Hotel de Dream (17 page)

Marcus's calls were met not with astonishment but, he noted, incredulously, with a lassitude that ill became the firebrands of former years. Some of them asked him over for a meal or a cup of coffee, and when he got there laughed at his smudged chest and offered shirts and sweaters and the money for a ticket home. He informed them of the tides, and the impending Revolution, and some replied that everything rested with the Trade Unions now, others that they belonged to a group whose initials would always be denied him, others still that they were concentrating on the production of pornographic theatre in the West End for the furtherance of their own fortunes and the fortunes of the real Revolution when it came. None believed his descriptions of the hunch that had come to him so strongly at the esplanade in Frinton-on-Sea: they told him not to trust in instinct in these matters, to return there and continue his studies of Marx and Engels until the time was ripe; one young revolutionary, middle-aged now and with a heavy stomach under his caftan, offered him a job in an antique market off the Portobello Road. After several hours, dispirited and exhausted, Marcus found himself out on the street again and wandering the crumbling area around the motorway to the West. He called on a squat and was for a moment cheered by what he saw, but they seemed as uninterested there in his tale of the tides as his other friends had been. He was offered accommodation, and went off with a heavy heart in the direction of Notting Hill. It was then he remembered that Moira lived in the neighbourhood—at least, she had in the days of his love for her, and he turned into the familiar crescent, went with his last strength to the door, the many bells, some of them pulled out and hanging on their wires above the rotting plaster, and searched blindly for her name. He found it, and pressed hard on the half-disconnected bell. As he waited, he scanned the street, and saw with his tired eyes an old man climb the area steps of the next-door house and
dart off down the road as if the devils were after him. It was dark, and the lighting in the street was bad, and Marcus did no more than rub his eyes and shrug his shoulders. Moira let him in and stood with a grave expression on the threshold. She said it was the group meeting at her place tonight and if he wanted to see her he should have let her know. Marcus tried to tell his story—and by now it was beginning to seem unlikely—and Moira laughed once before looking serious again. She said the tides were indeed turning, and he would be the first to know it. After this cryptic announcement she went in and slammed the door in his face. For some minutes Marcus stood on the doorstep in complete dejection. In the weak white light from the street lamps his torso had taken on a zebra-esque air, white and black stripes encompassing his body above his jeans. His eyes smarted from the day's travels and his legs ached. He thought of the squat address he had been given, but felt too tired to find his way through the maze of streets to the other side of Notting Hill. He looked up and down the road and listlessly examined the faded sign hanging outside the next-door house, the house from which the old man had recently bolted into the night. He picked out the words UNCHES ND TEAS BED ND BREAK, and stumbled on to the pavement and up the step to the door. It was a swing door and he pushed it. He found himself in a dingy hall. Loud voices came from a dimly glimpsed dining room beyond. It was thus that Marcus Tapp, one of those unfortunate instances of a perfect stranger picking up the dream of another miles away and finding the course of his life changed, his steps drawn inexorably to the dreamer, his account of his dream never believed because it lacks the authenticity of the original vision, landed up in the Westringham Hotel. And in the midst of an impromptu party given for Mr Rathbone by Mrs Routledge, proprietress of the establishment and none too pleased to welcome Tapp in at that inauspicious hour.

