The Bone Clocks

“The locks in this hotel are all fancy and burglar-proofed. You need a PhD to open the damn things.” Holly bustles past to the bathroom, peering down at Aoife in passing. “Plus I only had a fewglasses of wine. Mam was there as well, remember.”

“Right, as if Kath Sykes was ever a girl to put the dampeners on a ‘wine-tasting session.’ ”

Holly closes the bathroom door. “Was Aoife okay?”

“She woke up for a second, otherwise not a squeak.”

“Good. She was soexcited on the train down, I was afraid she was going to be up all night dancing on the ceiling.” Holly flushes the toilet to provide a bit of noise cover. I go over to the window again. The funfair at the end of the pier is winding down, by the look of it. Such a lovely night. My proposed six-month extension for Spyglassin Iraq is going to wreck it, I know. Holly opens the bathroom door, smiling at me and drying her hands. “How did you spend your quiet night in? Snoozing, writing?”

Her hair’s up, she’s wearing a low-cut figure-hugging black dress and a necklace of black and blue stones. She hardly ever looks like that anymore. “Thinking impure thoughts about my favorite yummy mummy. Can I help you out of that dress, Miss Sykes?”

“Down, boy.” She fusses over Aoife. “We’re sharing a room with our daughter, you might have noticed.”

I walk over. “I can operate on silent mode.”

“Not tonight, Romeo. I’m having my period.”

Thing is, I haven’t been back often enough in the last six months to know when Holly’s period is. “Guess I’ll have to make do with a long, slow snog, then.”

“ ’Fraid so matey.” We kiss, but it’s not as long and slow as advertised, and Holly isn’t as drunk as I was half hoping. When was it that Holly stopped opening her mouth when we kiss? It’s like kissing a zipped-up zip. I think of Big Mac’s aphorism: In order to have sex, women need to feel loved; but in order for men to feel loved, we need to have sex. I’m keeping my half of the deal—so far as I know—but sexually, Holly acts like she’s forty-five or fifty-five, not thirty-five. Of course I’m not allowed to complain, because that’s pressurizing her. Once Holly and I could talk about anything, anything, but all these no-go areas keep springing up. It all makes me … I’m not allowed to be sad either, because then I’m a sulky boy who isn’t getting the bag of sweets he thinks he deserves. I haven’t cheated on her—ever—not that Baghdad is a hotbed of sexual opportunity, but it’s depressing still being a fully functioning thirty-five-year-old male and having to take matters into my own hands so often. The Danish photojournalist in Tajikistan last year would’ve been up for it if I’d been less anxious about how I’d feel when the taxi dropped me off at Stoke Newington and I heard Aoife yelling, “It’s Daaaaddyyy!”

Holly turns back to the bathroom. She leaves the door open, and starts to remove her makeup. “So, are you going to tell me or not?”

I sit on the edge of the double bed, alert. “Tell you what?”

She dabs cotton wool under her eyes. “I don’t know yet.”

“What makes you think I … have anything to tell you?”

“Dunno, Brubeck. Must be my feminine intuition.”

I don’t believe in psychics but Holly can do a good impression of one. “Olive asked me to stay on in Baghdad until December.”

Holly freezes for a few seconds, drops the cotton wool, and turns to me. “But you’ve already told her you’re quitting in June.”

“Yeah. I did. But she’s asking me to reconsider.”

“But you told meyou’re quitting in June. Me and Aoife.”

“I told her I’d call back on Monday. After discussing it with you.”

Holly’s looking betrayed. Or as if she’s caught me downloading porn. “We a greed, Brubeck. This would be your final final extension.”

“I’m only talking about another six months.”

“Oh, f’Chrissakes. You said that the lasttime.”

“Sure, but since I won the Sheehan-Dower Prize I’ve been—”

“ Andthe time before that. ‘Half a year, then I’m out.’ ”

“This’ll cover a year of Aoife’s college expenses, Hol.”

“She’d rather have a living father than a smaller loan.”

“That’s just”—you can’t call angry women “hysterical” these days; it’s sexist—“hyperbole. Don’t stoop to that.”

“Is that what Daniel Pearl said to his partner before he jetted off to Pakistan? ‘That’s just hyperbole’?”

“That’s tasteless. And wrongheaded. And Pakistan’s not Iraq.”

She lowers the toilet lid and sits on it so we’re roughly at eye level. “I’m sickof wanting to puke with fear every time I hear the word ‘Iraq’ or ‘Baghdad’ on the radio. I’m sickof hardly sleeping. I’m sickof having to hide from Aoife how worried I am. Fantastic, you’re an in-demand award-winning journalist, but you have a six-year-old who wants help riding a bike with no stabilizers. Being a crackly voice for a minute every two or three days, ifthe satphone’s working, isn’t enough. You area war junkie. Brendan was right.”

“No, I am not. I am a journalist doing what I do. Just as he does what he does and you do what you do.”