Heartbreak Hotel

‘Come on, you.’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘Let’s have a dance.’

  ‘But I thought it was your day off.’ Neville’s voice on the phone. ‘I’ve bought a guineafowl.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Nev, it’s a pain in the arse. We had all these retakes and then we lost the light, so we’ve got to finish the scene tomorrow, the schedule’s shot to pieces.’ Amy could feel the blush rising.

  ‘Poor you,’ he said. ‘Well, get a good night’s sleep.’

  Amy slept, with Keith in her arms, in her room in the Peterborough Heritage Lodge. It was yards from the ring road but no sound penetrated its perma-sealed windows. She lay in a timeless, airless capsule, clothes strewn across the floor, closed off from the outside world; closed off even from the other members of the crew who slumbered in nearby rooms. NCOL.

  Keith whimpered in his sleep. It felt intimate, to hear these mewlings without the knowledge of their owner. More intimate than the sex. Keith had been an energetic, workmanlike lover, making her come twice and then turning her over, her face buried in the pillow, for his own shuddering climax. She was warmed with erotic gratitude as she lay there sniffing his sweat. It had been years since she had fucked a man she knew nothing about, not even his surname. She had forgotten how affectionate two bodies could be when they were cut adrift from their lives and owed each other nothing. Why couldn’t it always be this simple?

  The next day Keith fetched her a helmet and loaded her onto his motorbike. It was a molten September morning; sunlight bathed the car park.

  ‘Ever seen one of these before?’ He stroked the flank of the machine. ‘Thought not. It’s a Triumph Speed Triple, see. They only made a few hundred of these babies – low-weight, fantastic torque and as much roadholding as any headbanger could want. Plus, of course, she’s black.’

  They rode into the fens, along empty roads leading nowhere, roads straight as rulers, the distant tarmac dissolving in a mirage. Amy yelled into his helmet: ‘My boyfriend’s got a pushbike!’ But the wind snatched her words away.

  Keith stopped beside a canal. She flung herself on the grass while he rolled a joint.

  ‘The sky’s so big, somehow,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, everyone says that.’

  ‘I love this time of year.’ Suddenly she sat up. ‘Shit. I’ve just realised what day it is.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘September 11th.’

  He looked puzzled. ‘What?’

  ‘September 11th,’ she said. ‘Twin Towers?’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ He lit the joint and passed it to her. ‘That was a bummer.’ He indicated the road. ‘I got busted along here. Hundred and twenty miles an hour, I was doing. It was on the Honda CB 900. Fast as fuck but it had no soul. Plus, the alternator kept frying.’

  Amy’s heart sank. They should have said their goodbyes after breakfast. She suddenly missed Neville, alone with his guineafowl and his dashed hopes. She felt a lurch of guilt. How could she race around the countryside, quite apart from the other thing, when Neville was miserable and jobless?

  Keith was talking about his shop. ‘There’s no money in vinyl any more, the internet’s killed it. And I’ve been paying an arm and a leg for the lease, £12,000 a year, would you believe that?’

  And at least Neville was interested in world affairs. Most of it had gone over her head, but at least he wasn’t boring.

  ‘To tell the truth,’ said Keith, ‘I’m thinking of packing it in.’

  Amy took a final drag and stood up. ‘Shall we go?’

  They rode a few more miles. They had a burger in a cafe and some perfunctory sex in a wood, but then it clouded over and this gave them an excuse to return to the hotel. Pulling off the helmet, she shook her hair loose. She was so relieved at leaving Keith that she kissed him warmly.

  ‘It was fun last night,’ she said. ‘I think that every day people should have a dance. Keep them out of mischief.’

  He grinned. ‘Not in your case.’

  Just for a moment she fancied him again, and then he was gone. Listening to the roar of his bike fading, she thought: I bet he’s as relieved as I am.

  It all unravelled that autumn. She and Neville had been tied by a slender thread – sexual attraction, loneliness. In her heart of hearts she knew they had little in common. During her long absences they reverted to their former selves; on her return it took them a while to readjust to each other. This time, however, the thread had snapped. Neville had closed himself off; he no longer made the effort to discuss anything except the need for more Hoover bags. Depression had made him elderly and irritable; now he disliked all the presenters on the Today programme, instead of just two.

