Heartbreak Hotel (13 page)

‘A lot of things, I guess,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I have a cigarette?’

‘What?’ She straightened up.

His jacket lay on the floor. He rolled over, fumbled inside it and took out his cigarettes. He flung himself against the pillow, exhaling smoke. It was strangely exhilarating, to pollute their boudoir.

‘Tell me what’s the matter,’ she said.

The words came out in a rush. ‘I’m not up to it, love. I feel like I’m on display, I feel like you’re measuring me up against other blokes. Like Ryan’s dad, for instance.’

‘Ryan’s dad?’ Toni sat down, one stocking around her ankle. ‘Why?’

‘Him being black.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

He sucked in a lungful of smoke. ‘You know what they say about black men.’

Toni stared at him. ‘You blokes, honestly! Listen, I hardly knew him, he worked out at my gym, we went on a few dates. He wasn’t even that great in the sack if you really want to know, it was all over in, like, one nanosecond. Is that really what’s been bothering you?’

Andy blushed. ‘I guess I’ve been feeling …’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know.’

Toni came over and sat on the bed. She had washed off her make-up; in the flickering light her face looked plainer and more honest. ‘Talk to me,’ she said.

He could smell her face cream. Suddenly he felt close to her – truly close. He took a breath. ‘I just feel – like, I’m not up to scratch. I’m doing this boring job – well, you think it’s boring. I’m useless around the house. You’ve got everything spotless, you’re a great little homemaker, and I just get under your feet.’ He inspected his cigarette; there was nowhere to stub it out. ‘And sometimes … you know,
here
…’ He nodded at the duvet. ‘Well, I’m just too bloody tired. But I’ve got to – like, well … you know. But to tell the truth, sometimes I just fancy a mug of Horlicks.’

Toni took his cigarette and squashed it into a night light. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I thought you’d be hurt.’

She pointed down to her corset. ‘This doesn’t turn you on?’

He shook his head. ‘To be honest.’

She snatched away her hand. ‘Now you tell me!’

‘It doesn’t do you any favours, love.’

‘You mean I’m fat?’

‘No,’ he lied. ‘I just like you looking natural.’ This seemed the right thing to say but she picked up her dressing gown. He watched her put it on again, her eyes glittering with tears. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To sleep with Ryan.’

He jumped off the bed and grabbed her. ‘Don’t be an idiot.’

She shook him off. ‘You don’t fancy me, do you?’ she hissed. ‘I’m too fat, aren’t I? Think I don’t look at myself and think – what on earth does he see in me, good-looking bloke like him? Think my girlfriends aren’t mad with jealousy? Nobody thought I’d pull someone like you, I couldn’t believe it myself, I still don’t believe it, I thought I’d never find anybody, I’d never have a steady boyfriend.’ She threw her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder. ‘I know I’m not gorgeous like Jodie and Vick, I know you’re going to leave me.’

Andy pushed her away. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘Cos I’m ugly.’

He looked at her. ‘You’re not ugly, you’re gorgeous.’

She wiped her nose. ‘That true?’

‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

‘You never said it.’

‘I’m saying it now.’

She astonished him, this vulnerable girl who was suddenly revealed to him. Her blunt, naked face gazed up at him as blindly as a puppy.

‘Don’t cry.’ His heart swelled. ‘I’ll look after you.’

‘Will you?’ she whispered.

He kissed her damp eyes, one then the other. ‘You’re safe with me.’ He was her man, her protector. It was such a novel sensation that he felt dizzy. She needed him. Her arms tightened around him.

Outside, thunder rumbled. A chill wind blew through the window; the last night lights flickered and died.

‘Promise you’ll never leave me,’ she muttered into his chest. ‘Ryan loves you too, he thinks of you as his dad now. He’s had a tough time, he’d be gutted if you dumped me.’

‘I won’t!’ he blurted into the darkness. ‘I’m here for you. Why don’t we get married?’

She froze in his arms. ‘You mean that?’

‘Of course!’ he said, inflamed by his own recklessness. He, Mr Caution. Look at me now!

Toni still hadn’t moved. In the silence he could hear the far hum of the North Circular. His life was shifting beneath him.

‘On one condition.’ Emboldened, he spoke into her hair. ‘You get rid of those fucking teddy bears.’

