Page 48 of One Last Thing
‘Me neither.’
‘I thought I’d want a completely different room, somewhere else in the hotel. But now—’ she shrugs‘—I don’t know. This was always my favourite room. The balcony.’
‘The adjoining door,’ I add.
Her forehead creases. ‘It was always open, wasn’t it.’
‘Yes. Although, I think the last couple of times we came, we let it be closed. You were fourteen, fifteen, so we had to give in.’
‘I remember arguing about it being open before then,’ she recalls, sounding amused.
‘Yes, you did put up a battle once or twice.’
‘But you and Dad would win in the end.’
I give a light laugh. ‘Henry and I were both rather good at getting our way.’
She tries and fails to suppress a smile. ‘Two against one. Not a fair fight.’
‘Nothing’s ever fair when you’re a teenager.’
‘Yeah.’ She turns the key in the door and after the click, she pushes it open. ‘I think I secretly liked having the door open at night. Nico and I used to play games about the house beinghaunted when we were younger –maybe eight or nine – and I don’t think I ever shook that feeling off, even when I was older.’
‘Before we got lucky enough to secure these rooms, you were in the same one as us for a bit on holidays when you were little,’ I say, smiling at the memory. ‘On a camp bed, do you remember?’
‘Yeah.’ She chuckles. ‘It used to creak like crazy.’
I tip my head back and groan. ‘Every time you turned. Ihatedthat blasted camp bed.’
‘Bet you were thrilled when I got my own room,’ she says.
‘I thought I would be, but then I missed the reassuring sound of those springs,’ I tell her, my sudden sincerity scaring me but not enough for me to stop. ‘We had to compromise with an open door between our rooms and then . . . well, then that went, too.’
She doesn’t know what to say. We stand in silence and then I save us both.
‘Right! Time to get clean. See you tomorrow, darling,’ I say brightly, giving her a wave before disappearing into my room and closing the door behind me.
As I place a hand on my chest, steadying my breathing, I steal a glance at the closed and locked adjoining door before I hobble towards the bed, a shooting pain rushing down my leg. I wince, sitting down on the sheets and clenching my jaw. The tiredness is overwhelming. Grunting, I manage to heave my leg up on the bed and I reach for the painkillers on the bedside table. Swigging them down, I lie back on the pillows. I know I need a shower, but the fatigue is so heavy I can’t move. I can’t do anything. A tear of frustration rolls down my cheek before I drift off into sleep.
***
Finally, some evidence that Henry was of sound mind. The following day, he has booked us in for a luxury spa day. His way of apologising to me for the horse trek, of that I am quite certain. Megan is bamboozled by the whole thing, insisting that her dad was not the type to enjoy spa treatments. I remind her that people can always surprise us.
‘Yeah, it looks like it,’ she says, pulling her robe over her bikini with a puzzled expression as though she’s not quite comfortable with that idea.
She finds herself even more uncomfortable when we discover we’re booked for a couple’s massage, urged to lie on two beds right next to each other. While she tries to insist there must have been a mistake, I cut in to tell her that if I got on a horse, who was clearly plotting my demise, and then slept in the dirt, she can put up with a massage table that’s a few inches away from mine.
‘You didn’t sleep in the dirt. You slept in a tent,’ she mutters, but I ignore her.
The masseuses leave us for a moment so we can get comfortable. Placing the box of Henry’s ashes carefully on the floor beneath my table, I whip off my robe and lie on my front, pressing my face into the hole at the top. I close my eyes, listening to the calming classical music in the background. After a few moments, I realise I haven’t heard any other movement.
‘Megan, are you lying down yet?’
‘No. It’s too weird. This is a couple’s massage. It’s for acouple.’
‘There are technically two of us.’
She sighs. ‘You know what I mean.’