Mr Rathbone, like the unfortunate Marcus, was the victim of a stranger's dream, but he was responsible for the Westringham—and, it could be said, for the dreams of the inmates by upholding a society which produces those dreams; nevertheless he deserved some sympathy on that Wednesday night. Mrs Routledge, whose fantasy he had been for so long, came as an unpleasant surprise to him. Miss Briggs seemed to have a power over him—she had brought him here, after all, without his expressing the least desire to accompany her—and his knighthood, the apex of his career, had been performed by her, an impersonator of Her Majesty. She was smiling at him proudly as he nibbled nuts and sipped at the warm gin and tonic provided. He felt, for the first time in his life, baffled and confused by the events of the day, and although an outsider would have awarded a prize to Mr Rathbone for the calm and composure with which he discussed cricket with Mr Poynter, acquaintances in common with Mrs Houghton, and the urgent need to reform the comprehensive school system with Miss Scranton, he was in fact desperate to return to his tiny flat and his large wife, to ask her why she had disappeared so mysteriously at the gates of the Palace, and to gain reassurance in himself by going for a stroll with her in the park and seeing how incomparably bigger he was than the rest of the population. Here, in the dining room of the Westringham, the other members of the party were in some peculiar way neither smaller nor greater than himself. It was as if they existed on a different plane, and there was nothing he could measure himself against.
The power of their dreams, perhaps, had removed them from his world—and as a consequence he felt uncomfortable and unreal. As he absentmindedly replied to Mrs Routledge—she was clinging to his arm and winking up at him over the rim of her glass—he tried to reconstruct the unusual happenings of the afternoon. Lines of concentration appeared on his wide brow. Mrs Routledge tittered and dug her nails into his sleeve.

“I'm not surprised you're a mite shocked, Mr Rathbone. But you know how it is. Young, romantic love. Daddy perhaps a little too taken up by his horses. A June night with the haymakers in the field celebrating beneath the full moon. The whole heart of the universe seeming to beat there under the dark sky …”

“Yes, yes, dear lady.” Mr Rathbone thought back and his brow turned to a network of wrinkles. He had arrived at the Palace in his Rolls, smiling to himself at the practical joke played on him in the park by some young prankster who had been to the funfair and printed up an abdication story for a few pence in a booth. He wouldn't have been taken in, of course, if he hadn't been preoccupied, slightly nervous even: a knighthood was a big event. There was the usual small crowd of small people outside the Palace and he had driven in unnoticed, in that wonderful way that was so English—not a cheer even, or a curious face. He had dismounted at the back entrance and gone up a flight of red carpeted stairs. There were flunkeys about and he had been ushered into an antechamber. It was indicated to him that he should wait.

“Probably it was because Daddy would have disapproved so terribly of Cridge. He had a peerage in mind for me, you know how fathers are Mr Rathbone. Anyway, we decided then and there to elope to Gretna Green. I didn't take a stitch with me!”

After what seemed a very long time the wide doors at the far end of the ante-chamber were thrown open. Mr Rathbone, his legs weaker than he would have cared to admit, walked
into the Throne Room. A small figure was on the throne under the canopy of red and gold. He bowed three times. It was when he came up for the third time that he saw the twisted, cruel faces of the Van Dyck portraits, the dead and rotting animals by the quiet lakes in the great pastoral scenes, the evil mushroom cloud that hung over and partially obscured Poussin's beautiful Arcadia. He coughed loudly.

“Such a close night,” cried Mrs Routledge, who imagined her guest had smelt Cridge's pots—(and then and there, in the midst of her invented romance with him, swore she would throw him on the street when he returned). We have problems with the drains in this street, Mr Rathbone. Is there anything you can do to help us?”

“As soon as I finish the trilogy,” Mrs Houghton was saying to Mr Poynter, “I shall of course be going off to recuperate with relatives in Worcestershire.”

“Of course, of course.” (Mr Poynter was miserable; he prayed only that the dream would right itself tonight. But this seemed unlikely, with Miss Scranton standing by him, her eyes burning and the gin bottle tipping into her glass each time he looked.)

Mr Rathbone left Mrs Routledge in mid-sentence and went over to Miss Briggs. When he had seen her on the throne, he had done nothing—he had knelt even!—she had knighted him and he had let her! He found this hard to believe, but it was true. And while he was kneeling there, his mind spinning, every fibre of his being telling him he must be suffering from an hallucination, he would look up again in a minute and see the features of his dear monarch—there had been a rushing sound, a blurring of the vision, and he was in a dingy room with this woman, she tucking a rusty sword back into its scabbard and a bell ringing downstairs which she told him meant they were summoned to go down. And he had obeyed her! He went now and stood over her, but in her disquieting way Miss Briggs, although a small woman by any standards, seemed in no way dwarfed by him. For a moment
Mr Rathbone wondered if she could indeed be the Queen, to whom his normal criteria of size obviously did not apply.

