It had taken her a total of seven months to save up the full amount. One restaurant crossed off her diary here, an evening with the girls cut short there when she could have had another couple of glasses of wine. She even looked the other way every time she walked past her favourite designer boutique so that she would not be tempted to walk in and splurge. She knew it was going to be worth it, though. Just the look on his face when she told him would be worth it, let alone how much he was actually going to enjoy their trip away. It had been a belt-tightening year for both of them and they had not much in the way of quality time with each other. As the months had passed, they had both noticed a creeping rise in the level of casual tension at home. They joked less. Went to bed later. She hoped that this trip would be what they needed in order to find each other again. 

When she parked outside their flat, she could not see any lights on inside. Maybe he had been delayed unexpectedly at work. Maybe he had popped out to the shops for something. There was no reason for him to be anywhere else, not tonight on the first night of what they had been promising each other for months would be their weekend. She felt that this might finally let them experience that initial magic again, when they had both felt that they were lucky enough to be going out with the most wonderful person in the world. Although she had not really felt like it for a couple of months, she was looking forward to having sex again. 

The inside of the house was completely dark and silent. She shucked off her shoes and walked through to the kitchen in her socks, flicking on the light. Her eyes caught a piece of paper in diagonal pride of place on the kitchen table. '

'Hey Babe! Jason got a big promotion and found out he’s going to be a dad today so he’s taking us all on a weekend to Manchester! I know this was going to be our weekend and stuff but I’ll make it up to you a million times over, promise! Love you lots! Dan xxxxxxxxxx' 

She did not feel a lump in her throat or any tears coming as she walked away from the kitchen table with the paper still in her hand. She crumpled it into a ball in silent rage and thought that she should call Jason’s girlfriend to congratulate her and commiserate with her at the boorishness of their respective partners. What she did instead was to open her laptop and type in a URL that she had typed on a dozen or so occasions since the beginning of the year, every time she seriously contemplated leaving Dan. The website of the Asphodel Park Hotel was a muted palette of greys and blues that exuded discreet opulence. She scrolled through the options until she got to the very pinnacle of what the hotel had to offer: the Cleopatra Package. As she signed up for a weekend that cost more for her alone than she had been prepared to spend on both of them, it felt oddly official to write out ‘Isobel’ in full rather than the ‘Izzy’ by which everyone knew her. 

It was a two-hour drive to the hotel and she had to be there by eleven, so there was no need to rush. This did not prevent her driving at a more-or-less constant 20 mph over the speed limit the whole way there or occasionally swearing so loudly she could hear herself over the car stereo. Within an hour she had left the city and was speeding her way down the sinuous country roads that led through the forest and out the other side. The Asphodel Park Hotel was a magnificent, sprawling Georgian estate lit up with a constellation of floodlights to guide travellers to its front gates. Izzy took the long driveway up from the road and felt as though she were attending a clandestine briefing with her spy handler. She found a space on the expansive sprawl of gravel in front of the hotel and spent thirty seconds wrestling with anger, disappointment and self-respect before striding briskly towards the entrance. 

The entrance to Asphodel Park was palatial and softly lit. The surfaces were marble, glass, hardwood…the materials were noble and discreet at the same time. She knew that it was not the done thing to gawp around in amazement and that venues like this were designed to make the affluent feel at home, by offering them an equivalent level of comfort to what they enjoyed in any of their own homes, but she was past caring whatever stamp the staff might place on her in their own minds. In any event, she was not exactly dressed for a weekend in a five-star establishment. Perhaps she would pass for the other guests as one of those free-spirited wealthy people who deliberately dressed down because they had no time for the dictates of fashion. Her conversation with the clerk at the front desk was minimal. She confirmed her reservation, took the key to her room and headed for the bank of lifts tucked away at the end of the telescopic expanse of marble. The anger still had a stranglehold on her brain as she pushed open the door to her room and dumped her suitcase in the corner. The room was professionally silent, and completely impersonal. Izzy felt certain that every other room in the establishment looked exactly the same, but guests did not come for the luxury of the accommodation, after all. 

At least there was the wherewithal for her to spoil herself in the bathroom. The Italian-style shower was vast and clad with terracotta tiles, and the basket hanging from the shower fixture itself overflowed with luxury hair and body products. She yanked herself out of her clothes and stood under the ferocious water pressure until she could no longer feel anything other than a numb tingling across her whole body. Only then did she feel that was beginning to leave the dirt of the day behind her. 

*a pendulum, then, or a slingshot 

coiled and poised with the momentum of silence, 

resting in your hand, though you do not remember taking it 

if the projectile leaves your hand, who knows 

how ferociously the strings will twang 

how far the shot will fly 

whether it will strike and smash some distant target 

or rebound and cost you several teeth 

until then 

here you are 

holding the future on a string.*