Chapter. 01: the first day
The hotel receptionist looked up, his expression bland.
"Mrs Eleanor Cavendish and Ms Lucy Brook? Here for the university reunion? I have your booking here. If you'll wait while I get your keys."
He tapped at his computer, handing over a pair of key-cards.
"Room 461. It's on the fourth floor."
Eleanor said: "it's a twin bedroom, right?"
The receptionist looked at his computer screen.
"It's a double, isn't that what you booked?"
Ellie looked at Lucy.
"We said twin, didn't we?"
Lucy nodded.
"Can you give us a different room please?"
Lucy hadn't changed, Ellie thought. It'd been ten years since they'd seen each other, and Lucy was still the same. Her black hair was still as dark as ebony, her skin still smooth and lightly freckled, her dancing green eyes lighting up her face.
The clerk looked up.
"I'm sorry," he said, "we're completely full. I can try another hotel, if you like?"
Lucy shrugged.
"We'll cope. It's too late to go traipsing around."
The two women carried their bags to the lift. It was the first time they'd been alone in over a decade, and the silence was slightly uncomfortable. One wall of the lift was a mirror, and they studied each other as they rose to their floor.
"You look great", Ellie said, "you haven't changed at all!"
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was still the glowing auburn it'd been all her life, her skin a clear cream, but underneath the subtle make-up, she knew only too well that the wrinkles were starting to gather at the corner of her eyes.
Lucy laughed, "I can't believe the change in you."
Ellie felt looked momentarily uncomfortable. In the mirror, she saw Lucy reach out, she felt her hand on her shoulder.
"I mean - you look so sophisticated, you used to wear all that hippy gear, and look at you now! So grown-up, in a suit and everything, I'm really quite envious."
Ellie said: "sophisticated, moi?"
In the mirror they laughed together, the ice broken.
The lift door slid open, and they walked to their room.
"It's swish," Lucy said, "I don't usually get to stay in places like this."
Ellie felt more at home.
"My work takes me away a lot, you become immune to it."
She swung her bag onto the rack.
"Do you need to have a shower?"
Lucy said: "seems pretty luxurious to me. Sure, been a long day. OK if I go first?"
They walked around the room talking about their time together at university, hanging clothes, kicking off shoes, conspicuously not looking at the double bed, making an effort not to bump into each other. Lucy disappeared into the bathroom, and Ellie listened to her showering, singing quietly to herself.
She took her green silk chemise from her bag and laid it on the bed, separating out her bathroom things, make-up cleanser, hair equipment, toothbrush and paste. She looked at the bed.
"I hope she doesn't remember," she said to herself.
"Remember what?"
Lucy stood in the door to the bathroom, rubbing her hair with a towel, wrapped in a hotel dressing gown.
"Oh, I promised Claire I'd call her before bedtime," Ellie lied.
"Your daughter?"
"Yes, nearly seven, believe it or not. Sam won't mind, he's only two, Bill's looking after them. He's a good dad, he so good with them."
Lucy was sorting out her pyjamas: a girlish pink pair, with checked trousers.
"Cute," Ellie said.
Lucy looked at the green chemise.
"Sexy," she said, with a smile.
Eleanor stood in the shower, holding her hair back from the water, washing the stress of her journey away. Hair brushed, teeth cleaned, she slipped into her silk nightwear.
"Absurdly short," she said, "really, not practical at all."
She loosened the straps over her smooth, creamy shoulders, gaining a few precious centimetres.
She thought: "at least it's half-way down my thighs now..."
In the mirror, she closed her eyes. "Lucy wouldn't remember, there's no way... not after the life she's had."
The bedroom was already dark. The street lights from outside lit the room a comforting orange. Ellie could see that Lucy was already in bed, lying next to the window. She lifted the duvet and slipped in beside her. The sheets were cool, the night was cold. On another occasion, she'd have wrapped her legs around her husband to warm herself up.
Ellie lay in bed, trying to keep still, trying to take her mind off the woman sleeping alongside her. Or was she sleeping? It seemed that she was lying unnaturally still.
She whispered: "Lucy?"
"Yes?"
"I wondered if you were asleep."
"No, I was just wondering about how weird this is. Thinking about it, when we were in halls together, we weren't really that close, were we?"
Ellie ran her hand through her long auburn hair, thinking she'd have to wash it in the morning.
"I suppose not, I just remember you were always there - at the parties, in the lectures, in the bar."
They laughed together. Ellie felt Lucy turn around in the bed.
"Do you remember that party we had after finals?"
Ellie pretended not to remember.
"Was that at Joe's?"
Lucy tutted.
"It was at mine! I don't believe you've forgotten it."
Lucy's pout was lost in the dark.
"You crashed really early, and stole my bed!"
Ellie said: "oh, that party..."
Lucy repeated: " 'oh, that party'," with emphasis.
"I don't remember much."
"I do, I remember it very well."
In the night light, Ellie blushed. She said lightly: "oh yes, of course."
Lucy said, her voice mock-outraged: "you made a pass at me!"
