She must have had a slight fever as she slept, because her clothes were clinging to her back and sides with stale sweat. Peeling them off and dumping them in a heap on the bathroom floor, Sophie clambered over the edge of the bathtub and switched on the shower, opening her mouth as the warm water rushed over her face and down her chest.
Ollie had told her his room number, too, she remembered, raising her hands to rub shampoo through her short spiky hair. He’d told her to call or knock if she felt ill, whatever time it was, and he and Megan would make sure she saw a doctor.
She washed briskly, not wanting to dwell too long on her body now that it was no longer hidden under layers of clothing. Her ribs protruded through her skin like a morbid xylophone, her hip bones jutting out unpleasantly below them, high enough to cast shadows on the concave nest of her stomach. Sophie knew that her arms were beginning to lose their tone, and that her collarbones resembled the holds on a climbing wall, but it was as if she was staring down at a figure belonging to someone else. She’d always been small, but athletically so – not this scrawny bag of bones that she had become over the past few weeks.
She wondered if Robin would notice the difference in her body. They hadn’t been apart that long, but he had always been so attentive. Sometimes she thought he knew her body better than she did, knew the location of every hidden freckle and dimple. He’d become a bona fide Sophie expert, he’d tell her proudly, his head popping up from below the covers, where he’d been on one of his ‘expeditions’, as he liked to call them. He always told her that he could spend all day every day just looking at her and that he’d never get bored, that there would always be something new and delicious to discover.
What if he was disgusted by her now? Sophie froze mid-rinse. He loved her the way she was, but she had changed. Would he take off her clothes and be appalled by what he found? Would he shake his head in dismay and turn away? Sophie didn’t think she would be able to bear that.
The water suddenly began to run cold, and Sophie jumped out of the way with a yelp. How long had she been standing there? Reaching for a towel, she was relieved to see that the full-length mirror had steamed up, allowing her ample time to dry and dress without her reflection distracting her. Every now and then a wave of dizziness would take hold, and she’d be forced to put out a hand to stop herself tumbling over sideways. She really must eat.
Having made the decision to venture downstairs and see if she could find the others, Sophie was now painstakingly applying a thick layer of foundation in an attempt to conceal the greenish tinge on her cheeks. Surely Megan and Ollie would have filled Hope and Charlie in on what had happened that afternoon, and she knew that Hope, especially, would be worried. She kept catching the older woman watching her when she thought Sophie wasn’t looking, her expression always one of concern. None of them had any need to worry about her, though. As soon as Robin arrived, they would see for themselves that she was absolutely fine.
Closing her bedroom door carefully behind her, Sophie made her way along the landing towards the stairs, her boots making barely a sound on the thick carpet. Mounted to the wall at the top of each flight of steps was a vast, ornate mirror, and she paused in front of the first one. The make-up definitely helped, as did the extra jumper she’d pulled on over the first, but her hair still looked terrible. She had grown so accustomed to hiding behind her long hair over the years that she was still having a tough time readjusting – and tonight she needed that reassuring veil even more than usual.
When she reached the second landing down, Sophie heard the sound of laughter heading her way. Overcome with absurd shyness, she darted towards a nearby window and pulled the heavy floor-length curtain across until she was concealed from view. Peering through a small hole in the fabric, she watched as Megan and Ollie came into view, her hand clasped firmly in his and a look of flushed excitement on her face. At the bottom of the stairs heading up towards the bedrooms, Megan hesitated, pulling on Ollie’s hand to stop him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, his tone gentle but urgent.
Sophie watched as Megan looked down at her feet, and then back up at him.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
It was almost a whisper, and Sophie held her breath, appalled to have intruded accidentally into such a private moment between the two of them.
‘Of course I’m sure.’ Ollie stepped down from the bottom stair and took her other hand. ‘I want this to happen more than anything.’
This seemed to work, and Megan moved closer to him.
‘It would be a shame to waste that bed,’ she said finally, her meaning clear. Sophie’s eyes widened behind the curtain.
Ollie chuckled and pulled her against him, bending forward and kissing her with such ferocity and passion that Sophie felt herself blush. She looked away, feeling embarrassed, but she could still hear their short breaths and gasps as they feasted on one another with a hunger that Sophie recognised all too well.
She turned to face the window instead, her skin prickling as the cold night air stole through the gaps, its icy fingers stroking the tendrils of hair that half-covered her ears. She could see the stars in the sky above the buildings, each one burning with a brightness that made her eyes swim, and she blinked away the moisture.
When she turned back to her shameful peephole to check if the coast was clear, Megan and Ollie had gone.
34
The vibration from Megan’s phone woke her, and she groped to pick it up from where it had buzzed across the wooden top of the bedside cabinet. It was a notification from one of the apps she used to edit photos on her phone, informing her that three new filters had been added. Great. Nice of them to tell her that, in the middle of the bloody night.
Putting her phone back down with a mild grumble, Megan caught sight of something else on the polished wood, and felt all the blood drain out of her. The condom wrapper winked back at her, its foil edges a merry silver in the blue light of her phone, so innocuous, yet so damning.
She and Ollie had done it. They’d had sex.
