So. Now. Entering this hotel room, Anna’s opinion would be heard, and her resolve would not fail her. She was a year mightier, equipped with a simmering rage, and ready to confront difficult stuff.
As she stood just inside the door, she could hear the sound of them both laughing in that silly way that is so butt-clenchingly humiliating, unless you are one of the couple wound up in the gooey giddiness of it all, the game of giggle and flatter and coy that we all play when a relationship is fresh and exciting and we’re pretending to be irresistible and cute. It had been an age since she’d made those noises with him. She couldn’t imagine ever doing it again; it would be unthinkably mortifying.
Did she really want to see what she saw next? No. Did she need to? Yes. She knew that, unless she laid eyes on him in this very moment, he would fabricate endless lies to disprove it, as per usual. He was slippery as hell.
The curtains were closed, and daylight was seeping into the room around the edges of them. There was just enough glow to see the rude sight of a naked girl’s back and bottom as she jiggled about preposterously on top of a prone and gormless Julius. For a short, cringing moment, they didn’t realize Anna was there. All three shared the same fuggy adulterous air. Anna had tried to avoid thinking about images like this when she was suspicious of his fidelity in the past, but here it was, right in front of her, confirming all of her tortured imaginings.
It was worse, actually, because this was so very crude. Whenever she dared to think about any scene between Julius and his lover it would be candlelit and romantically perfect. This was much more sordid. A beige bore of a suite, with a creepy musky aroma. Nothing in there was the perfect she’d imagined, including the people, although she had to concede that the young woman seemed bendy – yes, more flexible, definitely, than Anna – and she had small wings tattooed on her back. That was an unwelcome intimacy Anna would never forget. She knew instantly that, just as she’d guessed, this was the ‘personal trainer’, the liberal Dane she’d been told about. The person Julius generously attributed his weight loss to … no lie there.
‘Boo,’ Anna said. Softly.
The Dane screamed and quickly clambered off Julius, grabbing the duvet around her as she scrambled to the furthest reaches of the bed, just as Julius also tried to grab part of the duvet to cover himself. It struck Anna as ludicrous – whom was he shy in front of? Both women were familiar with his nethers.
Unfortunately.
‘For Christ’s sake, Anna!’ he yelled. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Visiting?’
The Dane was mumbling ‘Oh my God’ repeatedly. Julius stumbled off the bed, and losing his tiny tug of war with the Dane over ownership of the duvet, he compromised by covering his rapidly wilting penis with his hands, like a footballer between the penalty and the net.
‘Look, this isn’t me … isn’t the me you know …’ he blurted.
‘Right,’ said Anna. ‘Looks like you … but sort of redder …?’
‘No, you know what I mean. I’m not this man.’
‘Yes, I think you are.’
‘But I don’t want to be, Anna. This means nothing …’
‘Rude,’ replied Anna, indicating the Dane and, ironically, feeling sorry for her having to hear him dismiss her so readily.
As the Dane rose from the bed, gathering some clothes and making a swift beeline to the bathroom, Anna might have empathized more if she hadn’t muttered ‘… in our room’, in a frustrated way, as if this was putting her out somehow.
‘In my life!’ Anna responded to her back as the angel wings speeded up her exit.
‘Anna, please, don’t think anything of this …’
‘Put your Y-fronts on, Julius, do us all a favour.’ As she took up a senatorial position in a beige armchair in the ‘seating’ part of the suite, Anna felt decisive. She wasn’t going to move until there was some sort of resolution.
She realized that her heart was beating very fast, and her breaths were shallow, but she was determined to remain calm. This was her ambush and she needed to own it.
Julius clambered into his Calvin Kleins and a hotel dressing gown and sat down opposite her, repeatedly rubbing his face vigorously, as if that would rid him of the shame. She could see he was thinking fast, his mind racing through all the possible consequences of this hideous situation.
‘Please, darling …’ was his first après-pants attempt at conciliation.
‘I’m not your darling any more, Julius. You don’t get others to bounce around on top of you if you have a genuine darling … you just don’t.’
‘This is just a silly moment, Anna. You know what I’m like – I’m a sucker for some flattery and that’s what she did …’
‘Right. She flattered you?’
‘Yes. Told me … stuff …’
‘Like how clever and handsome you are?’
‘Yes. No. You know the kind of stuff …’
‘I don’t, Julius. I really don’t know what someone would have to say to make you think, Oh right, yeah, what I ought to do next is put this in you and risk my whole marriage …’
‘Stop it, Anna, that’s unnecessary.’
‘Please don’t lecture me about what’s unnecessary. It’s our missing daughter’s first birthday, and I thought you were busy making sure we find her. All THIS is what’s unnecessary, frankly.’
‘I’ve been an idiot. I admit that.’
‘Aww, well done,’ Anna responded patronizingly, ‘some culpability, finally.’
‘She … she …’ He was fumbling about trying to find a new home for all his blame.
‘She what …? What did SHE do …?’
‘She … wore white trousers. Tight white trousers.’
That floored Anna. She looked at him aghast.
The Dane heard this last feeble comment on her way back out of the bathroom, wearing said white leggings. ‘What?’ she spluttered.
‘Come and sit down, please.