  In the old days lovemaking would have restored them to each other but that had petered out. Her guilt about Keith disappeared – would Neville even have minded? – and she stopped shaving her legs. Did this always happen, sooner or later? She had no idea; none of her previous relationships had lasted this long.

  The final unravelling happened fast. She had brought home some shopping from Tesco’s, a shop he hated.

  ‘Well, I was in a hurry,’ she said, glancing at his laptop, open on the kitchen table. He had been playing chess. Chess. He had told her he was sending off a job application.

  ‘What’s this?’ He held up a plastic packet.

  ‘Rosemary. You said you were cooking a lamb thing with rosemary.’

  He held it close to her face. ‘Read that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The price.’

  She looked. ‘£1.25.’

  He grabbed her hand. ‘Come here.’

  Her heart jumped. Was he going to drag her to bed? But he swung round the other way, yanked open the kitchen door and bundled her into the garden. He pointed to a bush.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Look, woman!’ He broke off a branch. ‘It’s rosemary! Here, in your fucking garden! A huge fucking bush of it.’

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ she said. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘You haven’t a clue, have you?’ Neville stared at her wildly. The wind whipped the hair across his face. ‘Oh, I give up. What’s the point of it all? It’s all a bloody waste of time, we’re all fucked.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When even a bright woman like you, after all I’ve told you – when even you go to Tesco’s, Tesco’s, and spend £1.25 on something that’s growing right under your nose.’

  ‘It’s my money,’ she said. ‘Can’t I spend it how I want?’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me!’

  ‘What I meant was –’

  ‘How do you think I feel, spongeing off you?’

  ‘You don’t sponge. Anyway, you’ve got your redundancy –’

  ‘I’m useless. Go on, say it!’ He stared at her, distraught, the branch trembling in his hand. ‘I’m useless, I can’t even get it up any more, no wonder you don’t want to have my baby, I’m a useless snivelling hopeless failure banging on about things nobody gives a toss about and I’m not surprised you don’t want me because nobody else does either!’

  He flung the branch over the wall and slammed into the house.

  It started to rain. Amy stood there, stunned. The guy was mad. Yet the whole scene had had an awful inevitability to it; she knew, at that moment, that it was over.

  The next day Neville moved out to his sister’s house. He took everything with him. All that remained was a half-empty bottle of mouthwash and a DVD of Brokeback Mountain, free with the Mail on Sunday, a newspaper of which he disapproved.

  That evening the boiler broke down. Amy sat huddled in the kitchen, eating a takeaway pizza. She had lit the gas rings but it was still freezing. She pushed her chair closer to the oven, which had never been clean in the past and would never be so clean again. Misery rose in her throat, like nausea. She thought: A herb brought us together and a herb drove us apart.

  Two months passed. Amy stood at the carousel at Heathrow, waiting for her suitcase. S
he had been in Johannesburg, working on a Bacardi ad. The rest of the crew had retrieved their bags and gone. Only the cameraman remained, talking on his mobile.

  ‘Who’s a clever boy,’ he said. ‘You can do it all by yourself now? What did Mummy say?’

  Just a few bags were appearing now, trundling into view. A black couple loaded a vast suitcase onto their trolley and wheeled it away.

  ‘How many puppies?’ asked the cameraman. ‘Did you get to stroke them? . . . Mmm, well, we’ll see about that. Maybe if you’re a really good boy. Ah, here’s my bag.’ With one hand he heaved it off the carousel. Still hunched over his mobile he walked away, swallowed up into his other life.

  Amy stood alone; around her, voices echoed from afar. It was late and most of the carousels were stilled. She scratched the mosquito bite on her wrist. For some reason she thought about her brother, who had died at six months and was never mentioned. He would be thirty now, with children of his own. She pictured herself as their spinster auntie, spoiling them. Maybe she would have bought them a puppy. His wife, a woman he would never know, who had another family now, would baulk at this gift but would finally welcome this new addition to the family.

