Heartbreak Hotel (3 page)

How Monica hated that phrase, the jaunty anthem of the baby boomer; there was something suburban about it. And it wasn’t that simple. Her age shifted around, she couldn’t get a grip on it. At times she felt a wizened old pensioner – she
was
a pensioner. At other times she felt nineteen years old, when people could smoke in the cinema and park anywhere and rent a room for three pounds a week. When buses had conductors and John Lennon was still alive. When the only frozen foods were peas and fish fingers.

Monica gazed at the shelves of Serves One meals. A man came and stood beside her. Sixtyish, abundant hair, flat stomach – a rarity in their age group. He reached for a Beef Hotpot – no wedding ring – and turned it over in his hand as if searching for an answer.

Why not? It could happen like this, it had happened to her friend Rachel. They would fall in love, a sweet autumnal romance, and go to live in King’s Lynn, a town Monica had never been to and thus full of possibilities. They would wonder at this late blossoming, clinking glasses in their heavily beamed living room and marvelling at that moment in M&S, when their future spun on a sixpence.

Monica indicated the shelves; she attempted to raise her eyebrows but her forehead was set in concrete. ‘So much choice it’s dizzying,’ she said. She wanted to add: so much choice and yet only one word for love. But that would sound mad.

‘Tell me about it.’ The man put the packet into his basket and flashed her a smile.

‘It’s like all those channels on TV,’ Monica said. ‘Or apps on one’s phone.’

‘It is a problem,’ he sighed. ‘My wife’s a vegetarian but I can’t stand rabbit food.’ He reached for a packet. ‘Wonder if she’d like Broccoli Crispbake?’

There was always Graham to look forward to. Graham from Norbury, wherever that was. Monica vaguely recognised the name from a railway timetable. Graham could no doubt tell her its location when they met for a coffee the next morning; it might get the conversational ball rolling.

To be honest, she didn’t have high hopes of Graham. In his profile he said he had a good sense of humour, a sure sign that he hadn’t. Like them all he enjoyed both staying in beside a log fire and going out for long country walks. He described himself as both sensitive and assertive, a word that slightly alarmed her – did he like trussing women up? But he wasn’t bad-looking, judging by his photo, shirt-sleeved on his patio. There was another one of him in his scuba-diving gear.

The thing was, it did give a certain zip to the weekend, this meeting with unknown men – a sort-of-date, of sorts, with somebody who was up for it. Monica could almost be nineteen again. Nowadays, she felt profoundly grateful to these males for simply being available. She was tired of being alone with her meals-for-one. She was tired of chatting to a man at some gathering, everything going swimmingly, and then some young Asian wife appearing from nowhere, lacing her fingers into his and popping a canapé into his mouth. Men her age were all married – many to a younger model, but all married. Even the notorious adulterers had hung up their spurs and returned to their long-suffering wives. It was so unfair. They were wrinkled too – a lot more wrinkled than her, in fact – but however decrepit, faithless, alcoholic, vain and self-absorbed they were – droning on about their work, their prostate problems, God forbid their golf handicap – however drooling and boring they were, there was always some woman, somewhere, who wanted to have sex with them. Not just that, to love them, to care for them and to drink orange juice at parties so they could drive them home.

Monica poured herself another glass of wine. She thought: I want somebody to cook for. I want somebody to whisk the parking ticket out of my hand and say, ‘Don’t bother your pretty little head about that.’ I want somebody to laugh with during
The News Quiz
. I want somebody to protect me against rogue plumbers. I want someone to lie with, naked in bed, their arms around me.

The phone rang. It was Graham. ‘Is that, er, Monica?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t make our meeting. One of my teeth has fallen out and I have to go to the dentist.’

* * *

Next morning Monica woke with a dry mouth and pounding head. She seemed to have finished the bottle of wine. ‘Had a party, then?’ her neighbour asked, when she carried out the recycling box.

Monica lowered it clankingly to the ground. Of course she didn’t drink too much. She just had a stressful job and needed to unwind when she got home. It was only Pinot Grigio, for Christ’s sake, hardly alcoholic at all. Besides, she was in the hospitality business, it ran on booze.

That very Saturday, in fact, after her now-cancelled coffee-with-Graham, she was due to drive to Burford to check out a new hotel. The management would no doubt wine and dine her. It was a prospect that filled her with dread.

