meant in statistical terms, but she was pretty sure that in the real world it meant that he was not getting enough sleep and was in danger of becoming obsessed with it.
Kate opened the bathroom door and turned on the shower. She stripped off and climbed under the hot water, letting it first soothe and then invigorate her. The shower shelf was crammed with bottles of shampoo and conditioner and she grabbed hers, a tea-tree oil shampoo from Australia. A large part of her was sceptical about the value of these toiletries; Phil always said that they were all just soap anyway so she may as well buy the Tesco value pack for a few pounds, rather than spend a small fortune on the designer stuff. She suspected he had a point, but it wasn’t about the chemistry of whatever was in the bottles. It was about the routine, the feeling that she was, in some way, pampering herself, treating herself to something special.
She stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. It was a plush, white Egyptian cotton towel and it felt luxurious against her skin. It was these little things that made staying in a hotel so amazing: clean, soft towels every day, a freshly made bed, coffee and breakfast at the end of a phone line.
She went into the bedroom. May and Gemma were still sleeping. May’s side of the room was tidy, the carpet empty apart from a small pile of neatly folded clothes from the night before. Her other clothes were either hanging up in the wardrobe or carefully arranged in a drawer. Gemma’s side, on the other hand, was a total mess: inside-out jeans hanging off a chair, bras and underwear littering the floor, one of a pair of flats on the pillow next to her head.
It had always been this way: Gemma and May were total opposites. May: organized, precise, together, always on time, following the plan. Gemma: unaware there was a plan, haphazard, confused, totally oblivious that she was supposed to arrive at whatever place she was going to at any particular time.
But they, along with Kate, had been friends forever. Since the day they met as five-year-olds at St Stephen’s Primary they had been a unit. They’d been friends for over twenty years: they’d grown up together, seen each other’s characters develop and emerge. They knew each other as well as they knew themselves, understood how and why they had become the people they were, and they loved each other in a deep and profound way.
Kate opened the minibar and took out a small, over-priced, glass bottle of orange juice. Normally she wouldn’t have spent three pounds fifty – she did the maths to convert the currency in her head – on what was little more than a tiny sip of juice, but she was suddenly overwhelmed by the desire for something sweet. That, she thought, was the price you paid for a hangover, and the reason they had these ludicrously expensive minibars in the first place.
Behind her, May stirred. Her eyes opened and she looked hazily at Kate while she emerged fully from unconsciousness.
‘Splashing out?’ she said.
‘Thirsty,’ Kate replied. ‘I needed something sweet.’
‘Me too.’ May held out a hand. ‘Can I have some?’
‘There’s not much.’
‘Just a sip. I’m feeling a bit delicate.’
Kate swallowed half the contents and handed the bottle to her friend. ‘Finish it.’
‘So,’ May said. ‘You arranged your own accommodation last night?’
‘I suppose so,’ Kate said. ‘I wasn’t sure where I was this morning.’
‘Did you guys – you know?’
‘No.’ Kate shook her head. ‘I tried to, but he told me I was too drunk.’
‘Nice guy. Most would have taken advantage.’
‘I guess.’ Kate paused. ‘But nothing about last night feels good. What I remember of it, that is.’
‘It’s not like you.’
‘I know. I feel awful. I can’t believe it. I had way too much to drink. Don’t let me do that again.’
‘We would have stopped you, but you disappeared with that guy.’ She sipped the orange juice. ‘We were worried, Kate, in case he turned out to be some crazy weirdo, but then you texted to say you were OK, so we left you to it.’
‘He was fine. He didn’t do anything, thank God. In fact, it was me who suggested we have sex.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t quite believe it.’
‘Are you going to see him again?’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘He wanted to, but I can’t face it. He was nice enough, but I’d rather forget it happened.’
‘We’ll have to avoid that club, then. In case he’s in there. And if we’re in other places I suppose we’ll have to keep an eye out for him.’
Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not the only place we’ll have to keep an eye out for him. Guess where he lives.’
‘Where?’
‘Guess.’
May shrugged. ‘London?’
‘No. Guess again.’
‘Manchester?’
‘Warmer.’
May raised her eyebrows. ‘Somewhere close to us?’
‘Very close.’ Kate sat on the end of the bed. ‘He lives in none other than Moore.’
May leaned forwards, propping herself up on her elbows. ‘You mean Moore? The Moore down the road?’
‘The same.’
‘You are fucking kidding me.’
‘I wish I was.’
‘You’re saying he’s from the same pokey part of the world as us? Did you know him?’
Kate shook her head. ‘No, although he did seem familiar once I knew. I suppose I might have seen him around. He’s older, though, so he wouldn’t necessarily hang out in the places we do.’
‘How much older?’
‘Late thirties. Something like that. I didn’t ask.’
‘Got yourself a sugar daddy,’ May said. ‘Lucky you.’
‘Don’t even joke about it,’ Kate replied. ‘This is not funny. Maybe I’ll be able to laugh about it later, but not now.’
‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Holiday. He’s been here a couple of weeks already, hanging out with some friends.’
‘And you’re not going to see him again?’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘Definitely not.’
The hotel phone started to ring. May looked up at Kate. ‘Do you think that’s him?’ she said.
‘I hope not,’ Kate replied. ‘I didn’t give him the name of the hotel. Shit, I hope he didn’t follow me here.’
‘I’ll get it,’ May said. ‘If it’s him, I’ll tell him I don’t know you and he’s got the wrong number. OK?’
Kate nodded. ‘OK.’
May reached out and picked up the phone.
‘Hello?’ she said. There was a long pause, then she held out the receiver to Kate. ‘It’s for you,’ she said.
‘Is it him?’
‘No,’ May said, and rolled her eyes. ‘It’s Phil.’
6
Kate took the receiver from May and put it to her ear.
‘Phil?’ she said. ‘What are you doing? Is something wrong?’
His voice was tense, a note or two higher than usual. ‘I wanted to talk to you. You haven’t been answering your phone. I thought maybe you don’t have reception.’
‘It’s pretty patchy,’ she lied. ‘I saw some missed calls’ – some, she thought, didn’t cover it. There’d been dozens of them – ‘but I haven’t been able to call back.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I understand.’
‘So,’ Kate said. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘No. I just – I just wanted to talk to you. Check you’re OK.’
‘I’m fine,’ Kate said, her mouth tightening. ‘I’m a big girl, Phil. I can look after myself.’
‘I know, but�
�’
‘And how did you get this number?’ Kate said.
‘I asked your mum and dad where you’re staying.’
The answer was too quick; she knew Phil and she could tell it was a lie he’d prepared earlier. She wasn’t even sure she’d told her parents where she was staying. It pissed her off; this whole phone call pissed her off. She decided not to let him off the hook.
‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘I don’t recall telling them the hotel name. In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t, now I think about it. So how did you get the number?’
He paused. ‘I called around,’ he said finally.
‘Called around what?’
‘The hotels.’
Kate stared at her reflection in the mirror opposite the bed. ‘You called every hotel in the resort?’
‘No!’ he said, a hint of outrage in his voice that she would suggest he was that desperate. ‘I knew you were staying near the harbour, so I called those hotels and asked to be put through to your room.’
‘Right,’ Kate said. ‘So you called every hotel near the harbour.’ She shook her head, exasperated. Why couldn’t he leave her alone, even for one week? One week, so she could enjoy her holiday.
‘Well, it’s nice to talk, but I’m kind of busy right now,’ Kate said. ‘We’re getting ready to go out for breakfast.’ She looked at Gemma, spread out in a star shape, her cheek pressed against the pillow, her mouth half-open as she snored lightly. ‘May and Gem are by the door.’
May suppressed a snort of laughter. Kate glared at her.
‘I only wanted to chat. I miss you.’
‘Can we talk later?’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go. They’re waiting. And we’re hungry.’
‘Will you call later?’ he said.
‘Sure.’
‘You promise you’ll call?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I promise.’ It was a promise she felt she would be justified in forgiving herself for breaking.
As she put the phone in its cradle, Gemma’s eyes opened.
‘Who was that?’ she said, her voice little more than a croak.
‘Phil,’ Kate said. ‘He tracked me down.’
Gemma frowned. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘I know he’s hurting, but he needs to get over it. And tracking you down like this is – well, it’s kind of fucked up, Kate.’
‘I know,’ Kate said. ‘But he means well. You know Phil, he’s—’
‘Don’t make excuses for him,’ Gemma said. ‘He can’t do this. And you’d think he’d know better, after what happened to Beth.’
There was a long pause. ‘It’s not like that,’ Kate said. ‘Beth was a totally different situation.’
‘We didn’t think so at first, though, did we?’ Gemma said. ‘And things might have worked out a hell of a lot better if we’d paid a bit more attention to how serious it was.’
‘We were young,’ May said. ‘We didn’t know any better.’
‘We do now,’ Gemma said. ‘That’s my point, and Phil needs to know he has to give this a rest.’ She looked at Kate. ‘Anyway, let’s not argue. Forget Phil. Which is something you didn’t seem to have any problem doing last night. Where were you, you dirty slapper?’
Kate reached down and picked up a handful of the clothes that Gemma had strewn around the room. She tossed them to her friend.
‘Put these on and I’ll tell you over breakfast,’ she said. ‘And then let’s go to the beach and enjoy the last few days of this holiday.’
7
She was back. Phil knew this because he had been waiting for this day to come the entire time she had been gone, had been thinking about her incessantly every minute of every day, had been hard-pressed not to call her on the hour, every hour, contenting himself with a few – well, maybe a few more than a few – phone calls each evening.
