‘I’ve never known anything like it.’ My enthusiasm feels insufficient, but I’m in such a state of awe I can do no better.
‘I’m glad you approve. Here – follow me.’
We swim to the other side of the pool, to a bank of what Matt tells me is silica mud. He picks up a handful of the creamy white goo and it oozes through his fingers.
‘This stuff is meant to be good for your skin. You put it on like a face pack.’
I smirk. ‘Go on, then.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘I meant for you. Beauty treatments aren’t my thing. I’m beyond help.’
I pick up a handful and pretend that I’m about to apply it to my face, but at the last second smear a great big blob on his cheek. ‘There. You’ll look like Brad Pitt by the morning.’
He shakes his head, suppressing a grin as he wipes it off with mock disdain. ‘Thank you so much, Ms Reiss. Here we are in these serene surroundings – and you’re behaving like it’s Splashy World.’
‘Ha! Splashy World sounds like my kind of place.’
Matt and I stay in the water for hours, emerging only to cool down occasionally (which doesn’t take long, as you might imagine). As we float, sipping a champagne cocktail from the swim-up bar, I can think of no other experience in my life during which I’ve been so simultaneously relaxed and exhilarated.
And . . . something else. A feeling I’m trying hard not to submit to, but which is proving virtually impossible to resist.
When Matt takes my hand, when he guides me through the water, when his skin brushes mine . . . I have an overwhelming desire to slip my arms round his neck and wrap my legs round his body. I’m drawn to him in a way that’s almost magnetic, watching as he glides through the water, a vision of physical perfection.
It’s not just the fact that he’s nearly naked, although I can’t deny that the taut stomach and bronzed arms help. It’s something more than that. It’s difficult to put my finger on what it is, except to say this: I’m unable to take my eyes off him.
Hours later, we finally step out of the pool and run to the doors, wrapping ourselves in the fluffy blue towels waiting inside. As Matt and I go our separate ways to get changed, I make a concerted effort not to look at the ripple of muscles in his back. I push open the changing-room door instead and compose myself. It must be something in the water.
Chapter 55
There is a problem with the room. I’m not talking about a leaky roof or dodgy tiling. On the contrary, I suspect every room in the Hotel 101 is as gorgeous as the rest of the place. With the stripped floors, uber-cool furnishings and flickering log fires, you couldn’t fault it. Except for one fact, about which Matt is mortified.
‘Obviously, I’ll take the floor,’ he insists, slamming his hand against the lift button like he’s trying to hold three cherries on a fruit machine.
He turns to me, the muscles on his neck visible. ‘Emma – I had no idea they only had double beds. I’m so sorry. I was convinced the booking said it was twin. I’ve literally never been anywhere on one of these jobs that didn’t have a twin room.’
I swallow. ‘They couldn’t move us?’
‘There isn’t a single twin room in the hotel,’ he says, hitting the button again. ‘I’m so embarrassed.’
I shake my head. ‘Don’t be. It’s no big deal. And there’s no way I’m letting you take the floor – this is your room. I’m the one bunking in.’
‘That’s irrelevant.’
‘Of course it’s not. You’ve paid for it.’
‘The company I’m working for has paid for it. Not me.’ He hits the button again.
‘That’s beside the point. They paid for it for you. It’s your room. Your bed. And I’m happy on the floor.’
He throws me a look. ‘The floor is mine. Don’t argue. Please.’
I decide not to.
The doors close and Matt and I stand next to each other in the lift with suddenly nothing to say.
The silence is oppressive as I stare hard at the door, willing the lift to have reached our floor and for it to open. I’ve never yearned more for a piped version of ‘Mull of Kintyre’. At one point Matt starts to whistle, then becomes self-conscious and stops. So I rummage around my bag – for nothing at all.
The doors finally open and stepping out involves an odd, elaborate jig in which we try to persuade the other to go first, awkwardly clashing knees like hysterical Irish dancers.
