The flagstone corridor was bordered by dark panelling, beams crossing above. They shook off the snow by an umbrella stand and a rack for walking sticks and guns. ‘Like two dogs!’ She imagined a woolly-bully cuddle with an amiable beast, far from the snarling Rotties that Trevor had hoped to get into his furnished room.
The dyspeptic short-arse of a landlord asked what he could do for him, not looking at her, so that she felt like telling him to crawl up his own hole and die, except that the pong would kill everybody inside ten miles. He could see they were caught in the storm, Keith thought, lighting a cigarette. ‘We’d better take a room, I suppose.’
‘A double with bath will be forty pounds, sir.’
‘Bank card all right?’ Mr and Mrs Robinson would do in the book, though he couldn’t think why it shot into his mind. Usually it was Smith.
‘What about your luggage, sir?’
He put keys on the counter. ‘It’s outside, in the BMW. Have someone bring it in, and take it to our room.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t, sir.’ Fred smoothed his waistcoat. ‘Our chap hasn’t come in tonight. Nor has anyone except the girl.’ He nodded towards the window. ‘You can see why.’
‘I’m not blind.’ He stilled his rage. ‘Why don’t you do it?’
‘There’s too much on, I’m afraid.’ Fred realized the danger, seeing this face blazing like red mercury going up a thermometer, so he turned away thinking how hard a night it would be if more such types came in.
Eileen gargoyled her features, zipping up her jacket. ‘Don’t bother. I’ll go.’
If she wanted to pay him back for the ride it would be churlish to stop her. ‘Are you sure?’
‘No sweat.’ A score of solid and heavy keys fitted the grapple of her fingers. ‘I said so, didn’t I?’
‘There’s a small brown case in the boot. Just get that.’
Their inward track was smoothed into yeti hollows of white between door and car. Head down, she pushed her shoulder against the malign force. Overhead a big door stopped her seeing the stars, someone up there holding it shut, a grizzly-bearded old bastard in his warm cottage whose starving slaves outside worked at wind machines, perishing everyone in the wilds of earth to let them know, as if they didn’t already, that life was hard. She hated snow more than anything, but whatever you hated was bound to come more often than anything else.
Clearing the keyhole saturated her fingers to deadness through woollen gloves, dreading to drop the key-bunch and not find it again, at which the grizzly-bearded old bastard up top would laugh his guts out till breakfast, if he ever laughed at anything, and if he ever had breakfast, since somebody like that would be scoffing all the time. Such a pack of keys would sink from their weight and not be found till the thaw, so many keys to unlock cars, houses, suitcases, but she had never opened anything in her life that belonged only to her, wouldn’t mind such a key letting into a house all her own, though you had to unlock a dream first, and how much would that key weigh?
Eartips frozen, the boot lid sheltered her till the case was out. Hand dashed to feet and clutched the keys immediately when they dropped, fingers burnt and sticky as they went into her pocket. She pushed the sluggish case like a sledge to cut a channel through, effing and blinding at the sting of air, and her brittle left arm, wondering what he had in luggage that would be heavy even if it was empty. She had seen him sign the hotel book, curious as to what her name was for the night, didn’t mind what she might be in for, because though he was a stranger the kiss was still on her lips and he wasn’t bad-looking, it seemed she had known him weeks already, and fancied him a bit, licking the sting till it warmed her, blue with hunger, white with cold, black with a zest for adventure if she didn’t peg out before getting to the door, which had never seemed as far off as any in her life, saturated as she was to the waist and bleeding to death inside but warmer and warmer in the drift that suddenly seemed taller than herself.
Keith stared into brandy the colour of amber and tasting like the one-star throw-outs of a supermarket decanted into a VSOP bottle, foul to that in his flask, but after fighting the storm it was good to sit down and be served by no less than the landlord himself. Such hostelries, as sham as they came and shamelessly expensive, at least kept the rabble at their Berni houses and in bed-and-breakfast bungalows.
‘So you got stuck, as well?’ An idiotic cheery face poked a finger towards the window. ‘It’s enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.’
