I flattened myself against the floor and stopped breathing properly, and the whole thing turned in about four seconds from a joke into something else.
A lighter clicked.
And then cigarette smoke came drifting down under the bed.
Grayson had told me his mother gave up in 2016. He had told me that story twice, with a detail about a hypnotist.
But in that moment I was not thinking about the lie.
I was thinking about the call she made next.
She said: hello, Grayson? I’m in the bridal suite. Where’s your wife?
And she put him on speaker, because she is sixty and that is what she does with every call.
His voice came out of that phone and for about a second I did not recognise it.
He said: she’s probably wandering about with her friends somewhere.
He said: don’t worry, Mum. She has no idea what we’re doing.
