You Are Here

by David Nicholls

d-drip dry.’

Big Smoke,

‘It’s an . . . involuntar...

she squelched to the reception desk.

The Wi-Fi password was wainwright2014.

she pulled off all her clothes and hurled them in great sodden lumps on to the bathroom floor, where the...

she clambered i...

waiting for sensation ...

imposing from the gra...

cave...

Borrowdale, the hotel information claimed, was the most beautiful v...

Through the condensation on her window she saw rusty garden chairs huddled under a tarpaulin, a waterlogged tennis co...

she padded to the bathroom,

she had not hit a conversational groove with Conrad,

though perhaps that might have come with time.

it was humiliating to be abandoned like this

once again, she was confronted by the gulf between expectation and reality, no sun on her face, no union with nature, no laughter with friends, no sex. No matter how carefully you packed your bag, there...

Gathering up her tortured clothes, she arranged them ...

but she was distracted by her feet. The friction of the wet socks had rubbed the dead city skin so that it was flaking off in grey worms like the rubbings of a pencil eraser and she picked at the stuff, appalled, and began to feel better.

At least she had the pleasure of the cancelled plan.

The new skin beneath the dead stuff was as shiny as the white under the shell of a hard-boiled egg and this was by far the best time she’d had all day.

Natasha’s message

It was the first he’d heard from his wife in months, and he felt irrationally embarrassed about his appearance, soaked, exhausted, hair pasted down, dripping on to the carpet of a mid-range conference hotel.

slapping towards him in disposable slippers.

amphibian,

I had a tincture for my palsy.

‘And do you have a sense of achievement?’

‘Nope. Nothing. Nothing at all, though I did want to apologise to you for all the shouting.’

Still, I’m sorry for being rude about Alfred Wainwright.’

‘Oh, Conrad ran off by the way.

That’s a shame. But we’re still hanging on, Marnie!’

‘We’re still here!’

a polytunnel used to grow lettuce in winter.

jeer at

misted with conde...

No hibiscus or coconut oil, instead the smell was of old t...

protruded from a great meringue in the hot tub.

slapped

splashed about.

Perhaps it was just as well he’d left.

There’s a particular intimacy in seeing someone in their...

patting at the suds, streaked with a tideline of unmentionable grey, like old snow.

crisp and casual.

the squeal of tyres.’

‘But how was Michael?’ said Cleo. ‘He was nice. Quite quiet. I mean, we couldn’t talk much because the rain was so loud, and I was shouting and swearing at him, but he seemed like a nice man.’ ‘He is a nice man,’ said Cleo. ‘He is,’ said Marnie, ‘very nice,’ and fell silent, because niceness was something that was both rare and also hard to talk about.

‘You should. It would do him good to talk to someone, I think.’

‘But the thing is Anthony and me are heading home tomorrow morning,’ said Cleo,

‘So what do I do? My ticket’s from Penrith on Tuesday!’

‘Caring, then. You’re a brilliant woman. I think you’re a brilliant woman and it sends me crazy that you don’t . . . think more of yourself and get out there.’

They lapsed into silence, listening to the motor.