Keith had never come across such a primate in his reading of natural history, though why dispute the point with someone who would certainly have lodged at a cheaper place had it not been for the blizzard. As it was, he would be so much out of pocket after being benighted at The White Cavalier that he would drink no lager for a month. ‘I suppose it is.’
Tom’s smile colonized the rest of his face, at this jumped-up smarm-chops whose nose was at the back of his head, barely deigning to pass a civil word in his direction. ‘It would have had mine off, if I’d stayed out a minute longer, and I wouldn’t like that to happen, because even at my age they still have their uses. In other words, I would positively miss ’em, though I suppose there’s some as wouldn’t.’
‘I’m sure you would.’ It was a feeble riposte, but he wanted to stay undisturbed, ruminating on a life that had led him into the cul-de-sac of an endless swamp. His ambition had been to acquire so much money that he no longer needed to work, no matter how hard he must work to achieve it, and in the last ten years he had put enough by to make it possible. To live, yet not to work, to meet only those people of his choice, and live in a climate where thoughts came out of yourself instead of bouncing from the mediocre minds of others. Ambition had driven, energy was fierce, brain deft, hand and eye in trim for every chance. Ninety thousand pounds a year was his salary, and shares brought in enough from the Cayman Islands to beef up his various accounts. Ingenuity pointed a way out of the tax trap, and using talent to the full generated more energy by the example it set, and the more energy there was in the country the more prosperity for everyone.
The foulest pig-brandy or not, it mellowed the steel in him, because wasn’t it a fact that a country was like one big extended family? You had every right to relax, much being permitted within it, and you did not abandon a good country for selfish reasons like avoiding the ubiquitous taxes. Or at least you should not, and no doubt he wouldn’t, but he had to get out now because his passion had turned violent and ruined everything. He would go as soon as the snow cleared. Gwen wouldn’t be found until the au pair returned from Germany, so he had time to reach a place where he could not be brought back.
‘The roads get blocked every year.’ Tom wouldn’t take silence for a put-down. ‘Farms and villages are cut off, but this time it’s a real clinker. You’d think the county council would be a bit more ready, wouldn’t you? I sometimes don’t know what we pay our rates and taxes for.’ He wondered why he let himself complain before a shitbag yuppie-mug like him. The sweat he had doled out in his time on PAYE must have paved a good few roads and cleared the odd drain. Society was run for the common good: good for him, good for them, good for everybody, and you had better think that way, otherwise it was back into the trees, the undergrowth a tangle of Tory aspidistras.
Keith was unable to resist saying, though he smiled: ‘I saw on the road that they had declared this area a Nuclear-Free Zone. It’s a pity they can’t do that with the snow as well.’
Jenny took out a little circular compact and tapped powder onto her face, hoping a heightened colour would improve her aspect on looking into the mirror. The toilets were clean, not like some on the way up from London. She stopped using make-up after Raymond left but, feeling at the bottom of her handbag, as if playing a game of lucky dip, fished some out and used it, didn’t know why. Hard to know why she did anything the moment it was done. Her tights had become twisted, so she opened her slacks to adjust them.
The make-up burned, caked her skin so she wanted it off, skin as
well for preference, her fingers would touch, find what was underneath and, knowing at last, start to live again. She wondered where he was, what he was doing, not even three years had rubbed out the wound of loss. The more rotten he was the more he was missed, but would he have burned for her if she had gone first?
Returning to the lounge in such a state, Tom would notice, and start in on his baby talk. She stood in the cold-floored corridor, her smile a crack down her cheeks that no make-up would obscure. By the back door she heard a thump on wood, the wind having hands as well as feet. Raymond was trying to get in. The blizzard was eating him alive, as if he were on fire out there. She would let him die – if only it was him. Maybe the snow would freshen her burning face.