Megan peered over the edge of the bed and surveyed the carpeted floor.
They’d had sex at least three times!
It was very hard not to groan out loud, and only the fear of waking Ollie stopped her. He was stretched out beside her, a casual arm flung across his head, hiding his eyes from view, and he was absolutely, unashamedly and quite startlingly naked.
Wincing as the bed springs creaked below her, Megan hooked the cover over her foot and dragged it slowly back up from where the two of them must have kicked it out of the way. When it was safely up at waist height, she let it drop, her heart racing as Ollie shifted and turned, his face now just inches from her own. In the darkness he reached out, searching for her, but she remained rigid and unyielding as his warm hand came to rest on her bare shoulder.
The room all at once felt suffocating, the unmistakable scent of sex in the air making her feel as if she was choking. She tried closing her eyes, but all she could see was Ollie – his mouth on her breasts, his torso above her, his hands clutching her waist, her bottom, and his eyes, always looking into hers with such intensity. Megan began to trace their steps backwards, to the bar where she – yes, it had been she – had walked over and kissed him with no warning. She hadn’t planned it, she knew that, but she also knew that she had wanted it to happen.
After that there had been drinks, then more kissing. When had they come back to the hotel? She couldn’t be sure. Had anyone seen them? Oh God, they had been all over each other in that bar, she realised. It was so unlike her to be even the slightest bit affectionate in public, but she could clearly picture herself lost in the moment with Ollie, her eyes closed and her hands everywhere. They hadn’t even moved from the bar, but stayed in full view of the staff and all the customers, kissing each other like a pair of randy teenagers.
The shame was so acute that for a moment Megan thought she was going to throw up. Ollie, apparently unfazed by this extraordin
ary turn of events, continued to snooze contentedly beside her. She envied him, but felt cross with him at the same time. This was all her fault, she knew that, but she wished he had done the right thing and told her where to go, turned his head away and refused to kiss her back. He would think that this changed everything, and he would be right – but rather than feel happy, she was already beginning to experience the chokehold of regret.
She closed her eyes again, but this time she could see herself, her head thrown backwards and her back arched in pleasure, her hands raking through Ollie’s hair as he kissed his way down her body, pausing only to carefully but persistently lick her into a near-frenzy of ecstatic release.
It had been heavenly, but it had been a mistake.
Megan waited until she was sure that Ollie was completely sound asleep, then lifted one side of the cover and slithered silently to the floor, crawling on her hands and knees to her open case and extracting her clothes without making a sound. She needed a shower desperately, but her need for escape was far greater, so she wriggled into jeans and a jumper, found her shoes and bag, and managed to get out into the hallway without waking him.
The breakfast room downstairs was deserted save for one lone girl who was setting up the buffet. She smiled shyly at Megan when she saw her hovering in the doorway, pointing at the clock on the wall and telling her they would be ready soon. Megan, who was overwhelmed by the need to put a safe distance between herself and Ollie, merely smiled back and scuttled past, pulling on her gloves as she reached the exit.
The cold morning air lashed at her exposed skin like a whip, but being outside sharpened her senses immediately. By the time she’d made it to the far end of the road and could no longer see the hotel, she had begun to calm down. The pavements were almost completely bare, with only a few weary-looking souls passing by as she made her way towards the Charles Bridge. She had no plan in mind, but for some reason the bridge seemed to be the place she always ended up.
It was a beautiful morning, the clear sky a freshly laundered blue and the promise of later sunshine glowing faintly in the deepest corner of the horizon. Megan lifted up her camera ready to capture the moment, but found herself incapable. She couldn’t see the beauty through the lens, and tried again, tears of frustration building as the emotions she so longed for failed to materialise.
The camera sat forlornly against her chest, as redundant a tool to her now as a chocolate teapot. Without that feeling, that connection, she couldn’t even call herself a photographer – she may as well hurl her bloody camera off the bridge and into the Vltava.
What had she been thinking, sleeping with Ollie like that? After days of self-control, she’d given in, and now there was no going back. He would never accept her excuses now, never understand why she couldn’t be with him – but this right now, these horrible, confused feelings of guilt and regret, this was exactly why. Ollie had wormed his way under her skin, and her ability to take photos had vanished overnight. She could not have both things in her life – that much was now achingly clear – and she wanted to follow her dreams more than her heart.
It was all so unfair. So many of her friends had rolled their eyes at her when she explained why she couldn’t be with Ollie. Her own mother had been scathing of the decision, warning Megan against making a mistake that she might regret for a long time – but what none of them realised was that she was heartbroken, too. She knew that it was her neuroses and her fear that had kept them apart, even if she hadn’t been able to admit as much to herself until now. She cared deeply for Ollie, she always had, and she didn’t want to hurt him, but wasn’t that exactly what she was about to do?
Megan had been walking without really paying attention to where she was going, and looking up she realised that she had no idea where she was. The houses here were several storeys taller than those back in the Old Town, and many of the large rectangular windows were encased by wrought-iron balconies, each one cluttered with the debris of different lives. Using her camera lens as a makeshift telescope, Megan could see plant pots choked with winter flowers, children’s bicycles and overflowing ashtrays. As she watched, one of the glass doors opened and a woman emerged. She was wrapped in a dark-grey dressing gown and her black hair had been pulled into an untidy bun on the top of her head. Megan squinted through the viewfinder and saw a pair of what looked like red slippers poking out from below the robe.
