Heartbreak Hotel (31 page)

The whole thing was insane.
She
was insane, fantasising after a couple of tumblers of wine. Sitting on the bed, her tights bundled in one hand, she caressed the heel of her foot. How cracked it was, how dry and neglected! Like her mother’s, in her last years. Monica remembered the ruthless grip of her mother’s hand – her
claws
– on her arm, as if she were drowning, and she thought: I don’t want to grow old alone. I want to sit by the fire eating crumpets with Buffy. I don’t mind about all those other women who had him when he was young and slim and successful, whizzing off to premieres and whatnot. I’ll be happy with what I can get.

Monica descended the stairs with caution, due not to the wine – God forbid – but to wearing high heels. Voices came from the bar, but when she looked in, there was no sign of Buffy.

Just then she heard a bellow of laughter from the kitchen. She made her way along the corridor and peered in through the doorway.

Buffy sat on a chair, a towel around his neck. Penny sat beside him, cutting his beard.

She saw Monica and called out: ‘I couldn’t bear it any longer. Soon he’ll be getting little bits of food stuck in it.’

Buffy tried to turn but Penny jerked his head back. He rolled his eyes heavenwards.

Voda stood at the stove, stirring the bouillabaisse. ‘Great time to choose,’ she grumbled. ‘Just as I’m dishing up.’

‘He looked like Old Father Time.’ Penny stood back and inspected Buffy, her head tilted. ‘Anyway, it’s done now.’ She bundled up the towel. ‘I know it’s hard to believe, but he used to cut quite a dash. Quite the boulevardier.’

‘Hard to boulevard in Knockton,’ he said, brushing hairs off his cardigan.

‘I don’t know,’ said Penny. ‘I’m growing rather fond of the place.’

‘Coming to live here, are you?’ he said. ‘Join the club.’

‘Everybody seems to know everybody else,’ said Penny. ‘It’s not dead, like where I live, and it’s not lonely like London. There’s something to be said for small-town life.’

Buffy laughed. ‘Never, ever, in my wildest dreams, would I imagine those words coming out of your mouth.’

‘In fact I rather adore it.’ Penny shook the towel out in the sink. ‘It’s never too late to fall in love, don’t you think, Monica?’

There was no question of sitting next to Buffy at dinner. Tess and another woman patted the empty seat between them and he sat down without a glance at Monica. He had obviously forgotten his earlier words.

And a good thing too. The trim beard had made him a stranger. He looked natty, no doubt about that, and slimmer, but in his mustard cardigan and striped shirt he resembled a jazzman from the Acker Bilk era, a sartorial look Monica had never found arousing. Besides, that glimpse of domestic intimacy had undone her. He and Penny had looked as if they were still married – teasing and needling each other, familiar with each other, the currents between them too deep to be understood by a mere onlooker like herself. A spinster; an outsider. She was beaten. And to add to it all, her knickers were digging into her crotch; she could hardly shift onto one buttock and pull them out.

Her neighbours – an Indian girl whose name she hadn’t caught, and another girl, ditto – were discussing the fish pie and their part in its creation, ending each sentence with a question mark, like Australians. Why did kids do that nowadays? Didn’t they realise how annoying it was? Harold sat on her other side, but he was talking to Penny. This was the second night that they had sat together. The two women opposite were slagging off their exes.

‘I find it so supportive, being with you all?’ said one of them. Christ, they were at it too. ‘There’s such a feeling of sisterhood here, us all being in the same boat?’

‘They should call this place Heartbreak Hotel?’ said the other one. ‘We’ve come here to lick our wounds?’

They obviously considered Monica too old to be included in this conversation. Monica removed a fishbone from her mouth. Another thing she had noticed, about getting on, was that food got stuck in one’s teeth. Now she knew why elderly people in restaurants jabbed away with a toothpick, sometimes shielding their mouth with a gnarled hand, sometimes not.

Only three days to go until Friday. For the sake of her pride she would stick it out until the end of the course. If she bailed out early Buffy might think that he was the cause, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She would be perfectly pleasant to him, needless to say, but basically she would avoid him. This wouldn’t be hard as he was invariably surrounded by females. Who knows? Maybe another of his ex-wives would show up.