The room is beautiful. There’s a Raindance shower. A flat-screen TV. The furniture is confidently Nordic, contemporary and, hell – it’s just ice cool. But next to the warmth of the wood floor it has a lovely cosiness. It’s perfect.
I insist he takes the bathroom first to get ready for dinner and then go downstairs for a drink before me. That way I can chill out, do my ablutions in private and phone Rob.
At least I try. It goes straight to voicemail.
‘Hi, Rob – um, sweetheart. How are things in Barcelona? Well . . . I’ve arrived safely. I really hope you’re well. Missing you already. Well . . . hopefully we’ll get a chance to speak later.’
Dinner at the hotel is lovely. The food’s delicious. The service is second to none. But something’s . . . well, a bit odd.
In sharp contrast to my dreamlike state in the Blue Lagoon, I feel awkward around Matt in a way I haven’t since the atrocious circumstances of our first meeting. It’s not only the bed situation, although that obviously doesn’t help. It’s something more.
And I think the problem is with me.
I am stuttering like the exhaust on a vintage Robin Reliant. I am blushing so violently it almost constitutes a pre-menopausal flush. And my flashbacks to the Blue Lagoon are causing the sort of stirrings I only thought possible with a trip to Ann Summers and four AA batteries.
There’s no mistaking it. I am developing something I haven’t experienced since I was a teenager. A crush. A proper bells-and-whistles infatuation. Which is pathetic, is it not?
Yet, I can’t deny it. There are times tonight when giving in to this feels sublime, like warm brandy slipping down my throat and warming my chest.
It’s only later, in my pyjamas – with Matt on the floor at the end of the bed – that I look at my mobile and see a message from Rob. A message telling me he loves me.
And I can’t help thinking life would be much easier if I’d just snap out of it.
Chapter 56
Cally once told me she’d developed a foolproof trick for those occasions when she wanted to stay chaste.
‘If you’re going out with a man you’re crazy about, but you are determined not to sleep with him too soon, the key is hair removal. Or non-removal, I should say.’ She’d leave her legs unapologetically hirsute, her bikini line untouched and her armpits looking like one of the characters from Fraggle Rock.
That way, no matter what carnal urges engulfed her, the shame of her rampantly overgrown fuzz was the ultimate deterrent to going further than second base.
This morning, I wake up trying to work out a conundrum, one I know shouldn’t have even entered my mind. I have one more night with these odd sleeping arrangements and there is a reprehensible part of me that doesn’t want Matt to sleep on the floor.
I want something to . . . happen. Something that results in us wrapped round each other, cocooned in these crisp cotton sheets, his hands—
‘We’re being picked up in ten minutes,’ Matt calls into the bathroom as I gaze in the mirror, razor in hand.
‘O-kay,’ I call brightly. Then I think of Rob. And I glance at the razor. ‘Bloody harlot,’ I mutter, throwing it decisively in the bin.
Today, Matt and I are heading into Iceland’s countryside – completing a three-hundred-kilometre loop known as the Golden Circle – so he can take his first set of official photographs. We’re going in a Super Jeep, the necessity for which is not overly comforting. I am trying not to imagine the kind of terrain that requires a vehicle with five-foot tyres.
‘It’ll be great,’ insists Matt as
we head to reception. ‘I’ve done this a few times. Just make sure you’ve got plenty of layers in case we encounter problems,’ he adds helpfully.
Given the lack of time and planning for this trip, I was unable to purchase an array of stylish winter gear. What I should be wearing is the chic get-up minor European royals swan about in on the slopes of Klosters.
Instead, I have been forced to dig out the C&A salopettes I last wore at the age of fourteen on a school ski trip – and team them with lots and lots of layers. That’s lots. My attire must have a tog rating similar to the loft insulation they use in the Kremlin during especially harsh winters and, as a result, I am struggling to make full use of my limbs.
Our guide is an unremittingly jolly chap called Magnús and, apart from the 66 North snow gear, he looks in every other way like a Viking: tall, broad, with tufts of dark blond hair and the air of a man who, if required, could be admirably handy with an axe.