The woman hadn’t seen her yet, and Megan let her finger rest on the shutter release button. She loved it when this happened, when she stumbled accidentally into another person’s private world and got the chance to observe, unnoticed. The lady had clearly just woken up, and Megan smiled to herself as she watched her yawn and stretch out her arms above her head. She was looking towards the horizon, to where the sun was continuing to rise slowly into the day like a baked muffin, throwing out ropes of light so that the frost on the rooftops of the city twinkled like an endless string of fairy lights.
What was she thinking? Megan wondered. What would her day ahead entail?
As Megan stood there, the woman turned and looked directly at her, as though she’d been able to feel the heat of Megan’s gaze from all the way up there. For a second, it looked as though she was going to smile, but instead she just shook her head, her lips moving soundlessly, and went back inside.
Instead of heading back in what she thought was the right direction, Megan continued to weave her way through the wide cobbled streets and deeper into what she assumed must be the residential area of Prague’s west bank. She was enjoying being away from the busier, more touristy areas of the city, where it was easy to be distracted by all the grand architecture and miss all those little details that she so cherished. To truly understand a place, she’d learned that you needed to peel up the corner of perception and stick a big spoon of curiosity into whatever you discovered underneath.
A bakery was just opening its doors as she passed, and Megan hesitated for a moment before pushing open the glass door and stepping inside. Almost immediately, she smiled – partly because the merry-looking man behind the counter actually stretched out his arms in welcome, but mostly because the smell wafting out from an array of pastries, loaves and buns was absolutely amazing. She wished she could capture it all on camera, but she didn’t want to be rude. Megan had struggled to even learn the Czech words for ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ since she’d arrived, let alone figure out how to ask this man if photography was permitted. She settled instead for just using her eyes, and eventually chose herself a pastry that looked like a giant jam tart.
‘This, please,’ she stammered, feeling like a fool as she pointed at the glass front of the counter.
The man clapped his hands.
‘Ah, kolache! Very good.’ He busied himself with a paper bag and some metal tongs. ‘This one is jam,’ he went on, pausing just as he was about to pick it up. ‘I have also cheese and meat.’
‘Cheese?’ she asked. Now he was talking.
The man’s grey beard wobbled a fraction as he nodded his head, moving his hand to the left, where another row of pastries sat waiting, their circular centres filled with oozing, yellow goodness.
‘Yes, please! Prosim,’ she said, matching the man’s grin as he acknowledged her attempt at the Czech language.
As he was handing back her change, the bell above the door tinkled and an old lady shuffled in. She was wearing a big felt hat over rollers, a pink overcoat and bright green wellington boots, and she immediately launched into an animated babble of Czech that Megan had absolutely no chance of understanding. The man followed suit, and soon the two of them were talking happily over each other, paying no attention at all to Megan, who was leaning against the window eating her delicious cheese pastry and taking it all in. Daily life in Prague seemed friendly and simple, she thought. The city still had that almost village feel to it, split as it was into separate boroughs where everybody seemed to know each other. There was a sense of community here, she realised, giving the baker a shy wave as she
headed back out into the cold street. It was the one thing that London was really lacking, and it wasn’t until she witnessed an exchange such as this one that Megan appreciated how much she craved it. Perhaps she had been wrong about needing to live in London. Yes, there were more opportunities, but wasn’t there a chance to make something of yourself wherever you ended up in the world? She wished Ollie was here to ask, but of course he wasn’t – she had made sure he couldn’t be.
She meandered through the suburbs until her legs began to ache with cold, then turned reluctantly north and quickly found her way back to the base of Petrin Hill. The park stretched up above her, still coated by a generous helping of snow, and Megan paused to catch her breath, her eyes stinging in the freezing air. As she stood by the entrance, a man passed by with a dog at his heel. It was small and scrubby, its brown and black hair standing upright in wiry clumps, but its expression of pure joy made Megan smile. The owner had no ball, but instead was reaching down for piles of snow, which he flung into the undergrowth for the dog to chase. Every time the bewildered pooch returned with nothing, its muzzle frosted white from all its determined excavations, the man roared with delighted laughter. It was such a simple tableau, but so beautiful, and Megan watched until the two of them were out of sight.
For once, she didn’t feel the need to capture the scene, and was simply content to have something to save for herself – a memory of Prague not coloured by history or magic or even by Ollie, just a moment of companionship between a man and his best friend.
She took out her phone to check the time. It was nearing nine now, and there had been no word from Ollie. She wondered if he’d woken up to find her gone again, and how he would feel about it. He’d been so understanding of her odd behaviour up till now, but she wasn’t sure he’d be so forgiving of her this time. If only she could make sense of what she was feeling, take it out and pin it up on a wall so she could study it, as she did with photographs, looking for hidden meaning amongst the colours and shapes.
A Year and a Day Page 23