2 AM

The hotel in Sidmouth is a boutique hotel of perhaps 20 or 30 rooms, lxurous and cool by turns.We are here because of the wedding we are attending on Saturday. A few days on the coast. Wandering around the town, around the dock and the bay, spending time in a small bar eating tapas with margaritas with music playing. She isn’t drinking. She refuses to say why, though tired she seems happy. It’s later, she is asleep, its 2AM — i am in the bathroom the led of the charging toothbrush glowing through the opaque glass of the cabinet doors. The sound of foxes or deer in the gardens outside, perhaps also across the road on the hillside. The led stops flashing, you shuffle in the moonlight back to bed, swish swish swish on the wooden floors. You dream of her driving the car in her underclothes. Was it my younger body? She asks in the morning. Yes, you say. We are the only people who know those bodies…. It rained. Downstairs at breakfast she says, palefaced, eating muesli with yoghurt, some fruits, a pot of coffee in front of her, I have to tell you something…