Despite it being nine a.m. when we leave Reykjavik, the city is in darkness and will remain so for some time. It’s snowing heavily – and horizontally; the roads are treacherous and visibility is so bad we might as well be driving through custard.
Magnús is unfazed. ‘Conditions on the glacier were like this yesterday, but we still let people to go out on the snowmobiles. We didn’t lose anybody, not one. Yesterday was a good day,’ he grins, giving the unnerving impression that not all days are.
En route to the glacier, we stop at frozen lakes and roaring waterfalls – and as Matt sets about taking photographs, I feel as though I’m in a David Attenborough film, in an icy wilderness that’s completely removed from the real world. My real world.
The final stretch of the journey takes us deep into the heart of the country, towards the Langjökull Glacier. And the conditions here make everything else until this point feel like a trip to Disneyland. Even the massive tyres of our vehicle now struggle to grip the packed-down snow as we drive past hazard signs and press on, with nothing but bitter whiteness visible through the windows.
I’m trying hard to look calm and collected – determined to suppress my inner wimp – although it doesn’t help that even the Emergency Calls Only sign on my mobile has now disappeared.
‘You okay?’ Matt asks, as the jeep suddenly slides down into a small ditch and I let out a whoop like a swan attempting to sing ‘I Will Always Love You’ on karaoke.
‘Fine!’
‘It’s a bit scary first time, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ I say breezily, as my stomach churns with unmitigated fear.
It stops snowing briefly as we finally reach our oasis – a series of huts and hangars in the middle of pure white nowhere. In parts, the snow goes up to our waists.
My only previous experience of a snowmobile is the one owned by my Barbie. It was bubblegum pink and she had a snazzy snowsuit that matched, complete with fur-lined high heels.
This one is rather different. Like the forty or so other novice snowmobilers I’m handed a petrol-blue snowsuit – like the clobber you’d see on a Kwik Fit fitter – along with a balaclava and large black helmet.
‘They’re not going to fire me out of a cannon, are they?’ I mutter.
Matt smiles. ‘It’ll be far more fun than that, I promise.’
Our snowmobile instruction takes about four minutes, which strikes me as being on the short side.
I can barely hear anything through my helmet: I just have to watch the instructor twiddling various knobs and hope they’re not overly important. The only bit I do catch is this: whenever the snowmobile turns, you have to ‘lift your ass off the seat and push it to the side’.
‘Are you going to have a go at driving?’ Matt offers, as we head to the snowmobile. ‘I don’t mind sitting on the back if you’d like to.’
‘Oh, you know what – I’ll let you do it,’ I reply, as if I’ve given the alternative a second’s consideration.
‘Sure?’
I hesitate, feeling a flicker of indecision. Aren’t I meant to be trying to get braver? I grit my teeth and give the only answer I’m capable of: ‘I’m sure.’
We set off on the snowmobile, following the tracks in front of us, and I grip the bars on the back so hard my wrists burn.
‘Remember, when we turn, you need to move your bum too, okay?’ Matt shouts back at me as it begins to snow again. I drop my visor, but instantly realise it offers zero visibility, so abandon the idea.
‘It’d be a lot easier if we didn’t bother turning – how about that?’
He laughs. ‘That would involve never going back. And there’s a gin and tonic waiting for you at the hotel, remember?’
The first ten minutes involve little more on my part than burying my head into Matt’s back and trying to stop the driving snow slashing my eyeballs.
There is only one moment when I’m required to do anything – and I do not cover myself in glory.
‘Okay, Emma – turn!’ Matt announces, out of the blue – at which point the instructor’s words ping into my head. My ass. I need to move my ass! Determined that I won’t approach this with the same trepidation I felt at the polo, I raise my bum with gusto and swing it to the side of the snowmobile hard and fast enough to make absolutely certain my nine-and-a-half stones in weight are contributing everything they’ve got.
And they would have done – if I’d swung the right way.
It’s only as Matt leans confidently to the right that I realise which way I was supposed to go, by which stage it’s too late. If luck was on my side, I’d get away with this.
