A man’s hand came through the wall behind our bed, made a web of cracks around it and shuddered a minute before it was still, bruises starting to set on the fingers. It was a left hand, with slightly curved fingers hanging loose and limp.
Geoff insisted I call the police. That’s what you get for choosing a dinky hotel no decent tourist had ever heard of, he said, now, thanks to me, we’d be in the middle of a murder investigation. Who said the guy was dead, I wanted to know, and Geoff rolled his eyes like unjustified optimism was why we were there in the first place. Geoff hadn’t wanted to come, 13 years or not.
I dialled in the shadow of that hand, my eyes on my ring. Geoff didn’t wear his anymore. On our first night, we’d heard the fighting through the wall, instead of the ocean, and Geoff had used the noise to explain his lost erection, and I had kept my eyes on the pale band of skin where his ring used to be.
Of course he’s dead, said Geoff, they really should refund you your money, for all this ruckus.
Geoff didn’t notice when I replaced the receiver, he was busy dusting flakes of plaster from his hair, but he startled when I reached for the hand. This hand wore its ring, too, even with all that fighting.
You probably shouldn’t touch it, Geoff began. He grumbled something about fingerprints but I held that cooling hand, intertwined its fingers with mine, and waited for us to be rescued.