Page 2 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage
‘I did, but I do not hate hearing it twice.’ Clay laughs. ‘It’s like lightning in a bottle. I’m telling you, this just doesn’t happen.’
Jack picks up a glass from the table, a glass that I’m not entirely sure was his, and drains it. ‘Do you need anything else from us?’
‘No, no, you’re free to go,’ Clay says. ‘Unless anyone wants a nightcap?’
‘No thanks,’ Jack replies. He takes my hand. ‘We’ve got a hotel room to make the most of. Thanks for the print, very thoughtful,’ he gestures, about to pick it up.
‘No need to take it now, I’ll have it shipped.’ Clay kisses me on the cheek. ‘Try to get some sleep, superstar. Big day tomorrow.’
He turns to Jack. ‘The car is booked for six a.m.’
‘I could have driven us,’ Jack says.
‘Don’t be daft,’ Clay says. ‘You’re selling books in the kinds of numbers we usually see from wizards or kinky billionaires. The least they can do is arrange a car.’
They shake hands, I gather my things, and we head through the cavernous lobby to the lifts.
‘That went well,’ I say.
As we step inside, Jack drops my hand. ‘I think we put on a decent show.’
‘Show?’ I ask, rolling my eyes and pressing the ‘P’ button for penthouse. Nothing happens until I scan our key card.
‘You know what I mean,’ he replies. I look at his strong, gorgeous profile against the backdrop of London splayed out beneath us. The skyline is rambling, messy and beautiful, studded with lights. The lift is glass and it slides effortlessly up all twenty-five floors, leaving my stomach behind and doubling the effects of the champagne I’ve been drinking all evening. I can’t help feeling sort of giddy. We are here. We’ve done it.
‘I still don’t really understand why we need to stay in a hotel when our house is less than half an hour away,’ Jack mutters as the doors swoosh open, right into the room.
‘Oh, come on. You’re really telling me you’d rather be at home than here? Looking at all of this? We’re in the penthouse, Jack. Thepenthouse.’
Weirdly, me repeating the word penthouse over again doesn’t seem to convince him that this is exciting. He shrugs. ‘I’d just like my own bed.’
‘Poor darling. No one has ever known such suffering,’ I tease. ‘Forced to stay in a five-star hotel on the night of his book launch.’ Am I teasing? I think I am. We both gaze out at the view again and I wonder if people pay extra for expansive hotel room views because they’re a conversation piece for couples who’ve already said millions of words to each other.
‘So, we’ve got a hotel room to make the most of?’ I ask, repeating his comment to Clay and trying very hard to sound sexy rather than sarcastic.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says, half smiling. ‘I know we’re already covered for this month.’
He means the perfunctory sex we had earlier this week, which he only initiated because I’d put it in our shared diary. Given how painfully unsuccessful our attempts have been for months on end, it probably won’t make any difference anyway. We’ve been trying for a year now, without so much as a late period.
‘We can have sex when I’m not ovulating,’ I say, irritated by the entirely accurate assessment of our once brilliant, now depressing sex life. We can. We don’t, but wecan.
Jack takes a whiskey from the minibar and pours it into a glass. ‘I’m knackered,’ he says. ‘I’d be no use to you.’
It’s funny how his vehement disapproval of minibar drinks has disappeared now that the hotel is giving us a free stay in exchange for coverage. Years ago, on a cheap package holiday to Greece, I actually cried because I was so hungover and I wanted a Diet Coke but he insisted on walking to the local shop in 35-degree heat rather than pay the inflated price for the one already in the room. He called it a ‘matter of principle’. I am tempted to point this out, to remind him how far we’ve come. But I sense he won’t see it that way, and it will lead to an argument. And he did put on a good show this evening. He’s never liked big groups of people he doesn’t know, but you would never have been able to tell; I am grateful to him for that. So I sit, cross-legged, looking out across the sky. The bed is half the size of our first flat, covered in a huge blue silk and velvet cover. I breathe out, trying to exhale the tension from the day – the worry that the party would be a disaster, that Jack would make some intellectual joke that no one would get, that half the guest list wouldn’t turn up or my dress wouldn’t fit.
‘You know, I read somewhere once that hotel eiderdowns are one of the most heavily bacteria-saturated surfaces in the world,’ Jack tells me, opening the minibar and rifling for snacks. I get up. Not that I especially care about the idea of E. coli lurking on my bedding, but because he’s ruined the moment. ‘Are you going to shower before bed?’ I ask.
‘I wasn’t planning to, no,’ he responds without looking up.
‘Fine.’
‘Do you want me to shower?’
‘I don’t care if you shower or not.’
‘Then why did you ask?’
‘Because I wanted to know if you wanted the bathroom first,’ I explain, increasingly irritated. I’m tired; we’ve been in performance mode all day – longer than that if you count the weeks of press. I just want to wash the evening off me and get into bed.