Sadly, it isn’t – and neither is whatever gravitational law of physics is involved as Matt, the snowmobile and I are pulled flat into the snow.
The whine of the dying engine rings in my ears as I realise we’ve left a shape in the snow like when Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff.
‘Sorry,’ I splutter, spitting out mouthfuls of snow.
‘It’s all right, it happens all the time,’ Matt replies, standing and pulling up the snowmobile as an instructor races to our aid.
‘Is that true?’ I ask, as he grabs me by the hand.
The instructor goes to check the engine, but not before slapping Matt on the back and saying, with an enormous grin, ‘I knew that’d happen to you one day, my friend!’
For the next ten minutes the snowmobiling seems even more treacherous than before; at least, that’s how it feels after my blooper.
Then something changes.
‘Emma,’ Matt shouts back to me. ‘Open your eyes.’
‘How did you know my eyes were shut?’ I ask, fluttering them open.
‘Just a hunch.’
I unbury my head and straighten my back. The snow has stopped and we can actually see. And it’s incredible. An immense mountain rises up before us into the bluest of skies, and sunlight streams through the clouds, casting pink light on the snow.
Suddenly, my fear is gone. I feel warm. I feel elated. I feel like I’m on top of the world – and the reality is that I am, near enough.
I hear myself laughing while tears fill my eyes and an overwhelming awareness fills my head.
This is it, Emma. This is living.
Chapter 57
What I really want after a day that’s flooded every nook and cranny of my body with adrenalin is to sit in a bar, savour my G&T, and work myself up to moving five or so steps to the restaurant over the road for dinner.
But the drink is only a stop-gap.
After a brief return to the hotel room to freshen up and refuel on bar snacks, we’re going out in search of the Northern Lights. No matter how fatigued I am, I’m not going to miss this for the world. Even if I’m fully aware that I might.
As I’m due to fly home tomorrow, tonight is my one and only chance to see the Aurora Borealis and, although conditions are perfect, the guide tells us there’s still only a fifty per cent chance they’ll appear. The universe does not boast an ‘on’ switch for this particular phenomenon.
So we get
on a bus, with fifty or so others all dressed in clothing comparable in thickness to a Sealy mattress, and we drive. And drive. Then we get out and look at the sky. But they’re not there, so we get in and drive again. Then get out and look at the sky. And so on, and so on, until it is quarter to midnight, minus seven degrees and I am one thousand per cent confident that I will never regain the use of my fingers and toes.
‘They’ll be calling us back in soon,’ Matt says, as we gaze at a sky bursting with stars, but devoid of anything that looks remotely like the Northern Lights. ‘I’m afraid I don’t think it’s going to happen.’
Matt turns to me and gives me a nudge. ‘Never mind,’ he says sympathetically.
‘Yeah,’ I reply philosophically.
He frowns. ‘You must be really disappointed.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly – it’s been an amazing trip anyway,’ I say truthfully.
‘Shame about your list, though.’
‘I’ve done things on this trip I couldn’t even have dreamed about when we wrote the list.’ I suddenly start shivering, a proper dramatic shiver that makes my teeth chatter as if they’ve been wound up.
‘It’s bloody freezing, isn’t it?’ he laughs.
‘Er . . . yes.’ I grin. I look up at him as he puts his arm round my shoulders and squeezes me into him. I stiffen at first, unable to work out how I’m supposed to react.
Then I can only go with how I feel. And my God, does it feel good. Heat spreads through my body and I snuggle my icy cheek into his shoulder, feeling safe and dangerous at the same time.
When the guide starts calling everyone back to the coach, we turn to look at each other.
‘Guys! Come on!’
Matt doesn’t move and neither do I.
Swirls of hot breath shimmer between us as our faces edge closer. I tell myself that if he kisses me I won’t stop him. I haven’t got it in me. I close my eyes sleepily and can feel the warmth from his mouth on my skin as everything around us falls silent.
The Wish List Page 20