It’s Maxim calling us on our room phone to let us know that checkout is in half an hour and that we’ve missed breakfast.
‘Oh my goodness.’ Flavia sits bolt upright – which I very much enjoy because she is stark naked and seems to have forgotten that fact – before noticing the nakedness and grabbing sheets and pulling them around herself. ‘Half an hour is not long. We’re going to struggle to have two showers and get packed and out of here.’
‘Obvious solution,’ I point out.
‘You’re right.’ One of her gorgeous smiles begins to spread across her face. She drops her sheets, and gets languidly out of bed, before strolling completely naked across the room to the bathroom.
I am there with herveryquickly.
We do not make it down to the foyer within half an hour, but we do make it out of our room within just over forty-five minutes, which frankly is a miracle, given what we did in the shower (again).
As we leave the room, we hear the sound of a little commotion coming from just inside Mike’s room, and thenJudithemerges.
‘Oh!’ she gasps as she walks slap bang into me.
‘Good morning,’ I say.
‘Judith!’ says Flavia.
‘Hello, good morning, I was just checking that Mike had packed everything.’ And then she literallyrunsin the direction of the lift and dives inside it.
‘Would you say Judith is wearing the same dress that she wore last night?’ I whisper to Flavia. I don’t tend to check out women’s clothing that much but her dress is very bright orange and yellow in foot-large squares, which makes a bigger impression on you than most clothing.
‘Definitely.’ Flavia giggles and then says, ‘Although…’
‘Yeah, who are we to comment,’ I agree.
‘But…’ Flavia pauses and then obviously thinks better of what she was going to say. I’m guessing that’s because her observation might have been applicable to us too.
I’m not sure I want to know her thoughts right now. I need to work out my own first.
We say nothing else and just carry on wheeling our cases towards the lift.
When the doors close behind us, I’m struck by the thought that this is the beginning of the end of our trip.
I turn to Flavia just as she also turns towards me, and suddenly we’re kissing again, like there’s no tomorrow.
Maybe that’s because thereisno tomorrow for us.
15
FLAVIA
Standing in the checkout queue with Dominic feels weird and very sad.
I don’t want this trip to come to an end.
It’s been wonderful. An amazing holiday, and an even more amazing holiday fling with Dominic.
Also, though, and this is kind of messing with my mind, I can see that I have another message from Jed:
I love you.
I haven’t yet replied to the one he sent me yesterday. I have too much to think about before I reply, and I didn’t want to ruin the end of the holiday by sitting down and worrying about my ex-husband. Also, I have of course been busy.
I’m still busy now. We have a few hours left in Cape Town before we head off to the airport. I don’t want to waste the last part of this amazing trip; I’ll deal with real life tomorrow, and continue to ignore Jed’s messages today. I mean, ifhewere in the middle of having the best no-strings sex of his life, he wouldn’t be texting me right now. He’s probably just between girlfriends and feeling sentimental because it’s New Year.
Dominic and I are at the front of the checkout queue now.
