There was not room for the two of us and that was most of it.
We were pressed together from the chest down whether we wanted to be or not. Her tits flat against me and wet.
My back against tile that never got warm the entire time. The curtain coming in and sticking down the length of her spine every 30 seconds, and her batting it off and swearing at it and it coming straight back.
She got the little bottle off the shelf and washed my hair.
She did that the first Sunday too, in a stall the size of a wardrobe with the water going cold on us, and she was the one who carried the pair of us through it that morning while my hands were shaking, and I have wanted her to do it again since.
I stood there with my eyes shut and her nails on the back of my head and did not say a word.
"You’ve gone quiet."
"Mm."
"That’s a nice quiet."
"That’s a very nice quiet."
Then she got hold of me and looked down.
"Well. He’s up."
"He’s been up since 7."
"He’s been up since that first Sunday, in my experience." She had her fist round my cock with the water coming over both of us. "Stay there. Don’t move."
She went down onto her knees in a bath in a Travelodge and the curtain came straight in and stuck to her back and she reached round and tore it off herself without letting go of me.
"That curtain’s going to be a problem."
"That curtain can do what it likes."
She’s good at this and she knows she’s good at it and her knowing it is half of it. One fist round the base, twisting slow. Her other hand up under, rolling my balls in her palm. Her mouth taking the rest, deep, holding there, water coming down her face and her not caring.
And she kept coming off to tell me things.
"You know what I thought about all week?"
"Jodie."
"This." Her fist going. "Stockroom on Thursday, 40 cartons on the floor, Steve stood there going on about the run-up. And I’m thinking about your dick."
"You’re going to kill me."
"Not before checkout."
I lasted about 3 minutes. My hand went flat on the tile and stayed there and I told her I was close because she wants telling, and she took me deeper and gripped the base and did not pull off.
I came in her mouth with the water coming down on both of us and made a noise that went straight up into the extractor fan.
She stayed down for all of it. Then she came up, wiped under her eye with the back of her wrist, and looked entirely pleased with herself.
"There. And I’ve had a shower."
Breakfast was £8 each and the lad on the desk had told us not to bother.
Long room, 20 tables, a heated cabinet with a lid. A coach party of walkers in fleeces at the far end, about 14 of them, all doing the map talk. A family with 3 kids and one of them building something out of a pancake.
The woman in the tabard came round with the beans while Jodie was at the toaster.
"You want more of them beans, love?"
"Go on."
"They’ve been on since 6." She put a fresh tray in and lifted the old one out with a cloth. "So have I. Don’t have the mushrooms."
"That bad?"
"They’re not bad." She wiped the rim. "I just wouldn’t."
The toast came round on a conveyor and did nothing whatsoever to the bread. Jodie put a slice through 3 times and held it up.
"Look at it."
"Yeah."
"It’s warm bread, Danny."
"Put it through again."
"That’s 4 times. I’ve got dignity." She buttered it anyway. "This is brilliant, this. I’m having a lovely time."
Two sausages, a hash brown, beans in a separate bowl because she will not have them touching, 3 cups of tea.
Halfway through she stopped with her fork up.
"Which one is he?"
"Who?"
"Him. Next door. He’s in here somewhere."
We both looked round over our tea like a pair of idiots. Walkers. The family. Two blokes on their own at separate tables, one on his phone, one reading an actual newspaper.
"It’s the newspaper one," Jodie said.
"How’d you work that out?"
"He’s not looked up once and he’s been on the same page 10 minutes. That’s a man avoiding eye contact." She went back to her sausage. "Also he’s on his own in a Travelodge on a Sunday, so he’s had a worse weekend than us."
Battersea took 20 minutes. Sunday roads, cold, her arms round me and her chin on my shoulder.
At her door she got the helmet off and had a go at her hair and gave up.
"Right. Mum’s at 1."
"Say hello."
"I will not, because then she wants to know who from, and then it’s 40 minutes and where’s the photograph." She was doing her coat buttons. "Which I still haven’t got, by the way. You absolute hermit."
She said it lightly and carried straight on.
"Tuesday. You’re still coming?"
"I’m coming Tuesday."
"You’ll be bored."
"I’ll bring my own tea bags."
"You will not bring tea bags into my house, what am I?" She stopped with her key in the door. "Oh. Hang on. Come here."
She got hold of the front of my jumper and looked at it properly in daylight for the first time.
Then she started laughing.
"Where did you get this?"
"Stall on Rye Lane."
"Danny, this is ours." She had the collar out, reading the label. "That’s an extra fine merino crew, that is. We’ve got about 60 of them in the back in 3 colourways."
"Is it?"
"It’s £19.90 in my shop and I’d have got you 30 percent off." She let go of the collar and smoothed it down with the flat of her hand, twice, the way she does with stock. "You paid £22 for it on a market stall. Off a man. With a table."
"He was very nice about it."
"I’m sure he was, he’d just made £2.10." She was still going. "Honestly. All you had to do was ask."
"I’ll ask next time."
"You’d better." She got up on her toes and kissed me. "Right, go on. And wear a coat, because that stairwell of yours is like a fridge and nobody’s going to notice if you die in that flat for about a week."
"I’ll wear a coat."
"Nine on Tuesday. And I mean nine, not your nine."
Then she went in, and I stood on her step in a jumper from her own shop with her discount not applied, and got on the scooter and went north over the river. To the flat.
Eight point four million. She has never seen the door.
Ding. Forty floors of nothing.
I put the kettle on because that is what I do now and did not make anything with it.
Floor man’s 8 tomorrow. Keisha’s 12. Errol Wednesday and Yvonne’s drawing Wednesday and I’ve got 9 things on that list.
And Naomi rings Adaeze in the morning. Four minutes. Eleven years, always paid, he was a courier, and then it’s shut.
And Mara’s in that pool at 9 because she told me she would be.
I stood at the glass and got the phone out.
The message was still there from 1 in the morning.
[ Miss Carter has been added to your record. ]
[ This was not done by the Concierge. ]
what record
[ Yours, host. ]
i havent got a record
[ You have. ]
what’s on it
[ Your shifts. Your grades. Your wages. ]
[ The doors you signed into and the doors you did not. ]
[ Everything filed on your behalf. ]
I read that 3 times.
who added her
Nine seconds. I watched the screen.
[ That is not a question the Concierge is able to answer. ]
take her off it
Nothing.
take her off it
Nothing at all. I stood there with my thumb over the glass and the river going underneath, and it did not come back for a minute and a half.
why is she on it
[ Attendance at a graded door is recorded. ]
[ All parties present are recorded. ]
it was a travelodge
[ Yes. Grade 1. ]
[ It was still recorded. ]
who else can see it
[ The Concierge does not hold the record. ]
then who does
[ That is not a question the Concierge is able to answer. ]
I put my other hand flat on the glass.
is she in trouble
[ There is no process against Miss Carter. ]
is she going to be
[ Nothing happens to her. ]
[ She is on it. ]
I read that one about 6 times and typed 3 different things and deleted all of them.
Then I typed the thing I actually wanted to know and looked at it for a while before I sent it.
am i on it
Nothing.
Fifteen seconds. 20. Out over the east a plane came in low with its lights going and I watched it all the way across the glass, and it was still coming down when the screen went.
[ No, host. ]
The kettle had gone off behind me and I had not turned round for it, and it sat there getting cold in a flat 40 floors up with nobody in it.
[ There is no record of you to be on. ]
[ There is only what is filed. ]
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