AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Pull yourself together, Mads,’ I tell my reflection, firmly. ‘This was your idea, remember? Grow a pair and make the best of it.’
There’s the usual array of little bottles containing shampoo, conditioner and so on, and I scan the labels looking for the body wash. I turn on the shower and I’m relieved to see that the water pressure is good. There’s nothing I hate more than trying to wash in a pathetic dribble. I turn the heat up and step in. After I’ve showered and washed the travel grime off, I dry myself and wrap a towel round me. It’s at this point I realise that I have a problem. The steam from the shower has completely filled the room and I can’t see a thing in the mirror. The extractor fan is running, but it’s evidently not up to the job. Not only can I not use the mirror, the heat and humidity in here is making me clammy. I can feel beads of moisture forming on my top lip and forehead already. My clothes will cling to me if I try to get dressed in this, and I’ll have no chance of getting any make-up to stick to my face, even if I could see what I was doing in the mirror. I look around for a dressing gown to cover myself up with, but can’t see one. With a growl of frustration, I grab my clothes and fling open the door, still wrapped in the towel. Toby appears to have found an ironing board and iron and is carefully pressing his trousers. His eyebrows shoot up at the sight of me.
‘Sorry,’ I explain. ‘I can’t get ready in there, it’s like a sauna!’
‘I can imagine,’ he replies, with a smile. ‘You should have seen the cloud of steam that followed you! It was very dramatic. I’m nearly done, and then you can get changed in here while I shower. Does that help?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘If you want a dressing gown, they’re in the wardrobe by the door,’ he tells me. ‘I came across them while I was searching for the ironing board.’
Toby hangs up his trousers, folds up the ironing board, and peers tentatively into the bathroom. Declaring that the worst of the steam appears to have gone, he grabs a dressing gown and shuts and locks the door behind him, and I soon hear the sound of the shower. Hastily, I whip off the towel and get dressed. I’ve left my make-up bag in the bathroom, so I’ll have to deal with that later. I check the time and send a message to Charley to ask how she is.
There’s no desk in the room, so I sit carefully on the bed, turn on my laptop and open the Istanbul article. It’s starting to take shape and I’m beginning to hope that I might get it finished while I’m in Courchevel, which would leave me more time to write up this trip and get it to Mark by the tenth of February. I’m in the zone when Toby finishes his shower, so I don’t really notice him coming back into the room.
‘I’m not wild about the little bottles of shampoo and stuff,’ he complains. ‘They’re a bit fiddly, aren’t they?’
It takes me a moment to disengage myself from Istanbul and work out what he’s talking about.
‘You sound like my dad,’ I tell him. ‘He gets really annoyed with them, because the writing is so small he needs his glasses to read the labels. He’s always going on about how they should put different coloured liquids in them so, once you’ve read the labels, you can still work out which is which easily. Given the average age of the guests we’ve seen so far, I’m sure a good percentage of them have been washing their hair with body wash and vice versa.’
‘It’s probably the same stuff in both bottles anyway,’ Toby remarks.
‘You’re probably right,’ I laugh. ‘Anyway, we’ve got an hour before we’re due in the restaurant. Do you mind if I crack on with this for a bit? Once the bathroom has cooled down, I’ll go and do my make-up and you can get dressed.’
Toby settles himself on the bed next to me, opens his own laptop and plugs the card from his camera into it. The pictures that he took while we were out exploring appear on the screen after a few seconds. I try very hard to focus on my article, but every so often I find myself pausing to watch him work. In one photo he carefully airbrushes out some skiers and it’s slightly mesmerising to observe them slowly vanish until it looks like they were never there. I’m distracted by a ping from my phone. It’s Charley, reporting in.
The midwife lied. Newborns aren’t easy – they cry. All the time. Ed has suggested that maybe Amelia’s not quite done yet and we should go back to the hospital and see if they’ll put her back inside me!! She still isn’t feeding that well and we’re thinking of changing to bottle feeding to see if that helps, but I feel guilty as everyone says breast is best. How’s the GBF?
There’s a picture of Amelia, red-faced and angry looking.
I type back:
Sod what other people say – do what works for you.Bottle-fed babies in the adverts always look happy, don’t they? GBF OK. Slightly awkward sharing a room though!
I can see she’s typing.
Adverts aren’t real – but thanks. Room sharing was your idea, wasn’t it?
Ha ha. Reality rather different from the idea.
I get up from the bed and wander over to the window, taking a surreptitious photo of Toby on the bed in his dressing gown over my shoulder as I go and sending it to her.
Her reply is instant.
He’s HOT!
I think you should ask the doctor to look at your hormone levels. I’m worried about you.
The restaurant is exactly as I imagined it. Like the lobby, the walls are all wood panelled and there are oil paintings in heavy frames dotted about, each with a little light mounted above it to illuminate the scene depicted. There’s a muted hum of conversation, and the clinking of knives and forks on expensive china. Waiters in dark suits and white gloves glide silently through the room. It’s the sort of place my parents would love, but I find unbearably pretentious.
‘Is your dad a travel writer too?’ Toby asks, after we’ve been shown to our table and been given the menu.
‘No, he works for Shell. Why?’
‘Oh, it’s just the way you were talking about him and the bottles in the bathroom. I wondered if he was a travel writer and you’d followed in his footsteps.’
‘No, it’s just he travels a lot for the company, so stays in a lot of hotels. He doesn’t really understand what I do and keeps asking when I’m either going to get a proper job or get married.’