For it was the same hotel, the Yew Tree. Renovated, to be sure, but the same hotel.
In all the hotels, in all the world …

Suddenly Malcolm was with her, his breath against her face. Day and night he dwelt with her, he was never away, and now he put on his Bogart voice, one eyebrow raised. He’d always been a rotten mimic but she didn’t care … Malcolm, the love of her life. Malcolm, the married man.

Burford, Gateway to the Cotswolds, conveniently situated an hour’s drive from London (even more convenient for Malcolm, who lived in Ealing). Burford, its celebrated high street lined with olde worlde tea shops (Malcolm, tenderly wiping jam from her chin). Its antique market filled with unusual gifts and cherishable collectibles (Malcolm, goosing her as she climbed the steps to the first floor –
More Stalls Upstairs
). Its picturesque rambles in the local countryside (Malcolm, dropping her hand when other walkers appeared. For Christ’s sake, they were hardly going to meet anyone they knew!). Its imposing town hall, built of honey-coloured stone (Malcolm in the phone box outside, the furtive hunch of the faithless husband. These were the days before mobiles, the adulterer’s friend and – sometimes – enemy).

Four weekends they had spent together in Burford. The first, she had been a business trip to Rouen. The next time she had been a conference in Scarborough. She had also been a visit to his old school chum. And the last time … Monica couldn’t remember, just that it was the last time.

Monica parked outside the hotel, next to a row of SUVs and a Porsche. Bay trees in tubs were lined up against that familiar facade. She switched off the engine. Her times with Malcolm, here and elsewhere, each so short, each so intense, were sealed into caskets in her memory like votive objects in a tomb. On many occasions she had taken off the lids and re-examined them but they had remained preserved in formaldehyde. How could she keep that old hotel in her head, inviolate, when faced by a million-pound makeover?

In their day the Yew Tree had been a dowdy establishment smelling of Brussels sprouts, with violently patterned carpets and a barometer in the lobby – the sort of place nobody they knew would ever visit, which was the point. The menu was hilariously old-fashioned, even then – Prawn Cocktail, Black Forest Gateau. It was the last place on earth to still serve Melba toast.

‘I designate this an item of archaeological interest,’ said Malcolm, picking up a slice.

‘So’s the waiter,’ whispered Monica.

They smiled at each other, their feet hooked together under the table. How staid the other diners looked, blazered men and their lady wives! How stolidly married. And yet they were dear to Monica, included in her love, warmed in its orbit. They were her unwitting co-conspirators.

‘I wish I’d known you –’ Malcolm stopped. Instead, he broke off a piece of Melba toast, spread it with mackerel pâté and popped it into her mouth. ‘Let’s talk about them.’ He pointed to another diner. ‘Think he’s a Russian spy?’

Dear God, she had loved him.

And now she was here again. Joe, the manager, ushered her in.

‘The whole place was totally run-down,’ he said. ‘A dump, not to put too fine a word on it, riddled with dry rot. People must’ve been mad to stay here.’

Joe showed her round the lobby. Grey walls, spotlit buckets of lilies, blown-up photos of American convertibles rusting in the desert. The staff, young and comely, dressed in black, moved around as gracefully as gazelles.

Joe said: ‘There’s a bedroom free if you’d like to look it over before lunch.’

It was one of theirs. It just would be. Bedroom 12, with the view of the church.

‘State-of-the-art entertainment centre,’ said Joe, pointing to a row of winking lights. ‘Bang and Olufsen. Wi-Fi of course, home cinema.’

It was dark – charcoal walls, maroon bedspread heaped with black satin cushions. On the wall was a photograph of a ruined factory.

‘We aim for an unusual, voguey, sexy vibe, with our signature palette of colours.’ Joe pointed to the photo. ‘We’re particularly proud of the rust-belt art. Great feedback on that.’

Monica tried to remember how it was. She and Malcolm naked on the disordered sheets, flock wallpaper, a brown stain on the ceiling from an old leak, a fire extinguisher in case they combusted. The church bells calling the righteous to prayer. She remembered drinking wine from their smuggled-in bottle. Malcolm was too mean to use the minibar but she didn’t mind, his faults were his wife’s concern, and anyway who cared when he was pulling her close and opening his lips against hers, the wine flooding her mouth?

