He looks at the screen and heaves a sigh of relief. It’s just Anna.
Are you trying to be funny?
He frowns, confused, and rereads the message he sent her earlier. It was a nice message, wasn’t it? Asking how she was doing.
He looks around to check Becca’s not on her way over to him (it wouldn’t be done to be caught texting an ex), then taps out a reply.
No. What do you mean?
She replies immediately.
The comment about sleep.
He cringes. Oh, that. If he’s honest he’s barely given those messages a second thought since she left. He’s thought about her, obviously; you don’t spend nearly two years with someone and then forget all about them the moment they walk out of the door, but he’s enjoyed having the bed to himself and waking up without her lashing out in her sleep, or else staring at him, wide-eyed and frantic from across the room. He did feel guilty though, logging on to Facebook when he returned home to piles of boxes and a flat stripped of Anna’s things. Her side of the bed was barely cold and there he was, searching for the nurse who’d cared for her. The attraction was there from the first time they’d laid eyes on each other – an invisible spark that made him catch his breath. He was sure she’d felt it too, from the way her cheeks had coloured and she’d glanced away, at Anna’s unconscious form. He tried telling himself that he was misreading her friendliness, that looking after relatives was as much a part of her job as caring for her patients, but Becca genuinely seemed to enjoy their little chats while Anna slept and she checked her vitals. He was terrified when Anna came to and started screaming. Her eyes were glassy and empty, as though she were looking straight through him. And the noise, he’d never heard anything like it. He could have hugged Becca for the professional way she’d taken charge of the situation. He hadn’t, of course. Not only would it have been wholly inappropriate, but Anna’s return to consciousness, made him feel utterly ashamed of himself. What kind of despicable shitbag was he, perving over the nurse while his girlfriend recovered from a horrific accident? If he was being kind to himself he’d explain it away as a coping mechanism, a way of climbing out of the pit of fear he’d fallen into after her stepdad had rung him, his voice cracking as he broke the news about the accident.
But Anna hadn’t died. She’d survived the crash and the operation, and when the surgeon told them both that, other than a scar across her mid-section, there would be no lasting damage, he raised his eyes to the white ward ceiling and said thank you to a God he didn’t believe in. He knew it was his duty to look after her when they got home, he owed her that much after two years together, but he could barely drag himself out of bed in the morning after being kept up by Anna half the night, thrashing around fighting night terrors. He felt trapped and unhappy whenever he returned home. It wasn’t her fault, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop the resentment from rising, threatening to burst the banks of his patience like a river after a storm.
He hadn’t expected her to end things. He thought she’d keep plugging away at their relationship, as she always had. But no, she’d had enough too. He was so grateful she’d had the courage to speak up that he’d hugged her, so shocked that he asked her to stay one more night in case there was anything left to be said. There wasn’t, other than a strained conversation about a note she’d found on the car. As he’d walked to the tube afterwards he couldn’t help but feel relieved that Anna was no longer his responsibility. And guilty for feeling that way.
‘Alex?’ Someone touches him on the shoulder, making him jump.
He almost doesn’t recognise the woman smiling down at him, in her red mac with her long brown hair swept across her forehead and resting on her shoulders. Brown eyeliner is smudged in the corner of her eyes and her lips shine cherry red.
‘Becca?’ He stands, hastily, and presses an awkward kiss into her cheek. ‘You look lovely. I almost didn’t recognise you.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ She laughs and takes the flowers he pushes into the space between their bodies. ‘These smell lovely,’ she says as she dips her face to the bouquet of white lilies and roses. She looks up at him, her nose still buried in the blooms, and he thinks how lovely her eyes are, how smiley, the most startling cornflower blue.
His stomach tightens as she looks away from him, her blue eyes flitting over the diners who surround them, folded over magazines, coffees and mobile phones, all lost in their own little worlds.
‘What is it?’ he asks as a frown creases Becca’s smooth brow.
‘Nothing.’ She straightens and shakes her head lightly.
‘Are you sure? You looked like you were looking for someone.’
She reaches round for her hair, gathers it in her hand and swings it over her shoulder. She’s nervous, Alex thinks with a pang of surprise, as she continues to twist her hair and gaze wonderingly at him. The urge to put an arm around her shoulder and pull her close is almost more than he can bear.
‘I was just …’ She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. ‘Things are definitely over between you and Anna, aren’t they? She’s not suddenly going to jump out at us and call me a boyfriend stealer?’
He laughs, amused by her paranoia. ‘No, of course not. Like I told you by text, things were over between us long before her accident.’
‘Good.’ She slips her arm through his and taps her head against his shoulder. ‘Then I’ve got you all to myself.’
Alex hasn’t replied to my last text and now I’m regretting snapping at him. He was only wondering how I’m doing but the mention of sleep was like a jab in my chest. I thought, by coming here, that I’d leave what happened behind. But grief can’t be cast off like a jacket. It becomes part of you, an invisible film welded to your skin. Some days you feel it, some days you don’t, but it’s always there.
‘Come in, come in, come in.’ My boss shepherds five guests into the centre of the lobby, two men, two women and a teenage girl, their coats and bags dappled with rain. He squeezes past them to reach the reception desk and stands next to me.
‘Welcome to the Bay View Hotel, the best hotel on Rum,’ he says, his hands spread wide in greeting. Several of the guests smile. One, a thin, midde-aged woman wearing a red cagoule and a matching bobble hat, forces a laugh. The Bay View Hotel is the only hotel on Rum.
‘Anna here will check you all in,’ David continues, ‘and I’ll carry your suitcases and bags up to your rooms.’ He turns to the man standing nearest to him – tall, average build, dark hair, wearing a pale blue fleece, dark trousers and walking boots – and reaches for one of the straps of his rucksack. The man lurches backwards as though stung, knocking into the woman in red who’s standing directly behind him.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ His eyes dart wildly behind his frameless glasses as he searches for somewhere, anywhere, he can stand in the small lobby without touching another person. ‘I’ve just … I’ve just … I’ve got important stuff in here and I … I—’
‘No problem.’ David raises a hand in apology, his lips pulled tightly over his teeth in a half grin, half grimace. ‘If you don’t want me to take your bags that’s no problem at all.’
‘You can take mine.’ The woman in the red cagoule squeezes through the crowd then reverses up against David so her rucksack is almost pressed