Silver

Chapter 33 - then

'Do you want me to carry you over the threshold?' Alistair asked, stalling at door 106 and fumbling with the key card.

'Not really,' I replied. 'But thanks anyway.'

He posted the keycard into the lock and swung the heavy door open, revealing our honeymoon suite. The king-sized bed had a jade green satin bed cover and a carved wooden bed head. The bed was loud and almost shouted at me like capital letters. There was a sitting room to the right, with a double day bed couch, and a welcome message projected onto the wall - Welcome Alistair and Sylvie Schwartz, Happy Honeymoon.

The bed faced floor to ceiling glass sliding doors that looked out to an oriental courtyard, with charcoal pebbles around a weeping Japanese maple beside a natural-looking swimming pool. Alistair placed his hand around my hip.

'It's beautiful,' I said. 'I can't wait to swim in that pool.'

'We should have a swim in the moonlight tonight,' he said and winked.

'I better call my dad and let him know we arrived safely,' I said. But then I remembered my zaplet was in the bag that the porter was bringing up to the room.

'Where's the porter? He's got my bag,' I said.

'Here, you can use my phone,' Alastair offered his phone from his back pocket. 'What's mine is yours.'

I took his phone and dialled home. Mum answered, hazily. 'Hello?'

'Mum, it's me. Just ringing to say that I arrived okay.'

'Oh that's good,' she said. 'Where are you?'

'Sabah, in Borneo.'

'How lovely.'

'We have a gorgeous private swimming pool.'

'Delightful. Sylvie, there's something I should have told you. You might bleed. It's perfectly normal, don't worry about it. It happens to lots of girls.'

'What? What are you talking about?'

'Sex,' she said, matter of factly, 'you might bleed when you have sex. But don't let it alarm you. It's normal.'

'Mum! I don't want to talk about it!'

'I just thought I should warn you,' she said. 'But don't worry. Try and ...'

'The flight was fine,' I said, blushing, hoping Alistair couldn't hear this last minute motherly advice.

'We should probably have talked about this and prepared you better. Sorry. I've been so busy. And with the wedding and everything. I just wanted to tell you to relax.'

'Okay, I have to go. Tell dad we're fine.'

I hung up the phone and handed it back to Alistair, feeling alone and nervous with this stranger who was probably going to make me bleed.

The porter knocked and brought in our bags. Alistair put a small wrapped box in my hand.

'What's this?'

'A present for you,' he said.

'But I didn't get you anything.'

'That's okay, it's just small. Nothing really.' I unwrapped the pastel green wrapping paper and prepared my face for an expression of delight.

'What is it?'

'It's a GT8,' he explained, 'so we can play together. I can set you up with an avatar tonight.'

'Thanks so much, I'm so grateful,' I tried to rouse some enthusiasm.

'I can set it up for you.'

'Sure.'

'Go on, open it up.'

'What, now?'

'Why not?'

I opened the box. I took out the instruction manual printed on milky-textured stock and popped the console out of the plastic mould. I struggled to open the seamless plastic seals around the leads.

'I can help,' he said, impatiently, taking the leads out of my hands. I looked at the box again. GT8. The letters were just plain black.

'I'm going to find my swimsuit,' I said. 'And try out the pool.'

'Go for it,' he said, distractedly, fiddling with the GT8.

The pool was warm, the water a beautiful blue shimmering over the natural rocks around the edges. I thought about the letters in sex, S is red, E is green and X is golden yellow. The letters together reminded me of banana mashed on toast.

I could see Alistair through the glass windows. He'd hooked something up to the projector and was testing it. He stopped every now and again and picked his eyebrow hairs, looking frustrated.

I floated on my back in the water feeling desirable in my red and white striped bikini. What the hell was he doing in there? Wasn't he vaguely interested in checking out his new bride in her bikini? Why book a room with a gorgeous natural rock pool and then spend your time inside setting up a goddamn computer game? I didn't even want to play his stupid game. I hate computer games. They're for imbeciles. Boys who haven't grown up. Oh shit. I tried to stop myself from thinking. I didn't want to expect the worst from him, I wanted to expect the best. Think positively, keep an open mind, stop being so negative about everyone in the world. Maybe the problem wasn't with everybody else, maybe the problem was me. But really, what is he doing in there? Seriously. We've only just arrived. SOS.

He poked his head out of the sitting room glass door. 'I've got to call concierge. The projector ... it's not compatible. Can you believe it?'

Two guys came to help my new husband. They all worked together sorting out the cables, trying to fix the problem with the connectivity between the GT8 and the projector. I felt like the biggest unsexy loser in the gorgeous natural rock pool. The two hotel guys could see me through the window. I was like a fish in a fishbowl, in a red and white striped bikini. They kept looking my way, without any shame.

It was official. I was completely furious with Alistair.