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phone.

3

    Night Thoughts

     
     
     
     
    In her dream she was sitting at an outside table in the Bolivar Crêperie. They had made love that afternoon in a hotel overlooking the ocean, with the sound of sea pounding the cliffs below. But then they’d fallen out - she didn’t know why - and she was sitting away from Eyam at another table while he spoke on the phone. The little white van stopped in front of the cafe and the bomber got out and waved to her and gestured to Eyam with a grin. She recognised the bomber and she knew what was going to happen. She leapt up from the table and started shouting at Eyam, but he didn’t hear. He just kept on talking, talking, talking.

    She woke babbling, struggled to find the light switch and threw the tangle of bedclothes back. Her T-shirt was drenched in sweat and her hair was damp and stuck to her neck. She leaned over and rang down to reception to find Karl, the night manager, on the other end. ‘The thermostat in my room’s still broken,’ she said. ‘It’s like a sauna in here. I thought it was going to be repaired.’

    Karl suggested opening windows.

    ‘Right,’ she said, catching sight of her naked torso in the mirror and thinking that she should take exercise, maybe return to the swimming regime she’d dropped the year before. ‘So when’s it going to be fixed?’

    ‘Tomorrow.’

    ‘Can you make sure that happens? Otherwise I’m going to have to move - room or hotel.’

    ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Oh, Miss Lockhart,’ he said as she was about to hang up. ‘You haven’t complied with the identity requirements. The form is still here waiting for you.’

    ‘It’s three in the morning! I showed my passport when I checked in and you have my credit card details - what the hell else do you need? Hair samples?’

    ‘Tomorrow will be fine. But as a non-UK resident, you must do it. The hotel has a responsibility to file this form with the police. If we don’t we get fined.’

    ‘Fix the thermostat and I’ll see about your form.’

    She replaced the phone and took a shower, letting the water massage the back of her neck while she thought of the dream and then of Eyam leaving the message for her. It was so odd: the silence had lasted over two years, then on the point of death he phones out of the blue and starts chatting aimlessly as though nothing had passed between them - as though they had been in easy and regular touch, as though they were still the intimate friends of university. She stepped out of the shower and dried, again examining herself with detachment in the mirror. She was now fully awake. She turned on the TV and raced through the channels until she reached the BBC’s international service and the repeat of a programme analysing the riots that had flared in British cities the year before. She turned the volume down and switched on her phone. Why hadn’t she picked up? It was inconceivable because she had been in the office that Saturday, working on the last details of a deal that went through on the following Monday, and they were waiting to hear news of the other side’s response. There was no way her phone would have been switched off then. And if she’d been speaking to someone else she would have received the message immediately on hanging up. She tried to remember where she’d listened to the message and what she had been looking at when she heard Eyam’s voice, but nothing came to her.

    She flung open the windows to a damp and windless night; tiny particles of moisture glinted in the light. Her suite overlooked a wooded valley and she could just hear the murmur of the river below. She went back through the messages and when she reached Eyam’s voice placed the phone on the windowsill and pressed the loudspeaker button. ‘Hello there, Sister - it’s me. Eyam,’ he started. ‘I felt like having a chat but it seems you’re busy.’ Eyam was there with her in the room, present and alive. When it was over, she reached for a