The hotel canteen
In the breakfast canteen of a 1* hotel in Spain, on an all-inclusive resort that had the cheapest flight deals from Stansted airport, several diners are sat alone. At one of the tables sits a young woman who is sort of reading a trashy romance novel while she sort of nibbles on a thin piece of white toast with a scraping of butter. There were other breakfast options on the continental breakfast buffet spread, each a component of a full English that was probably once hot distributed between metal trays that were probably once silver. But, despite treating herself to this solo holiday to give herself a break from her 9 month old at home, she’s picky and doesn’t seem to have the stomach that she used to for the complete works. Especially not the mushrooms. The thought of their slimy texture on her plate makes her feel physically sick, and also sort of reminds her of her own placenta.
The other thing that’s making her feel a bit nauseous are the memories the resort is bringing up of the one night stand she had with one of the lads on a lad’s holiday while she was away with her mates on a gal's trip. The thought makes her question her own perception of time as it seems impossible that that could have been a whole year and a half ago, give or take a few days, and yet the proof is waiting for her back at home, with chubby red baby cheeks and wide bright eyes that always seem to be on the brink of tearing. She also realises that, even though she promised herself she’d never be the sort of woman whose life revolves around their baby, right after she decided to keep hers, and especially since she’s only 21, and the last argument she had with her parents was about how she’d not had a day off since her daughter was born, that she actually really misses her. She wishes she’d never come away on holiday in the first place, and promises herself that she’ll never leave her daughter again, not even when her endless crying means that she hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in over a week, and there’s not a single t-shirt of hers left strewn across the floor mere metres away from the laundry hamper that doesn’t have lactation stains on the front of it.
Facing the young woman, but separated by a distance of roughly six or seven tables neatly placed between them, is a much older, more mature woman, reading the same trashy romance novel, and finding herself far more enthralled by the book’s plot. The two women haven’t noticed each other, nor their shared reading habit, yet. Before the older woman on the table are the remains of a half-eaten low fat cherry yoghurt, and the abandoned core of an apple. The rest of the fruit is laid in careful slices, meticulously arranged around the yoghurt pot like she used to do for her now teenage son. There’s also a mug of hot water and lemon which, to the woman’s dismay, she’d had to request from the kitchen especially. She’s not a picky eater like the first woman, but the reason most of her cold breakfast remains untouched is because she’s become engrossed by the steamy love affair in the novel she’d picked up at Stansted airport the day before.
Her own sex life with her husband had certainly been lacking the passion they’d had when they’d first gotten together, over 20 years ago. She thought once their son Dylan had moved out to uni, maybe the spark would reignite, but he was in his second year now, and her husband Brian still hadn’t exhibited any intention to make her feel desirable or sexy when she had her kit off. She’d even brought pink fluffy handcuffs and a leather riding crop (like the ones you use on horses) to try and spice it up a bit. These items had arrived weeks ago, but she hadn’t dared to get them out of the box yet, afraid Brian would think her strange or weird for enjoying the changing colouration of bruises as they blossomed in different places. She didn’t know why she still cared what he thought of her, and she was beginning to think that actually she might have fallen out of love with him. Why else would a 50 year old married woman go on holiday on her own, unless she was pretending not to be. She’d even asked if he’d wanted to come with her, as one last desperate attempt at rediscovering that lust for life, and for each other, that they’d once had. Maybe they just needed a change of scenery, she’d reasoned to herself. Except he hadn’t wanted to come away with her. And besides, he’d said, who’s going to water the magnolias while we’re gone? You go and have fun, he’d told her, with a friendly pat on the wrist. I’ll still be right here when you get back.
The woman’s best friend Karen and her best friend’s husband Finley were always getting up to all sorts of exciting things, together, as a married couple, sometimes with other married couples as well. Recently, they’d started going to swinging Saturdays at the bowling alley in town. Karen had tried to convince her, Mona, to join them, but Brian hadn’t fancied it. He’d not even asked why it might have been that Mona did, fancy it that is, when she brought it up tentatively while they were eating spag bol on trays on their laps in front of the TV again. Come without Brian, Karen had urged her, he doesn’t need to know, not if he’s going to be a spoilsport about it. But Mona couldn’t do that, could she?
In the far corner of the hotel canteen was another guest, this one a young man. He was older than the first woman., but only slightly. He was nursing a black coffee and looking rather sorry for himself as his eyes stared blankly into the mug in front of him. He’d gotten out of the bed of the girl he’d slept with the night before. and rather than face the rest of his mates, the ones who’d egged him on to shag her—come on, she clearly wants you— he’d come straight down to the breakfast canteen to try and figure out how to tell his girlfriend that he’d slept with someone else. He really loved Sophie, or at least he thought he did, and even though they’d only been together six months, he couldn’t believe he’d fucked up so early into their relationship. After promising her he wouldn’t do anything with anyone else while he and all of his mates were on holiday as well. She hadn’t asked him to promise, and had acted with that cold indifference she’d had when they’d first met, and that she adopted whenever they argued, when he’d told her about their lads’ trip. He’d wanted to promise her that he wouldn’t though, whether she admitted that she wanted him to or not. He wanted her to want him to. He wanted to show her that he wasn’t the type of guy she thought he was. The type of guy he used to be. That he’d changed. Except now he’d fucked all of that up, and all because of the mixture of pride and female validation that had made him believe it was worth it and what he wanted in the moment. He took a sip of the coffee and allowed the bitter taste to linger in his mouth.
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