‘Seen enough?’ asked Joe. He took her into the bathroom – rough limestone bath, Cowshed toiletries, a second flatscreen TV. ‘We offer the intimacy of a boutique hotel with the sort of capacity your outfit requires.’

He was waiting for her to make a comment. Monica registered him for the first time – model-boy looks, probably gay, perspiring in his black polo neck. It was a sweltering day. He treated her with a cocky lack of interest. No doubt he considered her a dried-up old spinster, one of those middle-aged career women who lived with her cat and had a gluten-free diet. Who only drank herb tea. If he considered her at all.

She replied something or other. He took her on a tour of the spa, the therapy rooms, the conference centre. They had lunch on the terrace and discussed the various packages and room rates. A waiter refilled Monica’s glass. She thought, for the thousandth time: Had Malcolm ever intended to leave his wife?

The trouble was, it was always the wrong time. Over the years crisis followed crisis. Hilary, his wife, had a breast cancer scare. His daughter was sent down from university for drug-dealing. His son was diagnosed bipolar – the word had just come into fashion. Then Malcolm was briefly made redundant and she had to be supportive. Finally, just when he promised to extricate himself, his mother got Alzheimer’s and the whole family was convulsed with guilt about whether or not to put her into a home.

Monica lived these lives at one remove. They were in the sunlight while she dwelt in the shadows, year after year of snatched copulations in hotel rooms around England and Europe; brief lunches in riverside pubs where she and Malcolm stroked each other’s fingers, sweethearts in their sealed bubble; candlelit dinners in her flat when she wore fancy underwear and pretended she didn’t notice him sneaking a glance at his watch. Their affair remained in stasis while his family moved on, his daughter getting married, how could he bail out then? She felt she was watching a TV soap – nine years passed and by that time she had collected the bloody box set.
Malcolm and his Family
. And her life remained the same, she stayed the same for him for all those years, trussing herself up like a turkey in her crippling corset, knowing the only power she had over him, the power of the mistress. Not for them the drudgery of domestic life, the naggings about car insurance and household repairs. The breakfasts, the crosswords.

Domestic life with Malcolm. Christ, she had longed for it. Sometimes she longed for it so much she felt she would explode.

The waiter refilled her glass. Monica was not the sort to cry in public. Besides, she was here on business. She put on her spectacles to inspect the dessert menu. She remembered that last weekend and her sudden realisation.
He wants to have his cake and eat it
. They were sitting here, on the terrace, and as he looked down at the menu he scratched his head. By now his hair was thinning. She thought, quite clearly:
I’m his bit on the side
.

How painful it was to apply the words to him! Surely their relationship was different from the others, she was the love of his life, those clichés didn’t apply? But the words had been buried like shrapnel, deep beneath her skin, and it had taken them years to work their way to the surface.

It was all so long ago. Apparently Malcolm and Hilary had retired to the Dordogne – so seventies of them, almost as dated as Melba toast. Monica imagined one of those shuttered French villages with amputated plane trees. The high spot of Malcolm and Hilary’s day would be trundling their trolley around the local Carrefour, sited in an industrial estate surrounded by fields of blackened sunflowers. They would spend their evenings getting sozzled on
vin de pays
, rereading paperbacks swapped with the other Brits and Facebooking old acquaintances who out of desperation they would invite to stay, anything to relieve the boredom.

Does he ever think about me? Monica wondered. How he stole nine years of my life? That last day in Burford, the showdown outside the gift shop. The sign said
All Breakages Must Be Paid For
. He hadn’t, had he?

‘Sure you’re OK to drive?’ Joe asked.

Monica got to her feet. ‘Of course!’ she snapped, carefully replacing her chair.

They parted company in the lobby. She felt Joe’s eyes on her as she made her way to the car. Look! She was fine. Unlocking the door, starting the engine.

Burford’s celebrated High Street was clogged with coaches. They disgorged hordes of the undead – elderly ladies in pastel cardies and beige footwear. Burford was full of them, their white hair freshly set, some with sticks, some on mobility scooters. They shuffled around the antiques arcades, blocking the aisles; they peered through the bow windows of Country Casuals, endlessly deliberating, never going in; they clogged up the post office, turning postcards over in their arthritic hands, photos of lambs gambolling among the daffodils; and always, always, there were lines of them at the public toilets, queuing for a wee. She and Malcolm had giggled at them.