As the church clock struck midnight, Libby Price was attempting to haul a double mattress up a flight of stairs on her own.
Now halfway up, the decision to begin the process was beyond regretful. The night was sweltering. The stairs were narrow. She was exhausted. But she’d had to do something. Something that strained every part of her being, because otherwise she would have lain in her bed contemplating her afternoon.
Still she kept being plagued by visions of herself striding purposefully to the bottom of the endless garden. Seeing Jake lounging in one of the deckchairs. Legs up on the metal table, eyes half closed as they soaked up the sun, bottle of water in one hand, sweat trickling off his forehead.
He’d rolled his head in her direction when he’d heard her footsteps. And she knew he thought she was coming out to admire the new outhouse he’d just finished building. To admire all its sharp angles and big metal framed windows.
He hadn’t expected her to swipe his legs angrily off the table. A move which, admittedly, even Libby had been quite surprised by. He hadn’t expected the fury and the anger, the shouting, and the piece of paper that she’d thrust into his view.
‘It’s a website, Jake,’ she’d half shouted. ‘A website with the slogan: Marriage is dull, have an affair! And guess whose credit card and email address is linked to it? Don’t look all innocent, Jake. It’s been bloody hacked. One of my blog followers sent me the link. Do you know how that makes me feel? Do you?’ She’d actually stomped her foot just for some physical manifestation of how furious she was. ‘How could you do this to me? How dare you do this to me? God, I’m so angry.’
That bit she was quite proud of. It wasn’t like her at all. She had somehow summoned this fiery strength from the devastation and even Jake had seemed momentarily startled by the force of it.
The mattress teetered precariously as the memory made her concentration lapse. Her arms strained under the weight as she tried to heft it onto the next step so she could take a break. Sweat was pouring off her. She was boiling hot. The hotel felt stuffy. The scent of the lemon grove next door, usually exquisite, now made her feel like she was trapped at a perfume counter, the smell too sickly and heady. She tried to get her breath back but could feel her muscles screaming. She was so tired.
The mattress wobbled. Leaning it back against the wall, Libby squeezed herself alongside it, trying to keep it in place with her bodyweight, as she decided to try and shove it up from the bottom.
With her shoulder against the shiny new material she made a move to push but it didn’t budge. The top of the mattress now caught against the step.
Why had she started this? Had it been as much to stop the loop of memories as to test whether she could do all this on her own?
She put her hands over her face. The weight of the mattress was pressing against her body. There was so much that needed doing before the hotel was ready, and getting a mattress up the stairs seemed like one of the more minor items on the to do list. If she couldn’t shift that, what could she do? Perhaps this was a painfully stupid exercise that would prove, as she suspected, there was simply no way she could do it by herself.
Her body slumped.
The mattress slipped a step.
She shouted in annoyance.
A mosquito buzzed around her ear.
She thought about all the plans she and Jake had made for the renovations. All their hopes and ambitions scribbled in notebooks and on napkins. When they’d first turned up at the dilapidated hotel, he’d squeezed her hand and said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re in this together.’ That was how it was meant to be. Him squeezing her hand, her squeezing his.
How was it possible that