  The tannoy boomed. Please keep your luggage with you at all times. Finally Amy’s suitcase nudged open the flap and hove into view. It looked so solitary. Red and brave, vastly travelled, but alone in the world.

  Midnight, and Amy lugged her suitcase from the Tube. It was January, and bitterly cold. Bent against the wind, she trudged past the closed library, past the glare of the kebab shop. Back home, mail was heaped on the doormat – While You Were Out cards for undelivered parcels, a flyer for the Conservative Party. The kitchen remained in the same state of chaos in which she had left it, though the smell was more powerful now; she hadn’t been able to locate it and had hoped it would have disappeared by the time she got home. Why should it? She had no idea.

  Amy sat down and lit a cigarette. What a relief that Neville wasn’t around! She needn’t shiver in the garden. She could do whatever she liked – stay up all night, stay in bed all day watching YouTube stuff on her computer, let the flat sink into deeper squalor with nobody to tut at her, read celebrity gossip, have her old mate Josie around whom Neville found annoying . . .

  It was two o’clock. Amy had been sitting there for a long time. Stiffly she rose to her feet. The thought of washing seemed too laborious so she lay down on the bed fully-clothed and pulled the duvet over herself. She could fart in bed, too; just another of the many advantages of living alone.

  The next morning she could bear it no longer. Her eyes were sore from crying. She splashed water on her face and tried to pull herself together. At nine o’clock she finally plucked up courage and dialled the number of Neville’s sister.

  After some pleasant chit-chat she asked: ‘Er, is Neville around?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ said his sister. ‘They’re in Tenerife.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just for a week.’ There was a silence. ‘Oh heck, have I put my foot in it?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘I thought you knew.’

  Her name was Alice. She and Neville had met while mucking out the pigsty at the City Farm. It turned out that they were saving up for the deposit on a flat.

  6

  Buffy

  ‘STILL POURING WITH rain.’ Frieda stood at the window.

  ‘Absolutely bucketing,’ said Iris.

  Buffy was still in his apron, though breakfast was long since over. He stood beside his guests, gazing into the street. Rain lashed down. A hunched figure ran to a car and jumped in, slamming the door. In the Coffee Cup opposite, disconsolate figures could be seen through the steamed-up windows, killing time in their cagoules.

  ‘Looks like it’s settled in for the day,’ he said.

  Frieda and Iris were schoolteachers, both retired. Buffy presumed they were lesbians, they shared a twin-bedded room, though they might have just been saving the pennies. They were both squarely built, however, with no-nonsense haircuts. Their hiking boots waited by the door.

  ‘We’d been planning on tackling Hergest Ridge,’ said Iris.

  ‘Then a pub lunch,’ said Frieda.

  ‘Just our luck,’ said Iris.

  There was a silence.

  ‘You can’t go out in this,’ said Buffy.

  ‘But . . .’ The word hung in the air. It was half past ten, they should have been out of the house by now.

  ‘Come on,’ said Buffy. ‘I’ll make us some coffee.’

  After some half-hearted protestations they moved to the back room, the sitting room which was vaguely Buffy’s, though he hadn’t quite laid down the boundaries. Where did his life end and theirs begin? He had been sharing his home for a month now with various guests but hadn’t got round to staking out his own territory. This was mainly due to sloth. Bridie had apparently been stricter about her own space but then she had been a professional.

  Besides, he was a gregarious chap. It had been the rainiest May on record, and, on many occasions, guests had been trapped in the house all morning because he hadn’t the heart to kick them out. This had resulted in some surprisingly revealing chats with the random collection of strangers who found their inhibitions loosened by the knowledge that they would never meet again. It reminded Buffy of life on tour, but with a constant change of cast. And if he needed to retreat there was always the kitchen, the warmest room in the house, where he had installed his own TV and a rack full of bargain bottles from Costcutter, his wine merchant of choice.

  Buffy put on the kettle. Voda was talking on the phone in the utility room. ‘Yes, sir, we do have a vacancy then but it’s filling up fast,’ she said. ‘I suggest you make a firm booking.’