Off and on, throughout the evening, Buffy tried to catch Monica’s eye. He tried to indicate
Sorry, I’m trapped in this seat
. After dinner he tried to indicate
Are you watching the film?
She ignored him and trooped into the bar with the others. He sat in the back row, his view of
Julie & Julia
partially blocked by the abundant hair of Denise, one of his more demanding guests (no gluten, no food with a face). Monica sat in the front row, slightly to his left. She appeared to be absorbed by the film, which struck him as sentimental and girly, not her thing at all. Perhaps she was pretending. Beside him sat India and Voda, fingers laced together. Sometimes they removed their hands and tenderly stroked each other’s thigh. Penny and Harold sat together in the front row, whispering and giggling. Somebody leaned forward and told them to shut up.

The presence of Penny was deeply disorientating – her bodily presence in his new home, shifting the molecules in the air; the memories she triggered from the past. Buffy should have got used to her by now but it still gave him a jolt when she appeared wearing the jumper he had bought her when they were married. Of course he had seen her over the years; they had bumped into each other in the street, they had met at parties when she was accompanied by her toyboy Colin, now consigned to history. But they hadn’t been together under the same roof for seven years or more. It was so odd to see her in a domestic setting – walking out of the bathroom with her damp hair in a turban, loading her breakfast toast with the usual great dollop of butter (would she have a heart attack? Not his problem now). So odd and yet so familiar. She seemed perfectly relaxed about it; they had slipped back into something resembling their old relationship or a close parallel to it. He had forgotten how she treated him in that fond, vaguely amused way, as if he were the family dog.

Was she gossiping about him to the other guests? The thought chilled his blood. More to the point, was she talking about him to Monica? He had seen no evidence of this but Penny had the sharpest nose in the business and she might have suspected that something was up.

If indeed it was. He really had made a total ass of himself that night. Memories kept rising up, each more blush-making than the last. His self-pitying burblings about
Babette’s Feast
and subsequent drooling over Stéphane Audran’s beauty, unchivalrous in the circumstances. A sentimental drone about the adorableness of his babies when they were little, equally tactless as Monica was childless. At one point – dear God! – he seemed to remember laying his head in Monica’s lap. And then the hopeless fumbling on the landing, his drunken plea that she mustn’t leave him alone. Had he tried to unbutton her blouse or had she done that herself? He remembered an attempt at a kiss but the rest was thankfully lost in oblivion.

No wonder Monica had scarcely spoken to him since then. He could hardly blame her. Though inebriated herself, she probably remembered it in all its repulsive detail. How foolish he had been, to think she might have found him as attractive as he found her! Now he thought about it, she had probably fabricated the dead husband to repel any advances on his part. He hadn’t understood it at the time but it made sense now.

For he
had
been drawn to her. She was a striking woman – dark, whiplash-thin, with an interesting face that reminded him of Dorothy Parker. Underneath the chic haircut, however, he sensed a seething mass of self-doubt and insecurity. After the years with Penny he was ready to tackle a neurotic woman again. And she had made him laugh.

It was a shame he couldn’t ask Penny’s advice; she would have something bracing to say, flinging the window open on the fetid room of his psyche. But Penny of course was the last person in whom he could confide.

The next morning Monica was nowhere to be seen. Buffy missed her at breakfast and when he went into the kitchen, where the class had assembled, she wasn’t there. He felt a lurch of disappointment. By mid-morning there was still no sign of her. He crept upstairs and tapped on her door. There was no answer, but when he looked into the room, her things were still there. She hadn’t packed up and gone, then; but where was she?

Work was Monica’s comfort. After the break-up with Malcolm she had thrown herself into her job, taking on more responsibility, working overtime. Anything to delay returning to her empty flat where grief and madness lurked.

Now she was standing at the recycling centre, the wind whipping her face, phoning her assistant Rupert.

‘Any messages?’ she asked.

‘Nothing I can’t deal with,’ he said. ‘You’re on holiday, remember?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Don’t you worry, I’m holding the fort. You have a great time, wherever you are.’ He didn’t even know that she was on a cookery course.