Later, Andy looked back on that night. The curtain between them had lifted and they were revealed to each other. There was a thunderstorm, he remembered that; the summer’s heatwave had broken. Afterwards they had climbed into bed, exhausted, and had made love like true lovers, openly and deeply. In the morning he had walked into the sorting office, his eyes stinging from lack of sleep, his limbs as heavy as sandbags. He was filled with a kind of numb exhilaration.

I’m going to get married
. He slotted the letters into their pigeonholes, his mates’ banter echoing from far away. He was both sealed off and yet somehow united with the human race. This is what blokes did: they got married, they had kids. He told nobody; big with his secret, he joked with his mates as if it were a normal day. Later, as he trudged the streets, he looked at the
Mr and Mrs
on the envelopes. Credit-card bills, boring stuff like that, nobody wrote real letters any more. But even the junk mail felt potent.
Mr and Mrs
; he had cracked the code, he had joined the club. After the storm the streets smelt fresh, even the streets of Neasden, their front gardens concreted into car parks, their rubbish heaped on the kerb. A blackbird sang for him.

Four years had passed since then. The curtains had opened and closed so briefly; that moment of naked honesty had never quite been repeated. They moved into a larger house, in Cricklewood, and spent eighteen months on renovations, the air bedimmed with plaster dust. Toni had revealed herself to be a shrewd businesswoman. Since the crash, property prices had slumped; she had given up her hairdressing job and bought three buy-to-lets in Stratford, near the Olympics, prices were already rocketing. She worked out at the gym, she hired a private tutor for Ryan, who was getting poor grades at school. She was an achiever.

‘Why don’t you give up your job?’ she said. ‘The pay’s rubbish, you’re always exhausted. You could come in with me and project-manage. I’m exchanging on Calthorpe Road next week and it needs a lot of work.’

Andy didn’t reply. When she told people
my husband’s a postman
she gave a titter. Was she ashamed of him?

Toni looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Or maybe you like flirting with the housewives.’

‘Don’t be daft.’ He delivered in Neasden; most of his customers were Punjabi. ‘Some of them don’t even speak English.’

‘Who said you have to
talk
?’

Andy shrugged. She hadn’t a clue. He pictured the bashful, sari-clad matrons taking delivery of their sons’ Amazon parcels and wanted to laugh. He wasn’t a flirt; he was a postman, and proud of it. Toni would never understand his feelings of loyalty towards his customers, his knowledge that he played a small but essential role in their lives. In fact, he loved his job. Despite the heavier loads and longer shifts, despite the meddling from management, the targets and directives and corporate bollocks, despite the imploding chaos that was Royal Mail, there was still a sense of camaraderie in the sorting office. He enjoyed the magic of dawn, the suburban streets coming to life. He liked the curious mixture of the solitary and communal that was a postie’s working day. He told none of this to Toni. Besides, she had never asked.

‘Now you’re sulking,’ she said.

‘I’m not.’

‘Ha, you’re going all red!’ She nudged her son. ‘Look, Ryan, Daddy’s getting cross.’

‘I’m not.’ He wanted to say,
I’m not his daddy
. ‘Here we are.’

They had arrived at the park gates. It was a Saturday and he was taking them on a jaunt.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Ryan.

‘I told you. There’s something I want to show you.’ Andy led them along the path. ‘One of my mates told me about it. It’s called Postman’s Park because it’s near the main sorting office.’

Office buildings reared up around them. Beyond them stood St Paul’s Cathedral, unseen but immense.

‘There’s nothing here,’ said Toni.

‘Yes there is.’

He led them past the flower beds to a wall of china tiles, sheltered by a roof. They were alone among the plane trees in the hushed little park.

‘I thought we were going to the new shopping centre,’ said Toni. ‘The one by St Paul’s. I thought that was the surprise.’

‘No. This is.’ He pointed to the tiles. ‘They were put up in Queen Victoria’s time. Go on, read one.’

‘What?’

‘Read one. They’re amazing.’

Toni looked at him, puzzled. She stepped closer and peered at a tile. ‘
Frederick Alfred Croft, aged 31, saved a lunatic woman from suicide at Woolwich Arsenal Station but was himself run over by the train
.’

‘Gross,’ said Ryan.

‘Look, this boy’s your age,’ said Andy. ‘
Henry James Bristow, aged 7, saved his little sister’s life by tearing off her flaming clothes but caught fire himself and died of burns and shock
.’ He looked down at Ryan. ‘They’re just ordinary people, like us, who did really brave things. These are their memorials.’

