The Wedding Present
This trip was their last remaining wedding present, a gift from Jack’s mum to her favourite hotel. The voucher wasn’t valid on Saturdays, and so he and Ellie had each taken a Friday off work and made the journey to the Suffolk coast. They knew the town well, almost too well, having made many trips when they first learnt how to drive - far enough to feel a sense of achievement, short enough to manage in a day. Their lives had since got much busier, with old friends returning home and weekends spent in a drunken haze. Before they knew it, several years had passed since they last set foot in the seaside town.
Until today. Jack put the key in the lock and entered the room, Ellie following close behind. Three things immediately hit him. Firstly, the bed was covered in deep red rose petals arranged in a heart. Someone must have let the cat out the bag as to the purpose of this trip. The second thing was the heat. The room was hot. Too hot. His whole body was engulfed in this stifling heat, as if he was at the heart of Sizewell C, the strongly opposed nuclear reactor a few miles down the coast. Finally, his nostrils were whacked with a weird musky odour, one he associated with his late-Grandpa’s nursing home, as he succumbed to the effects of dementia. The heat and the smell completely destroyed the intentions of the rose petal display. Nonetheless, the trip was essentially free for them, so he vowed to make the most of it.
Ellie had sensed this all too, and pushed past him to open the window. The February sea breeze wafted into the room, the cooling effect almost immediate. Ellie answered his unspoken question:
“Maybe the previous occupiers had body temperature control issues”
“Given the age of the clientele, I’d say that’s almost certainly a given”
Earlier that afternoon, they’d sat in the hotel lounge, and claimed the cream tea included in their voucher. The lounge was full, with wealthy retirees enjoying an afternoon in the light airy space, either chatting to their companions or reading the Daily Telegraph in amicable silence. Ellie and Jack sat awkwardly in one corner of the lounge, acutely aware that their presence lowered the average age by at least two decades. Their room had most likely been previously used by octogenarians enjoying an off-season seaside break.
The next morning, Jack woke up dripping in sweat. Annoyingly, they hadn’t found a way to switch off the heated towel rail in the bathroom, which continuously warmed the air around them. In his sleep, he’d managed to kick off the duvet, which lay in a heap at the end of the super king size bed. He turned to stretch out towards his wife, finding her side of the bed empty. In over 11 years of travelling together, he had never woken up in a hotel bed alone. He vaguely remembered he’d heard her moving around in the night, trying to get comfortable against the stifling heat. Maybe she’d found a different place to sleep?
He got up to find her, the morning sun providing just enough light to see. Jack followed his intuition, heading for the window at the far end of the room. They’d left it open all night to attempt to manage the heat. His suspicions were confirmed by the sight of her sound asleep on the floor, underneath the open window, the early morning sea air providing some much needed relief over her naked body.