The day before leaving he said: ‘Whatever I do in my life you know I shall always love you, Jenny, don’t you?’ And she had laughed: ‘Of course I do, sweetheart,’ and thought no more about it, as you often don’t with someone you know you can’t entirely trust, not even when he had gone, not for a year afterwards, by when she had soaped the ring of fidelity from her finger, not till the shock had become a normal condition, and she trawled through every second of that final day. She never knew why he had said something so unnecessary and cruel, unless it was to imprison her in eternal hatred.
Often in the morning, at the mirror, flesh on her bones turned sulphurous white, agony that her bones were rotting. Two people got married, joined by whatever it was called – so, maybe, love – in an offensive and defensive alliance to make existence in the world less arduous, but his betrayal had robbed her of peace for ever, destroyed all hope. Decisions came not by thought but instinct, turmoil making life unbearable and actions out of control. Perhaps that was real life at last.
Opening the door, a body fell against her legs, pushed by a blast that cleansed her face, cooled fire, caused her to laugh with surprise.
The living person, like a demented cat set free by the wind, reached for a shapelier object behind and kicked its dusty covering off, scattering flaps of dull white over the floor and walls. ‘I couldn’t undo the bleeding handle.’ She swung her arms, red-raw hands out of her gloves and clapping. ‘It’s all right, I’m not a ghost, though I nearly turned into one. What are you doing here, anyway? I only went outside to fetch his luggage, and I expect he’ll say it took me long enough.’
The case held her weight when she sat on it, lips at an angle of such resignation that Jenny was ashamed of her laugh. ‘Are you all right?’
The pale but pleasant face emphasized a vein down her cheek. ‘I’d better take his stuff in.’
Jenny bolted the door against the weather. ‘He should have fetched it himself. Men are so bloody selfish.’
He had rescued her from the moor and brought her to this cosy place till the thaw let them go, so it was only right to fetch his case from the car. ‘I’m not frightened at a bit of rough weather.’ She rubbed her nose. ‘All I need is a cold, though. It’d make my day.’
To take the case in was the least she could do for the poor girl. ‘You should get yourself warm. Do you have a room here?’
Eileen pulled it from her. ‘I’ll give it to him, if you don’t mind.’
Who wouldn’t want a pat on the back for effort? ‘Suit yourself.’ It was mean to envy her reward, as to a dog after fetching a newspaper, the dog turning into a doormat at a smile of appreciation for having been allowed to become of no more significance than a rag to wipe some swine’s car down. She saw it all, but couldn’t think of how best to explain it to the exhausted girl, who walked into the cigar-smelling warmth as if she had brought the case from the South Pole.
The newspaper slipped from Aaron’s fingers as he dozed. ‘Would you like to see the room?’ Keith asked her, the key tied to an oblong piece of bone swinging from his hand.
He sat as if with nowhere to go, though in such clothes he fitted into this sort of place. It was hard to be sure where she belonged, clad in her everyday gear, a mixture of Oxfam cast-offs and stuff from home not yet worn out. She nodded, hoping her smile was bright enough since it needed some force to put it there.
‘You had better warm yourself before we go up.’ He took a hand from the side of his face. ‘Have a drink, and something to eat.’
Jenny made space by the fire, but there was plenty of room. Keith knew he ought to get into his car and drive on, but the weather hemmed him and all of them in. On the other hand there was justice in being unable to leave, after what he had done. He had betrayed Gwen many times and had been betrayed by her in turn, but neither of them could survive without loyalty, and had used betrayal as a weapon to destroy the other. What began as love had ended in murder, and he could expect neither pity nor forgiveness. The only fit response was to die, because to live on under such a burden of guilt and failure tortured his pride.
He pulled the heavy leather-backed chair across the floor as if it were cardboard. ‘Sit down and dry yourself.’ When she took her shoes off, the landlord looked as if she was plummeting the reputation of his hotel, for which shade across his sanctimonious mug she would have told him to drop dead if Keith hadn’t been present.
