This is two chapters from the first novel I ever tried to write. Please note that it contains adult themes. I force my keys into the lock and turn, the tinkering claws of Poppy already thrashing on the other side to greet me. My bag hits the laminate flooring with a gentle thud as I scratch behind her ears, the house still smells of bergamot. I call for my mother, and without response, I kick off my burgundy loafers and jeans right there at the door. I pull an almost dry, oversized band t-shirt from the airer and swap it for my burnt orange blouse, sticky with a day of London heat and sitting against old woollen public transport seating. I pour myself a glass of water and add an inch of orange cordial, chugging the whole glass at the sink. I open my emails on my phone and sure enough, confirmation blinks on my screen, announcing its arrival with a blue dot. Hi Suki,  
We are so excited to have you on board – I am sure you are looking forward to your adventure. Your tickets will arrive over the course of the next few days – please make sure you check your junk mail just to be safe. Your rooms have been booked at all of the venues, and we will forward over the contact details of the managers for you to coordinate timings etc. As I mentioned earlier today, breakfast is booked for yourself, but your friend will have to pay additional charges if she wishes to join you, I have attached a PDF which includes any add-ons you may wish to take advantage of, I would highly recommend our spa facilities in our Dubrovnik hotel. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
 
Regards, Frances Morton
Creative Director
Hemmingway Hotels I scan the email again, and open the attachment. 5 pages with purple titles and photographs of glittering azure pools and plush king sized beds greet my eyes, addressing each hotel with its location and facilities. I lock my phone and grab a plain rice cake from the cupboard above the empty kettle. My mothers house is largely the same as it was eight years ago. Me and my sister’s rooms remain as though we still occupy it’s walls but with a few extra bits of clutter in the wardrobes and under the beds that do not belong to us. I left London two weeks ago. Squeezing my life into my mothers red Ford Fiesta, and her boyfriend Tony’s silver Skoda. Now it was neatly organised into labelled boxes and vegetable crates I had taken from the delivery driver at work, stacked between her loft space and attached garage. The day before yesterday, I’d severed my final ties with London. Cancelling my gym membership which I hardly used, and my subscription for a local artists work space, where I would process my films in their dark rooms on a biweekly basis. I had occupied a black mould-riddled double room in a shared house of seven in Kentish Town. A couple who spent their days under the covers in a haze of cannabis and lavender incense, three musicians and a student midwife. I had moved to the city eight years prior to study and stuck around, hopping between dingy studio flats and house shares, subsidising my income of below-par photography commissions with bar jobs. The hours had me walking home whilst teenage boys delivered morning papers on blue bikes in their school uniform. Between the minimum wage, part time hours and scattered photography jobs, I had forged a life in London that in my teens had been embellished with late night negronis, hopping from meetings to shoots with my leather camera bag and MacBook, having hot sex with musicians and columnists and never looking back to the town I had come from. I look out the window. It is 6pm and the corner shop’s yellow lights flicker to dark. The last place for wine or cigarettes until the following day. The house has become silent and dark as I have sat here. I don’t even notice the lack of a rattle as the train passes, the thrum of a bus pulling away from its stop. I was ready to leave London because it left me behind a long time ago. It is Saturday morning and I am two days away from leaving for my first stop in Florence. My legs are folded on the sofa in cycling shorts and a t-shirt full of holes at the hem. I open my laptop. I triple check the emails from Frances, and email my flight tickets to Tony’s PC to print. I mindlessly delete the emails for 20% off homeware and discounted gym memberships and stop at the fourth email in my inbox. _Subject: I’m sorry. _The heat rises to my cheeks and I flex the muscles in my neck and open the email. Suki, I’m not sure what to say. So I just want to wish you the best with your trip, I only ever wanted the best for you. W I had met William on a Tuesday night in a comedy club. He was writing columns about up-and-comers and I was killing time after my shift had been cancelled next door just ten minutes before I was due to clock on. I was eating peanuts and drinking a lime and soda when he asked me what I thought of the lanky 21 year old on stage, dragging out an anecdote about young marriage. I shrugged. “It’s not really my thing, I’m just waiting for the rain to stop so it’s better than standing out there.” We talked about working in London, about university and self-employment and The Guardian. He told me how he had been writing half-asleep columns for four years but wanted to write about fishing laws and immigration and gentle parenting. He told me his wife was a painter who spent her evenings in a studio painting commissions for hotels. How they swapped shifts at 6pm to parent their five and three year old sons. I told him how I had moved to London to be a documentary photographer. How I was going publish books and tell stories with images and tour exhibitions of my work all over the continent. The rain subsided and he gave me his card. “I am good friends with Simon the creative director – give me a call and maybe we can arrange a meeting, if anything he might be able to give you some sound advice?” He placed a white formal card in my hand and I slipped it into my khaki coat pocket. I ran to catch my bus, sliding my headphones over my ears and running my thumb over his name. William Reed, Journalist. A week and a half later, William met me in an industrial coffee shop with rustic tables and steaming mugs served on cork coasters. We ate doorstop slices of banana loaf and he told me about his family. “We sleep in separate rooms now. She’s my best friend really, we just don’t have that kind of relationship anymore. We parent the kids and we have a nice house and I think that’s just how it will be now.” I nodded in sympathy. His eyes were kind and blue. His mousy blonde hair flopped over his eyebrows and he would brush it out his line of vision every couple of minutes. It was rare I had this kind of attention from a man, and this man in particular was fourteen years my senior and I felt like I was playing the game of grown ups again. I had found his wife on social media the night before. She was tall and slender, with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes. A Swedish beauty next to my Viking-like build and ripped jeans. My intimate experiences had been minimal in my few years of sexual activity and William sparked a curiosity that I couldn’t ignore. He asked to see my photographs and I told him they were mostly analogue, and they were at home. “Do you want to come back to mine for a cup of tea, and I can show you?” “I’d like that.” It went slow and then it went fast. He kissed me with carelessness on the edge of my bed before tearing off my clothes. His hands were heavy and hasty and he breathed “_are you on the pill?” _in my left ear. I nodded and his weight was on me. I opened myself to him and he groaned. I felt relief in the pleasure I had brought this man who had not received it in so long. He lasted less than ninety seconds and kissed my forehead before rolling to rest on his elbow beside me. “Your turn,” he said through smiling teeth and he ran his palm over my stomach. I rested my palm on his fingers. “No, I mean don’t worry. Sometimes I find it hard to finish, especially if its with someone new, its okay, honestly.” I tugged at the duvet to cover myself. “Okay,” he said and he rolled onto his back. “That, was fucking fantastic.” I smirked at him, connected my phone to the Bluetooth speaker and put The Smiths on shuffle. I didn’t even like The Smiths, but I wanted William to tell his friends he fucked a nineteen year old who smoked and drank and listened to The Smiths. He turned and looked at me in the eyes. “You have no idea how long its been since I’ve felt that close to someone.” He traced his index finger in a flower around my navel. I smiled and touched his cheek. “I am sorry you don’t feel that way with your wife,” I said sympathetically, and in that moment, I really did pity him. “Well, I would really like to see you again, maybe we could, you know, come to an arrangement that suits us both? Dating is difficult for pretty girls like you in London. We could be, you know, like companions for each other?” He stopped tracing my pink flesh with his fingertips and rested his hand on mine. I kissed him on the lips. “I would like that.”