Chapter 2
‘He’ll be thinking of me for weeks,’ Annie thought as she bounced up the stairs to her room on the second floor.
‘My soaked chest will be appearing in his dreams.’
That gave her a laugh, and at least she had proven to herself that she still had some of the magic.
Thinking about it, she remembered that was how she had met Greg; in a dive of a club, one elbow on the bar, looking up at him and fluttering her eyebrows, ‘how’s about buying a poor girl a drink?’ she had probably said, or something equally embarrassing.
Ten years ago. Ten.
‘Nevermind that,’ she thought pushing the unwanted memory to the back of her mind. There were more important things to think about; she had a fancy room for the night and two spa packages and some champagne to devour tomorrow morning.
But first, she really needed to get out of these drenched clothes. After she had paid for the room and got her key, the trip to the car to grab her suitcase had ensured that any piece of her clothing that had held out against the rain when she had initially ran to the hotel was now suitability soaked.
The card reader on her door took a couple of goes before it recognised her key card but eventually the door opened and she bundled into the room, dispatching with her suitcase, sweater and blouse as she did so.
She perched on the edge of the bed, trying not to get the duvet wet, and pulled at the skinny jeans which refused to budge. Seemingly, when the water had soaked into the material it had caused the jeans to expand or tighten around her legs and the jeans now refused to detach themselves from her thighs.
Had Greg been her she would have lay back on the bed and let him pull them straight off. They had done that before, more than once. She remembered on one memorable holiday when they had got caught in a tropical storm in Thailand. She had lay outstretched, immobile on the bed while he peeled every last piece of wet clothing off...
But this wasn’t Thailand and Greg wasn’t here so he needed to be the independent woman she had always claimed to be.
Hopping on one leg she managed to wiggle one leg free. Standing on the jean leg she had just freed herself from to trap it and tugged as hard as she could. Suddenly there was a large screech, the deafening sound of ripping material.
‘Oh, no! No, no, no!’ she shouted aloud.
The jeans had ripped cleanly in two, leaving her holding one leg and wearing the other.
There was a strong frustration rising inside her, she didn’t know whether to laugh, scream or cry.
She sat back down on the end of the bed and stared at her mismatched legs. Eventually she got the detached jean leg rolled down and she chucked both legs in the corner out of sight.
“It’s an excuse to go shopping...” Annie thought to herself, before the creeping remembrance of her bank balance killed the thought off.
Checking out the bathroom she noticed how deep the bath was. A bath would sort all of this out, she thought. Running the water as hot as the tap would let her, and dropping in some of the complimentary bath salts that sat on the edge of the bath in a basket, she went to unpack a little. Even when she was only staying somewhere for a night she liked to make it feel a little bit homely.
She unpacked the clothes she would wear tomorrow, hanging them in the cupboard and placed a photograph of her with her friends from home, Julia, Leanne and Sharon, on the bedside locker.
‘What would they think of me,’ she thought, ‘half naked, drenched to the bone with my brown roots showing on the hair that’s stuck to my head.’
Julia, who spends practically every other week at the hairdressers, would be aghast at her roots, and Leanne and Sharon, the comedy duo of their group, would be bent double laughing at her ripped jeans.
Finally Annie laughed too at the thought of them. Her friends never failed to cheer her up, even when they weren’t there.
Her bath was ready and so was she.
…
Friday 7th June
After last night it was best to focus on a little bit of rejuvenating, she had decided, and that called for spending as much as the day in the spa as possible. The free treatments she had managed to get form the receptionist would go well towards that plan.
For the first of her two treatments, Annie decided on the Aromatic Balancer Luxury Facial. The beauty consultant had blended the essential oils specifically to match Annie’s complection and the PH levels of her skin. Annie wasn’t sure it made much difference but it had an amazing smell and it had felt amazing.
The consultant had tried to drum up a little bit of conversation, as they always do. It was something Annie really couldn’t stand and she always tried to put them off talking to her. Small talk was fine for some people but she always felt fake and awkward when she had these kinds of conversations, and she couldn’t relax properly with a fake smile on her face.
‘Oh, you’re from England are you?’ the consultant started.
‘Mmm hmmm’, Annie confirmed, drowsily.
‘Over for a holiday?’ she tried.
‘Mmm hmm’ Annie intoned.
“Doing anything this weekend?”
‘Mmm hmmm’ Annie confirmed, not really listening to the question.
At that point the therapist gave up and focused on the facial having failed to establish Annie’s apparently inpeneratable life story
This had been followed up by the promised free champagne and a selection of fruits, mainly berries, which she thought was a nice touch considering she hadn’t really paid for any of this.
While she waited for her second treatment, a full body Swedish massage this time, she grabbed a spot on an empty row of loungers by the hotel pool and started on the cheap paperback book she had picked up in a gift shop in Donegal.
THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY: EXPLORING THE WEST OF IRELAND; it wasn’t the kind of cheap paperback she would normally have bought but she wasn’t particularly in the mood for any romance novels.
Reading about the sights of Galway, she was pretty sure that would need to be her next stop. She was an Ed Sheeran fan and wanted to see the place that had inspired his Galway Girl song, although her friend Sharon insisted there was another song, also called Galway Girl, that was even better. Sharon was a big music fan, so she was probably right, but Annie was happy to stick with Ed.
A voice was invading her thought process.
“Excuse me,” chimed a sweet voice.
Looking up her eyes met with a small rotund woman in a one-piece swimming costume who was smiling at her.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” she gestured to the lounger beside Annie.
“Go ahead,” Annie said, wondering why had to choose to sit on the lounger right next to here when none of the other loungers were occupied.
“Thank you, dear,” she replied, setting her towel on the seat and easing herself down easily onto the lounger.
She clearly has back problems, Anne thought to herself as she watched the woman puff as she finally lay back on the lounger.
Oh, I’m Rosie, by the way,” the old woman said, outstretching her hand.
“I’m Annie.”
“Oh that’s a lovely name,” said Rosie, attempting to arrange herself into a comfortable position, “plenty of nice Irish girls with that name, but that’s not your accent. Where are you from?”
“England” Annie said, turning back to her book.
“I thought so, where abouts?”
Rosie was a persistent one, Annie could tell. She knew that with these kinds of woman the only thing you could for a chance of peace and quiet was to was give up and just answer their questions until they got bored.
“Yorkshire,” Annie replied, setting her book down, “just outside York.”
“I’ve been there!” came the excited response.
Annie smiled hoping that silence might curtail Rosie. There was no chance of that as Rosie took off.
“Such a lovely place with all those old looking buildings. And the Cathedral too, what’s it called? York Minster?”
“That’s it,” Annie agreed, careful not to get too involved in the conversation.
“Wonderful, we went right up top. That was when Barry, my husband, was still with us. He died last year...” Rosie trailed off, suddenly caught with emotion.
Annie felt a bit awkward in the new silence and wasn’t sure what to do. She never knew what to say in situations where death entered the conversation, especially when it was a situation she didn’t want to be in the first place. But she couldn’t say nothing, even if it did mean that she would set Rosie off back into conversation mode. Rosie had started rummaging in her handbag, not really looking for anything, just trying to distract herself.
“I’m sorry to hear about your husband. Did he enjoy York?” she asked, nervously.
Rosie raised her head with a tender smile, “Oh, he adored it.”