None of which she answered, until, desperate, he had tracked her down by calling nearly every hotel in Kalkan, a place which was, it seemed, littered with hotels. It wasn’t very big, looking at it on Google Earth – which he had done at least three or four times every day in the stupid hope that he might see her, even though he was fully aware that Google Earth was not a live feed from a satellite and that the images he was looking at were months or years old – but, small size notwithstanding, there were a lot of hotels.
And all of them full of men looking for someone to have a summer fling with, perhaps a pretty woman in her mid-to-late twenties who’d recently broken up with her boyfriend and was emotional and vulnerable, and would easily fall for their cheesy lines.
Only once in the entire week had he heard her voice and it had been such a relief to know she was alive, to be in touch with her again, to be connected to her in however paltry a form, at least until she had hung up on him and then it had all been even worse than before.
Yes, it had been a long week, but now she was back. She. Was. Back. He’d tracked her flight on the Internet, watched the tiny plane crawl across the screen from Dalaman airport to Manchester airport, then, when it landed, gone online and checked the arrivals board just to be sure.
Of course, he was only sure that the plane had landed, not that she was on it. So, unable to sleep, he got on his bike – a cyclo-cross, designed to work both on and off-road, that he had bought second hand a few months back – and rode to her house – their house – at midnight (when he was pretty sure she’d be through Customs and back home). He used his bike as often as possible these days; riding it cleared his mind. He tended to stay off the roads, preferring the paths and snickets and alleys that connected most parts of the town, routes that most people didn’t even know existed, leaving them quiet and unused, which was perfect for the solitude he craved.
As a cloud obscured the moon, he turned into the street their house was on, and there it was.
Her car. Parked outside the house. Proof, absolute proof, of her return.
And upstairs, a light on. Her – their – bedroom was at the front of the house. The house he had offered to move out of, even though she wanted to break up, an offer he now regretted. He’d hoped it would show her how unconcerned he was, how magnanimous, but all it meant in the end was that he was squatting at a friend’s flat.
He stared up at the windows and, as he watched, her silhouette appeared behind the blinds that they had installed together.
Even though it was only a silhouette, the sight of her shocked him, and he gasped. She was safe. She was home. She was back.
And now he was going to fix this.
He was going to fix this, whatever it took.
8
Kate’s alarm – a loud, old-fashioned bell sound that she had chosen on her phone as it was the only noise that could reliably wake her at six a.m. – was ringing. She opened her eyes. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was – back home, Monday morning, a week of work ahead.
The first day back from holiday was always a struggle. It was the contrast: the day before you’d been immersed in a free, technicolour life, doing new things, meeting new people, living life the way it should be lived. And then: a six a.m. alarm, and back to normality.
She stared at the ceiling. Her eyes felt swollen. She was very tired; much more than she would have been on a normal Monday. It was amazing how exhausting holidays were. Late nights, too much to drink, bad sleep (on one night in someone else’s bed, which was a memory she was glad she could leave behind. What happens on holiday, stays on holiday, after all), and then, on the way back, a delayed flight which meant she had finally got home shortly after midnight.
And discovered that she didn’t have her house key.
Before leaving for holiday she’d detached her house key from her key fob – on the grounds that she wouldn’t need the back-door key, electronic pass for work, keys to her mum and dad’s house or any of the other things she had attached to it – and then stashed it in a side pocket of her bag and forgotten about it, in the expectation that it would be there when she got home.
Well, it wasn’t. Und
er the dim glow of the interior light in her car, she’d emptied her bag onto the front seat and scrabbled around.
No key.
Then she’d unpacked her suitcase, spreading the contents all over the inside of the car.
Nothing.
So she’d slammed the car door in frustration, which had woken her neighbour, Carl, an engineer in his fifties, who, on hearing the commotion, came downstairs.
Need a hand? he said.
I’ve lost my key. Left it in Turkey. It must have fallen out of my bag somewhere.
Oh. Want me to help you break in?
Can you do that?
Sure. It’s easy. All you have to do is tell me which window you don’t mind being broken and we’ll be away.
Ten minutes later, she was in, with a broken kitchen window and a promise from Carl that he’d call a friend of his in the morning who would be able to replace it.
So, all that, less than six hours’ sleep, and now back to work.
Back to the slow commute along the M56 into Manchester, back to hours lost to the ridiculous traffic, back to the panic when you saw the red lights of the cars ahead as they braked and you thought Oh shit, what’s happened? Don’t let this be a delay, I want to get home and eat and read and go to bed.
Back to the offices of her law firm; a solid, well-respected regional company that offered a good salary and career prospects in return for your life and soul. Back to her boss, Michaela, a forty-two-year-old woman who thought she should have done better than merely reaching the level that made her Kate’s manager, especially since she had worked and worked and waited and waited to have kids and then found that she couldn’t, that it was too late, that although there were articles and advice out there claiming that pregnancy and childbirth were options for women well into their forties, they weren’t options for her.
And she resented Kate having already reached the rung below her, along with the obvious fact that she would rise further still, maybe making partner by her mid thirties, which would leave her with plenty of time to have a couple of kids and the life that Michaela thought should have been hers.