‘What a twat,’ said Ryan, rummaging in his nostril.

Toni sat down on a bench. ‘I don’t believe this. You sick or something?’ She shook her head wonderingly. ‘You brought us all the way here to look at
this
? Know how weird that is?’

‘I just thought – it was kind of inspirational –’

‘Look at Ryan! You’ve
so
totally freaked him out.’

They looked at Ryan’s bent head. He was sitting on the grass, playing on his Nintendo DS.

‘He looks all right to me,’ said Andy.

‘He’ll be having nightmares for weeks.’

Ryan looked up. ‘This is boring. I want to go home.’

‘See?’ Toni got to her feet. ‘He needs to get out of here, it’s cree-eepy.’ She grabbed Ryan’s hand. ‘Come along, darling. Let’s go and find an ice cream.’

Mrs Enid Price lived at 12 Arnos Drive, Neasden. Andy had been delivering her mail for years. She was an elderly widow, racist and testy, but he was fond of her. She was lonely, her neighbours had left, one by one, to be replaced by multi-occupancies and by Indian families with whom she had little in common; sometimes Andy suspected that he was the only person she spoke to all day. In the way of postmen, he was intimate with her life. He knew about her old schoolfriend in Wigan (shakily written address), the state of her finances (final demands), her love of birds (RSPB magazine). Sometimes she grabbed his arm with her ruthless fingers. ‘I need your help, young man,’ she said, and propelled him into her lounge to swat a wasp or shift a piece of furniture. She told him about her late husband, how he had been a medical auxiliary in the war, pulling out bodies from the rubble, how he had never truly recovered. Sometimes Andy would stop by, at the end of his round, and have a cup of tea.

And then Enid broke her hip. She returned from hospital diminished and confused. Every morning she was sitting at the window, waiting for him. ‘They seem to have put me into some sort of hotel,’ she said.

‘It’s not a hotel, love. It’s your house.’

Her finger kneaded his arm. ‘Get me out of here, I want to go home.’

As the weeks passed she grew more and more disorientated.

‘There’s a man upstairs in my bed,’ she whispered. ‘And there’s another one in my wardrobe. I’ve never believed in threesomes and I’m not going to start now.’

That night, Andy repeated the remark to Toni. He thought they could have a laugh; she was always complaining that he never talked to her enough.

Toni looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Gaga, is she?’

Andy nodded. ‘The nurse arrived when I was there. They’re going to put her into a home.’

Toni paused, spatula in hand. She was frying chicken thighs. ‘Pass me the tarragon, will you?’

Andy thought no more of it. He was used to these mild disappointments, these disconnects. More and more he felt lonely in his own home. Maybe if they had a baby things would change, but she was still on the pill and it seemed too intimate a topic to bring into the conversation. When did one broach the subject? He hadn’t a clue.

It was a week later. Snow had fallen during the night. The streets were hushed with a lunar stillness; his footsteps crunched as he walked up Enid’s path. He was thinking about Postman’s Park and whether he was capable of an act of selfless heroism. Enid’s husband had pulled strangers from burning buildings but how could a man be tested now? Was he really so weird, to find the plaques affecting?

Enid opened the door. ‘A nice lady visited me yesterday,’ she said, taking her letters. ‘We had a cup of tea. She wants to buy my house.’

He thought no more of it. For all he knew, it might have been one of her delusions. Later, however, when he arrived home from work, he heard Toni’s voice in the kitchen. She was on her mobile, her voice raised in excitement. He paused in the hallway.

‘She’s a batty old bag, she’s no idea what it’s worth. I said to her,
you don’t need an estate agent, they’ll cost you an arm and a leg and they’re all rubbish
–’

She must have heard him arriving, because she closed the door.

He remembered now: he had told Toni the address. She must have sneaked out to Arnos Drive; she hadn’t told him, she knew it was wrong.

That night, as he lay beside his sleeping wife, Andy knew that his marriage was over. He and Toni were strangers who happened to be sharing a house. In an odd way it was a relief, to put it into words. In fact, he felt a curious exhilaration. It was like feeling vaguely ill and finally being diagnosed with cancer. Painful as it was, he could now admit the problem and do something about it. Funnily enough he was almost grateful to discover – to
confirm
– that Toni was a ruthless young woman who could take advantage of a senile widow.