The Photographer

(26) A break in Cromer

"Right, are we ready?" Ben leant against the door frame as Iris brushed her hair in the bathroom.

After two race weekends back to back, Iris had a rare few days off and he was keen for them to get in the car and get on the road, they had a long car journey ahead of them - not that she knew that.

"Almost," she paused, her hairbrush still in her hand as she wondered if she should tie her hair back or not. "I wish you'd tell me what you've got planned," she added, "I don't know what to do with my hair."

"You'll have the entire journey to make your mind up but you'll need to bring your makeup and hair things with you," he said, looking extremely pleased with himself.

Feeling slightly alarmed she looked at him through the mirror's reflection, "we're going away?"

He smiled and sauntered towards her where he then wrapped his arms around her front and rested his chin on her shoulder, "yes my beautiful wife, I'm taking you away for a couple of days. You deserve a break."

She tried to act like she was happy while inside her stomach dropped. Going away with him was the last thing she wanted. All she really wanted to do was to spend a few days at home catching up on chores before heading to Aston Martin's Silverstone base. Not being able to see Seb for just over a week felt hard enough and doing stuff around the apartment would keep her busy, she didn't want to be stuck with Ben in a car and a hotel room for two days. "I haven't packed anything," was the first excuse she could think of.

But Ben had an answer for it, "don't worry, I've already done it. What do you think I was doing in our room last night while you was working? The bags are already in the car."

"I've got things I wanted to do around the flat, we've got clothes that need washing and chores to do." Another excuse.

"Fuck the washing and cleaning, you need a break." Another answer.

There was no getting out of this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I can't remember the last time we did something like this," Ben said as the sea came into view nearly three and a half hours later, "and look, there's the sea!" He pointed ahead of them.

Cromer, Norfolk. Ben had them booked them a short stay in Cromer.

"You'll love the place I've booked, it's a nice little apartment, just one bedroom and the views over the sea looked amazing online. The beach looks beautiful and will be an amazing place to go for a run. I found it on the AirBnb app," he babbled excitedly on, not even noticing his wife's stony expression, "there's been great reviews for it."

This was crazy and she felt awful; Ben had thoughtfully booked them a short break away and all she could do was think of Seb and how she wanted to keep Ben at arms length.

"Look how blue the sea is," Ben added as they stopped at a set of traffic lights.

He was right, it was surprisingly blue and a stark contrast to the Thames river back in London.

As they were out of the school holidays, Cromer was busy but not packed out with people and as they began to drive along the cliff top road with the beach and sea below them, Iris couldn't help but think of how much Seb would have probably liked it here.

"See the blue building ahead of us?" he asked, patting her knee, "that's where we're staying."

She rubbed her lips as she took in the view ahead of her, was that a fish and chip shop?

"I know it's a fish and chip shop but we're staying in the apartment on the top floor so we won't get any noise from it, just awesome views." he quickly explained as if he could read her mind.