‘Okay. Good. Do that. Just sit here and I’ll get you some water. I love you.’
I fixed my eyes on the carpet between my legs, a beige abomination. After a few moments, Beck nodded a couple of times, then slipped back through to the kitchen.
The instant he was out of sight, I rose silently to my feet. I picked up my handbag, stepped out of the door, and did not look back.
12
BETRAYAL
I take the stairs three at a time, dash through a screeching gap in the traffic, then cut a zigzagging path down a series of side streets, figuring this is a route unrepeatable in its tortuous complexity. My phone is already ringing in my bag, interminably, but I can’t stop to silence it, not yet, not until I’ve put plenty of distance and corners between myself and the flat. I don’t have a hope of blending into the crowd; my beautiful blue dress makes me far too visible. There are a dozen twists and turns before I come to a temporary, panting halt, plunge my hand into my bag, and find the off button without once glancing at the screen.
I light a cigarette and keep walking down the nondescript residential street in which I find myself. Weirdly, I have no real idea where I am, and it strikes me as a fact both startling and poignant. A few minutes of alternating turns and the city has already swallowed me. I’m no longer Abby; I’m Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole, unable to tell up from down, left from right.
Slowly, though, I scrabble back to the surface. The nicotine clears my head and something like normality reasserts itself. It’s a Friday afternoon of dazzling summer sunlight, not long past five o’clock. The sun is pretty much straight ahead, blazing in my eyes, so I guess I’m facing west, and if I take a left and keep walking, I’ll get to the train track soon enough. But beyond that, no plan is forthcoming. The only solid notion is that I am not going home tonight. I feel too betrayed.
And at the same time, I feel exhilarated beyond words. Because it’s not that Beck and Francesca are wrong – of course they’re not wrong! They’re bang on the money, but that no longer matters. When you’re soaring this high, there are no thoughts of returning to earth. How could there be? Right now, my only concern is that I must be allowed to go on feeling as I’m feeling, consequences be damned.
Because there will be consequences. I know this too. This feeling can’t last for ever, and that’s part of its astonishing, shimmering beauty. The fallout will come, but it belongs to tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. It has no bearing on the present, which I’ll protect like a lioness guarding her cubs. The now is pure, ecstatic, simply sublime; and this is the real reason I cannot go home. I can’t let anyone take this feeling away from me.
With these thoughts bursting like fireworks, I quickly comprehend the course the day must run. I can’t go home, and neither can I contact any of my family or friends, who are not to be trusted. The only sensible option is to book into a hotel – somewhere nice. Anything less than five-star is unthinkable right now.
Eventually, I find myself at Turnham Green, where I board the eastbound District for central London. After switching to the Piccadilly at Earl’s Court, I get off at Hyde Park Corner and walk up Park Lane until I reach the Dorchester. There’s a man in a top hat and tails who opens the doors with a nod and a smile as I approach the main entrance, confirming what I already know: I look like I belong here. I return his smile but don’t slow my stride as I walk through the doors and cross the mirror-polished marble floor to the reception desk, where another immaculately pressed gentleman in a dark green blazer and waistcoat is standing straight-backed and expectant, like a courteous meerkat.
‘Good afternoon,’ he says. ‘Welcome to the Dorchester.’
‘Good afternoon.’ I place my fingertips on the counter, which is as cool as ivory and edged with gold leaf. ‘I’d like a room. One night, just for me.’
‘Certainly.’ He doesn’t even blink – but, then, why would he? It’s not just professional poise; I expect things like this happen all the time at the Dorchester: windswept women in cocktail dresses, flouncing in from the street and making their demands. Once you reach a certain level of opulence, nothing seems odd, or even eccentric. ‘What sort of room did you have in mind?’
‘One with a view over the park. As high as you have available. I want to see blue sky and open space.’ My voice drips with entitlement.
‘I can offer you a Deluxe King on the eighth floor. It would certainly meet those requirements.’
‘Perfect.’
Five minutes later, I’ve signed a form, handed over my credit card details, and am being transported through a wondrous maze of softly lit corridors and antechambers. The porter reveals not a jot of curiosity regarding my lack of luggage. We ride a lift twice as large as my bathroom in conspiratorial silence, his eyes averted and his hands clasped neatly behind his back. He holds open every door along the way, addresses me as madam as he gestures for me to pass.
My room is bright and spacious, impeccably furnished with antique furniture and a bed that could sleep a netball team. The broad window overlooks the treetops, beyond which Hyde Park shimmers like a dappled green sea. London is a spectacular city for the privileged few.
I have nothing to unpack, of course, so the first thing I do once I’ve taken in my environment is run myself a bath. The bathroom is like an astonishing chapel of white marble, with a tub as deep as a grave. There’s light pouring through a frosted window, a spotless double sink, a wicker basket stuffed with luxury toiletries. While the water is running, I remove my phone from my handbag and wrap it in one of the spare towels. I then stow this package at the bottom of the wardrobe.
I make coffee, then undress in front of the full-length mirror. From a couple of feet away, the slight rawness of my new tattoo is no longer discernible. It’s just perfect – so mesmerizing against the creamy softness of my breasts I want to cry. It’s a tragedy that Beck didn’t want to see it. This was a moment we were supposed to share. But it’s his loss, not mine. I gave him the chance and he didn’t want to know.
I steep in scalding water for the next fifteen minutes, with the throbbing ache in my left breast partially and pleasantly reignited. I wash my hair, scrub a day’s worth of city grime from my skin and nails. I towel off, dry and brush my hair, reapply make-up and put in fresh contact lenses. It’s too hot for clothes, I decide – even a bathrobe – so I spend the next hour or so naked. I sit at the rosewood desk by the window and write up ‘Which Blue?’ on eight sheets of hotel notepaper. It’s a masterpiece, needless to say – less a fashion feature than a prose poem: lyrical, playful, passionate and incisive. The sort of thing Virginia Woolf might have written had she decided to quit fiction and pawn her talents to Cosmopolitan. No need for a second draft; I fold and seal the article in a complimentary envelope and pop this in the side pocket of my handbag.
It’s now nearly eight o’clock, but the day is still as hot and bright as a hundred-watt bulb. I’m not even remotely hungry, despite not having eaten since lunchtime. I slip back into my dress and go down to the park for a cigarette, which turns into two cigarettes. Then I head back inside for a drink.
The Dorchester Bar is all velvet upholstery and darkly polished wood, and already humming with life. Soft jazz is playing in the background, pumped in by concealed speakers. I would have liked something livelier, with a beat, but never mind. The atmosphere is elegant and moody, and for now that’s enough. A suited waiter meets me in the entranceway and tells me there aren’t any tables available, but I’m welcome to sit at the bar if I’d like. This is more than fine by me. I decide, in that split second, that I’d much prefer to sit at the bar, which is a sleekly curved work of art. The wall behind it is a tapestry of backlit spirits.