He didn’t even turn while asking: ‘Bring a double whisky, and a plate of your best sandwiches.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Though Fred the landlord knew his place he would have liked a please or thank you with his orders. Business might be business but he didn’t think much of the crew that had dropped in on him. The only gentleman guest, with the young tart he had obviously picked up off the road, hadn’t got a by-your-leave or smile of gratitude in any corner of his vocabulary. Such types hadn’t much altered since the old days when, as a lad of fourteen, he had cleaned the boots left outside their doors; and got his rabbit-arse kicked by the gaffer if each one didn’t glow like the moon. Nowadays you neither buffed up their footwear nor slopped out their pisspots. You could hardly get a willing wench even to serve drinks, like that stuck-up bitch who sulked behind the bar because she couldn’t go off to meet her gormless boy friend. You couldn’t chuck them out these days, either, though he supposed he would be seeing the last of her soon, because they never stayed long. She even blamed him for the blizzard, as if he was God Almighty Himself who had whistled snowballs down from the sky.
TEN
Sally didn’t know, nor would she ever, how the car got within range of the hotel. Her consciousness went into abeyance while fighting a way to the door, worrying more about the car being lost in a drift than Stanley feeling abandoned on not seeing her unreal smile at the airport. Values had swivelled false side up; he had become renewable while the metal of his favourite vehicle turned precious beyond all imagining, which was not the strangest notion that had lately got into her head.
She glanced into the lounge, glad not to be the only woman staying. Aaron smiled, and a young girl near the fire held the hand of a man who might have been her father, while another with a red face tilted his head in ecstasy (unless he was going into a fit), the liquid of a pint descending into the desert sands blocking his throat. The landlord, or maybe head waiter (if there was such a person in this place), who looked as if he also had downed more than one or two, gave her a key and pointed the way upstairs.
The carpets had been scuffed by myriad shoes, runners loose in places, and the only modern aspect about the corridor was a white light in a green frame saying FIRE EXIT above a door which probably landed you in a snowdrift twenty feet below if you were foolish enough to go through it. Fire would certainly be a glorious way for the fine old place to end its days, though not – she put the key in the door – while I’m in it.
Heat in the pipes was feeble, and thin curtains barely met, so anything like a bath could wait. A cold splash from the tap would clear her face of exhaustion, after which there was nothing to do but sleep, or read the Bible found in the drawer of the commode.
The bed sagged like a hammock, but how could she complain on such a night? Not knowing what to do – nor wanting to settle down, since it was only nine o’clock – she
decided to take advantage of company in the lounge before the power cracked up and left them in squalid darkness. She could also phone a message to the airport telling Stanley where she was stranded, otherwise he would worry. Funny she hadn’t thought of it before coming to her room, and even less funny to feel guilty, as if the blizzard was her fault, not knowing that the more money you paid the better forecast you got, as he had once joked.
A man in the hall needed the payphone more than she did, anxiety crushing his thin face. He leaned against the wall as if about to ask for mercy before letting the tears rush out.
Clutching the phone between cheek and shoulder, Daniel lit a cigarette, dropped the still-flaming match from shaking fingers and put his well-polished shoe on it. ‘It’s safe.’ He was trying to talk so that no one else might hear. ‘I left it about half a mile away.’ He listened a few moments. ‘What do you mean? Timed for what? I can’t hear you. Timed for when? And primed for what, for Jesus Christ’s sake? Eight o’clock, did you say?’
She speculated that he was an entertainer overdue for his performance, or the props he carried would be late for the opening scene, and he was getting it hot from someone in a warm house, generous with blame for a victim of the weather.
The voice rasped, the rhythm lifting in its bleak insistence that if the van did not get to its destination in a couple of hours an avalanche would bring darkness everlasting on him and anybody else who happened to be within a few hundred yards. ‘So get back, and drive it out. Get on the road. Is that understood?’ They wanted it by midnight, so that someone else could take the cargo to its place of devastation.
Operation Stromboli they called it, and strings on maps from point to point allowed for no hitch in the weather. Blood sweated down the inner linings of his stomach. ‘I left it safe, and it’s covered in snow. There’s nothing I can do. It’s an Act of God.’