‘I’ll come with you, if you like,’ Dan suggested.
‘Ok, I’ll see you down at the lobby at 7.00am tomorrow then.’
Back at the hotel Gerry set the clock radio alarm to 6.30am and then sat at the desk with her new cell phone and called Richard Cornwall.
‘Hello, it is I,’ she announced.
‘Are you safe?’
‘Yes but we need to move on as soon as possible. Tomorrow I’ll send you a post office box number for the main office, Saskatoon. Can you send passports for the boy and cash? We need to buy airline tickets.’
‘Yes, I can do that, but listen; I feel so far out on a limb I can hear creaking and cracking; don’t let me down, Gerry.’
‘I owe you Richard, and I won’t forget.’
Gerry broke off the call and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She knew that her feeling of safety was based on the flimsiest grounds; even now her enemies might be surrounding the hotel and tomorrow morning they might be dead or in custody. She stood up and stared out of the window at the darkening skies. She turned on the television, flicked through the channels for a couple of minutes and switched it off. Then she lay down on the bed, but despite her fatigue she stared up at the ceiling and her mind wandered back and forth over the events of the last three weeks.
She got up again. Maybe there was an exercise room with a treadmill where she could run herself to exhaustion. She picked up the house telephone and called reception.
‘I’m sorry ma’am, but our exercise room is closed for renovation. I can give you a pass for the hotel a mile up the road, if you like.’
‘No that’s alright. I’ve just remembered I don’t have any kit.’
Gerry put the phone back and spotted her dirty clothes tossed on to the armchair. She picked them up and took the elevator down to the basement laundry room and found Dan leaning over a machine jiggling a handful of quarters and reading the instructions on the lid. Gerry hesitated in the doorway, wondering whether to stay or scarper back to her room before he saw her, but he spun round.
‘Hi Gerry, come to do your laundry? Sorry silly question, else you wouldn’t be down here.’
‘That was my plan,’ she acknowledged, ‘but I’ve just realised I don’t have any coins.’
‘No problem, I haven’t started mine yet, so add yours.’ He lifted the machine lid. Gerry placed her clothes in the machine and he set it going.
‘It’ll take forty-five minutes, according to the blurb,’ he said. Do you want to go and get a drink while we wait?’
‘Er… I’d rather just go for a walk, if you don’t mind.’ She hesitated. ‘I need to talk to you about one or two things.’
‘Ok then. Hey I thought you were going straight to sleep.’
‘I thought I would, but I started turning over things in my mind. I’ll tell you when we’re outside.’
‘Ok.’
They took the stairs to the lobby and found that a sudden rain shower and arriving guests were hurrying through the revolving doors, cursing the weather.
‘We could go to my room,’ Gerry suggested. ‘There’s some coffee or we could raid the minibar.’
‘Ok, that’s fine,’ Dan replied.
‘So what’s on your mind, Gerry?’ Dan asked, slumping into armchair while Gerry sat on the swivel chair by the desk.
‘Well amongst other things… you are a bit,’ she finished lamely.
He stared at her with a sombre expression. ‘Because I said I loved you back then, you mean.’
‘But I’m totally screwed up,’ she exclaimed. ‘I tell everyone I have a daughter, but the truth is I gave her up for adoption at birth. True my mother suddenly died and I didn’t feel I was the right sort of person to bring up a child. I’ve been assessed as mentally unstable by a prison psychiatrist. When I was alone in that raft, shit scared, I took a good long hard look at myself and I don’t like it much.’
Dan stared at her for a minute while she wiped tears away with her fingers.
‘I knew all that Gerry. I’ve seen the report on you, but I’m stupid enough to think I know you better than those people. Could you stand up a moment?’ he asked, getting to his feet.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘So I can kiss you.’
Gerry gazed at him in wonder and then stood up uncertainly but Dan grabbed her around the waist with one arm and then gently place a hand behind her head and without the need for any more encouragement she kissed him hungrily and then with sudden desperation she pressed close against him. Suddenly he was pulling away and reaching towards his mouth and at the same time Gerry felt the sensations in her lips had altered. She darted her tongue forward.
‘My tooth’s fallen out,’ she wailed, just as he held out the whitish lump on the palm of his hand. ‘It’s a temporary crown,’ she explained. ‘Maybe I can get it cemented back in tomorrow.’ He handed it to her with a grin.
‘It’s not funny!’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just that you’re trying to talk whilst keeping your lips over your teeth; go on… show me.’ She forced a smile revealing the gap in her teeth.
‘One day perhaps you can tell me how that happened, but for now why don’t you put that somewhere safe and we’ll try that kiss again. Gerry stared at him for a moment.
‘Do you think you still love me then, Dan Hall?’ she asked. He looked back at her seriously, no trace of the grin.
‘I guess I have done ever since I met you in Muscat.’
Gerry shook her head. ‘Back then I was cheerful, optimistic, happy. A lot’s happened to me since then: I’m a different person.’
‘Everybody changes,’ Dan replied. ‘Perhaps I can change you back to being happy, if you give me a chance.’
She took a step towards him and they resumed kissing, and to show that she had no lingering inhibitions she plucked his shirt clear of his waist band and tugged it over his head and then lifted her arms so he could take off hers. She kept still while he fumbled with her bra hooks, then flung it aside and pulled him down on to the bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gerry woke up early in the morning and found that she was alone. Maybe Dan had gone back to his own room. She turned over and hugged a pillow but she was seized with a sudden anxiety. She telephoned his room but there was no reply. Suddenly her door clicked open. She rolled off the side of the bed, snatched up her gun from the bedside table and peered over the rumpled covers. Dan came into the room carrying the bundle of washing they had left in the laundry room and saw her.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Defending myself against a man carrying a bunch of clothes apparently. Please don’t sneak in or out again.’
‘Ok, I won’t,’ he assured her, dumped the clothes on a chair and hobbled off to the bathroom. She climbed back into the bed and pulled the covers over her.
How’s your ankle?’ she asked when he emerged. He twisted his foot back and forth.
‘Still aching, but I can walk normally. She forbore to comment as he walked over to the bed with a set face and then fell on to it beside her. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she replied giving him a gap toothed smile in return. ‘What’s the time?’ She answered her own question by propping herself on an elbow and reading 6am on the bedside clock.
‘There’s two hours before the post office opens,’ he said.
‘Good,’ she replied, threw aside the covers and rolled over on top of him.
‘Ooof,’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re certainly no lightweight.’