Monica switched off her mobile. So now what? She pictured the office, the red plastic chairs around the conference table, the view of Leadenhall Market; she pictured her desk by the window, pictured it with such longing that her body ached.

Traffic thundered past. Mountains of black plastic bags were heaped against the skips; due to the cutbacks, the collections had been discontinued until further notice. She had read this in the local paper, along with news of an anti-capitalist rally in Cardiff. Recently she had felt the rumble of discontent growing louder, the approaching thunderstorm. In fact, her most recent CEOs’ shindig had been disrupted by protesters. Acme Motivation were considering increased security at the various hotels they used, something that was due for discussion on her return.

The conference table. The pens and pads laid out at each place. The bottles of water. The problems to be solved, in all their simple complexity. Work was a gleaming city surrounded by a dark, tangled forest filled with snakes.

Now what? Back at Myrtle House everybody else had bonded together, they would be cooking in the kitchen, they probably hadn’t even noticed her absence. It was like being at school again, being left out of the team. No doubt they all knew each other’s names, while she had been distracted by that humiliating business with Buffy. Oh
God
.

At that moment a battered van slewed to a halt beside her. A man leaned across the passenger seat and wound down the window.

‘How much, love?’ he asked in a sing-song Welsh voice.

Monica drank too much at dinner. She knew it at the time, even as she poured herself another glass. And why bloody not? Her relationship with alcohol had lasted longer than her relationship with any man. It wasn’t a love affair, or even a love–hate thing; that would be too simplistic. And yet underneath it all it was as simple as simple could be – people might come and go, but a bottle was always there. And she liked the taste, for God’s sake!

Buffy hadn’t spoken to her all evening. He wasn’t even avoiding her. He had simply forgotten about her. Besides, his daughter Nyange had turned up.

Monica had no idea she was his daughter, of course. The woman was black! Big-boned, handsome, with a challenging, stroppy look to her. Only when Penny hugged her, with a whoop of delight, did Monica learn her identity – that she was the product of Buffy’s loins. ‘He had this thing with a dancer,’ Penny whispered.

It was at this point that Monica finally gave up. Buffy was a multi-storey car park crammed with vehicles, its sign saying
No Spaces
. Having circled the block a couple of times, she had to admit defeat and drive home. The whole love thing – with Buffy, with anyone – was too emotionally draining; even her internet dates were little cot deaths. She would give it all up and concentrate on her work.

The night’s movie was
The Wedding Banquet
. As Monica sat down she could see no sign of Buffy or his daughter. The wine had made her dozy. After a while she realised that her head was resting on her neighbour’s shoulder. Maybe she’d been snoring!

Monica muttered an excuse, got up and left the room, bumping against the door frame. Her head was spinning; she must go to bed.

She went into the lounge to collect her handbag. Buffy, Nyange, Voda and India were sitting there, papers spread on the coffee table. Monica muttered her apologies and looked around. Where had she left the blasted thing?

‘We’re discussing the appalling state of my finances,’ said Buffy. ‘Nyange’s come down to help. She’s an accountant.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Monica stupidly.

‘She’s been bullying me for months about doing up this place and making it into a proper hotel,’ said Buffy.

‘I’m not bullying you,’ said Nyange. ‘I’m just talking sense.’

Monica spotted her handbag on the window seat, underneath a pile of newspapers. She picked it up and clutched it to her chest like a shield. ‘I do a lot of work with hotels,’ she said suddenly.

‘Do you?’ Buffy’s eyebrows shot up. Now she had his attention! Tonight, in his maroon velvet jacket he looked like an ageing croupier in a washed-up seaside town. He looked hopeless. Monica felt a surge of power.

‘Do you want to know what I think?’ she asked.

Buffy shifted up on the sofa. ‘Come on then, spit it out.’ He patted the cushion.

She ignored his invitation. Instead, she leaned against the mantelpiece, a figure of authority.

‘This place has masses of potential, none of which you’ve exploited,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to be frank?’

‘Yes, yes!’ said Buffy.

What the hell. Soon she would be gone. Before she went, however, she would give him something to remember.