I parked up around the back of the hotel, took a breath, then steeled myself to walk in there.
The guy at the reception desk signed me in, gave me my room key, said they’d take up my luggage, and then pointed me in the direction of the bar where everyone was meeting.
There were probably a hundred people in there; there would be three hundred plus tomorrow. I recognised a few faces.
‘Jack!’
Edward. He’d shouted from about ten feet away. He lifted a hand.
‘You made it,’ he said, when I got over to him. ‘It’s great to see you. I was looking out for you.’ He held my arm for an instant, pulling me into the group of people he’d been talking to. We’d been best friends at school – we’d kept in contact. He worked for a bank and sometimes I went over to Canary Wharf and met him for a drink after work. ‘This is Helen, my fiancée…’
‘Hi. Nice to meet you, Helen. Edward’s talked about you, and nothing else, every time we’ve met for the last year.’
The conversation they’d been involved in cracked up again. My hands slid into my trouser pockets as I stood there and listened.
I’d known you could bring partners; I’d never considered bringing Sharon. She’d have embarrassed me. She’d have tried to get into all the guys’ trousers and if she knew it made me uncomfortable she’d have been trying ten times harder. And if she’d succeeded with anyone, I’d have died if she’d expected me to share my bed with people I knew from school.
That was the thought that had made me start reflecting harder. If my life was not something I’d share with friends because my wife was embarrassing and the way I lived so bad it had to be a secret – what was I doing living like that?
Edward had never met Sharon. I’d been married for nearly three years.
When we were younger, maybe he’d have whacked me on the back in applause if I’d told him I was in an open relationship, which meant shagging anyone you wanted in any mix of people, anywhere and anytime. But we were meant to be grown up now; it was a very different thing to say it now.
It was weird. I lived a weird life.
I turned to the bar. I needed a drink to hold so I didn’t feel like a prick. The guy serving lifted an eyebrow at me to ask what I wanted. He was probably pissed off with the posh twits that must haunt this hotel all the time – people with more money than sense. ‘Champagne. A bottle. A good one.’ But you had to play the part if you had money. He showed me a list of the bottles they had. I picked one.
When he opened it, he gave me a taste. I nodded that it was okay, then he poured me a glass. ‘Put the bottle back in the chiller and keep it for me.’
‘Sure.’
When I turned back to the room I noticed someone I recognised in a way that was more than mental.
Victoria.
I knew her smell and her taste.
We’d dated for a year while we’d been at the school, but she’d left before year thirteen. She’d gone home one summer and I’d never heard from her again. I’d texted her a few times, but then I’d given up chasing her. I’d had enough girls chasing me. I didn’t have to chase them.
Her head turned and her gaze stretched across the room, catching a hold of mine, as though she’d felt me looking. She was still really pretty. Blonde and slim. I smiled. I’d have gone over to talk to her but she looked away, her expression saying, shit, not him. She didn’t want me over there, then.
I turned to the group Edward and Helen were among. The crowd around them were the guys he and I had hung out with at school. I didn’t listen to what they said, I thought of Victoria. Of the nights when we’d snuck out of our dorms in the dark and found quiet spots down by the river – of how it felt to slide my hand up under the long skirts the girls had had to wear. Of how soft her thighs had felt and how I’d discovered heaven between them.
Victoria had been my first. This was a true walk down memory lane.
But shit, if she knew how I lived my married life I’d bet her nose would screw up in disgust. She wouldn’t be into this me. I’d bet Victoria was a ‘normal’ person.
When the evening wound up I walked upstairs to my room alone. A little drunk but not high on anything. I stripped off, then lay on the bed staring at the ceiling.
I needed drugs or sex to sleep. I had neither thing to bring my constant adrenaline rush down.
I got up and opened the window on to the street. The shop windows were still lit up across the road. It was past midnight but the sky seemed light. It wasn’t much past the longest day and to me this was the best part of the year. I liked being up in Cumbria when it was like this, maybe I would go up next weekend. Maybe getting away from London and the people and the life there would put my head straight again.
Sharon hated the place I’d bought in the Lake District. It wasn’t her scene. There was no one else to have sex with when we went up there. It was quiet, peaceful and idyllic. To me it was better than the best trip I’d ever had on drugs, and it went on forever when you were up there. Nature was addictive. Life was addictive when I was there.
I dropped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, which was grey because the night was so bright.
Things churned around in my mind. The work I had to organise for clients next week. What Sharon would be up to in our bed back at the apartment. What I had got up to in that bed all week, and in the Jacuzzi, and the pool.
I took a breath, longing for some weed to smoke at least, so my mind could come down from its height of activity enough to sleep.
I couldn’t sleep. I never could. I’d been a raving insomniac for years.
Victoria came into my mind and I wondered how different things would have been if I’d stayed with her. But that was stupid, because I hadn’t loved her, just liked her a lot, so we’d have split at some point between then and now, either in year thirteen or when we’d gone on to university.
I slept for about an hour, maybe, I think, or maybe I’d lain there thinking all night, wishing I’d done what Sharon had thought I’d done and found an old school friend to fuck. One of the girls would have been up for it. I’d seen a few of them who’d used to sleep with me in year thirteen, looking.
There was something about a woman’s eyes that gave the game away when they were up for it. Sharon had taught me that. She was good at spotting the people in bars who were cool for a night of naughty sex. She said it was because their pupils flared. The easier measure was who stared back at you when you stared at them.
After breakfast everyone walked down towards the school. I walked beside Edward and his fiancée. None of the guys I’d kept in contact with had asked me why I hadn’t brought my wife. Every one of them who had a partner had brought them. I suppose they were used to me not taking her whenever I saw them. I guess they all thought I was just a bad husband. I think that was what everyone outside of the bubble I lived in with Sharon believed.
What would happen if the bubble burst?
The shit would fly.
My hands were in the pockets of my trousers, pinning my suit jacket open as I walked. I had skinny- cut trousers on and a pale-blue shirt. My suit was a dark blue. We were probably meant to wear black, everyone else was in black, but I’d always liked to be different.
I mentally heard one of the masters shout at me, ‘take your hands out of your pockets Mr Rendell!’ as we walked through the doors of the Harry Potter-ish school.
It was an amazing place. The building made you respect it. It had always gripped at my soul but today it