  It was a lie, of course, but it often did the trick. The girl was a marvel; he had become pathetically reliant on her. In fact, without Voda the whole business wouldn’t have got off the ground at all. She had cleaned the house from top to bottom and got her brother to fix the lethal electrics. She had emailed the previous guests and informed them that Myrtle House was reopening under new management, dogs welcome. She had set up a website, with a link to the tourist board and various cycling and rambling magazines. And now that the guests were arriving – in dribs and drabs, but these were early days – she laundered the sheets and cooked the breakfasts. At first Buffy had taken command in the kitchen but as black smoke poured out of the Raeburn Voda had elbowed him aside and done the job herself. ‘It’s not like cooking for your kids,’ she said. ‘Our customers are actually paying for this, you know.’

  So he had taken on the less taxing role of skivvy. After all, he was used to receiving orders from a director; as long as he hit his marks the two of them worked amicably as a team. And he remained mine host, meeting and greeting, serving at table and generally running the show. He liked a house full of people, it reminded him of the old days of his marriages.

  He could admit it now; the bachelor years at Blomfield Mansions had been bloody lonely. Now, when he locked up, he could almost feel his customers slumbering upstairs, warm mammals safe for the night. And though there were occasional complaints, for example the erratic hot water in the bathroom, so far these had been voiced in a mild, apologetic manner as if it were all the guests’ fault. How simple such complaints were, compared to the complex, passive-aggressive guilt trips laid on by his wives, or the strident accusations of his children!

  ‘I was saying to Iris, weren’t you in that thing?’

  ‘What thing?’ asked Buffy, pouring out the coffee.

  ‘That thing set in an old people’s home.’

  ‘No, silly,’ said Iris. ‘That was Michael Gambon.’

  It turned out that they were keen theatregoers. They passed a pleasant hour listening to Buffy’s reminiscences. How his old mate Eldon James, well in his cups, had gone to see a show only to realise, when the curtain went up, that he was supposed to be in it. How he himself, in his final public appearance, had played
a bedridden patriarch and during one performance had fallen asleep.

  ‘Not that it mattered,’ he said. ‘It was a deathbed scene anyway. That’s the problem with being old, one gets the snuffing-it roles. Johnny Gielgud must have died fifty times before he finally shuffled off this mortal coil. At least he’d had some practice.’

  Outside the rain was still drumming on the veranda roof. Far off, the church clock struck twelve.

  ‘Time for a snort.’ Buffy got to his feet. ‘Glass of Pinot Grigio, anyone?’

  ‘Oh no, we couldn’t . . .’

  ‘Come on, keep me company.’

  The two women looked at each other. ‘We don’t usually drink in the middle of the day.’

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ said Buffy. The other one being I don’t usually have a proper breakfast. Those were always the guests who packed it away – sausages, black pudding, the full monty.

  ‘But don’t you have anything else to do?’ asked Freida.

  ‘No,’ said Buffy.

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Iris. ‘And, well, we are on holiday, I suppose.’

  They all said that, too. Buffy returned with a bottle and glasses. Those who protested the most, he had discovered, always knocked it back the fastest. They settled down for a natter. It turned out that Iris had a brother who was going through a midlife crisis.

  ‘Earring, ponytail, the lot,’ she said. ‘And now he’s joined his son’s band, he plays the guitar . . . he wears this little waistcoat, and his tummy . . . Oh, the young are so forgiving.’

  ‘Not in my experience,’ said Buffy. But then he could hardly blame them. And in fact, as time passed things had improved between him and his offspring as they found themselves stumbling through the same mistakes that he himself had made. Frieda and Iris were good listeners; lesbians often were, in his experience. He found himself talking about Celeste, the daughter who had suddenly appeared in his life, popped up from nowhere, aged twenty-three.

  ‘You can’t mean nowhere,’ said Iris. ‘Who was her mother? Who were you with, all those years ago?’

  ‘Well, I was vaguely with Lorna,’ said Buffy.