Violet by S J I Holliday

Author:S J I Holliday [Holliday, S J I]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912374861
Publisher: Orenda Books Ltd
Published: 2019-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

22

The reception is small and cramped, with a chest-height, dark, wooden desk on one side and a tired-looking red-velvet sofa on the other. The floors are polished marble, and a quick glance around suggests that the place is clean, if not luxurious. I squeeze Carrie’s hand and she gives me a small smile. We’re here. We’re still together. But we do have lots to talk about. I’ll let us get settled before broaching it though.

‘Room seventeen, on fourth floor. Lift is at end of corridor. Restaurant is at end of corridor also. No food now. Breakfast eight until ten. Dinner five until nine. No lunch.’ The bored-looking receptionist rattles off the bare minimum of information needed without even the hint of a smile. She hasn’t asked for any money yet, so maybe Carrie has pre-paid, but I don’t bother to ask her.

The lift is tiny and instantly claustrophobic, without even a mirror to make it look bigger. We squeeze in with our bags, and I try not to breathe in Carrie’s direction as I’m sure my breath is stale from the journey, despite brushing my teeth every day. Now that we are in here, the smell of us both is overpowering. The taxi had its own sweaty aroma, and it was hard to know if it was us or Ivan who smelled the worst. Now I’m starting to think it was us. But we have been on a train for nearly four days, and no amount of cat washes can deal with that kind of sweat. There was a lot of drinking. A lot of other stuff too. I get a thrill as well as huge waves of embarrassment when I think about it.

After what seems like an age, we arrive on the fourth floor and almost tumble out into the corridor to escape the confines of the lift.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Carrie mutters, heaving her bag onto one shoulder. ‘We fucking stink, V.’

I burst out laughing, glad that the tension has snapped at last. Although she’d held my hand in the taxi and apologised outside, there was still something unspoken between us, and there still is – but at least we’re laughing again. I have a flashback to Carrie, last night – her sharp vodka breath in my face:

‘You need to fuck off, Violet. You’re a leech. A parasite. Fucking worming your way into my life. Into my pants…’ She’d actually grimaced when she said that. ‘I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I fancied experimenting, but why the hell I chose you, I do not know.’

Then she’d disappeared from the cabin and I hadn’t seen her until she’d come back this morning, half an hour before we were due to arrive. Smelling of sex. She’d tossed things into her backpack in silence, and I’d gone through so many options in my head of what I could say to her, wound myself up so much, that I couldn’t say a word.

Today she is subdued, and judging by the tremor

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