“Miss Scranton, I have sad news for you,” Mrs Routledge said, skirting the bulging dresser and going to her without further ado. “There has been trouble at the Westringham lately, as you are clearly aware, and one of the matters I have decided to bring up with Mr Rathbone is the necessity for your departure, the question of our legal situation here if you decline.”

“May I ask what you are doing impersonating Her Majesty?” Mr Rathbone said to Miss Briggs. His heart beat too loudly for his own comfort as he asked her this, and he looked at her almost imploringly, demanding to be restored to his real world and his wife without delay.

“I have no intention of leaving,” Miss Scranton said loudly and drunkenly. “You can't get me out of here, you silly old bitch!”

“Miss Scranton, please!” Mrs Routledge shrank. Not only was Cridge missing—no one to hand the nuts and drinks, the pots unemptied, but now there was to be bad language too. What must Mr Rathbone think?

“Let's take a vote on it,” said Mr Poynter suddenly. The drink had also gone to his head—and he had nothing to lose. It seemed pretty clear that a democratically elected majority would eject Miss Scranton, and life would be tolerable again.

“I vote she goes,” said Mrs Houghton, who had materialised by Mr Poynter's elbow, and this gave him a wonderful feeling of confidence. “Miss Briggs, your vote please?”

“My vote?” Miss Briggs turned her head slowly. “I am of course not able to vote, Mrs Houghton. I should have thought you'd know that by now!”

“A vote?” cried Mr Rathbone. The nightmare was building up for him. Miss Briggs refused to answer any of his questions. Mrs Routledge was coming towards him with the story of her early love. Mr Poynter was going to ask him technical
details about his Rolls again. He reached for the whisky bottle and took a long swig from the neck.

“A lovely informal atmosphere,” cried Mrs Routledge. “A bottle party! What fun!”

It was at that moment that Marcus Tapp lurched through the swing doors of the Westringham and stood before the assembled guests. In the dim light from the hall his striped, smudged chest gave him the air of a miner up from the pit. His grey pigtail hung over his face. Mrs Routledge gave a short scream.

“One of the workers,” said Mr Poynter, in the voice he used in his City. “Send him for correction, Struthers.”

“My dear man, what do you want?” Mrs Houghton bustled forward. “You don't seem terribly well, I must say. Mrs Routledge, is there a drop of soup in the kitchen for this man?”

Tapp advanced into the dining room. He was drawn like a magnet to Miss Scranton and he stood for a moment before her. Then his head dropped and the pigtail swung before his eyes. When he looked up again, he saw Mr Rathbone. The strength of his hatred was like desire. The two men faced each other and stood in silence.

“Where's the gin?” Miss Scranton said thickly. “This party is a scandal I don't mind telling you that Mrs Routledge. You want that man, don't you?” She waved wildly in the direction of Mr Rathbone. “Well if you do dear you'll have to play your cards right. Empty that shit out of the basement for one thing. And supply enough booze for God's sake. It's a scandal, that's all it is.”

The silence grew more dense. Marcus and Rathbone continued to stare at each other in fascinated loathing. Mrs Routledge gave an uneasy little laugh.

“Do try some of this Japanese seaweed, Mr Rathbone. And forgive the intrusion. I'm sure our visitor here has mistaken the Westringham for somewhere else. Can I redirect you at all, sir?”

“I want a room for the night,” Marcus said. “I'm tired.”

As he spoke, Tapp's legs seemed to give way under him. He fell half on to Mrs Houghton, and was caught by Mr Rathbone before he reached the floor. With the exception of Mr Poynter, who was shocked by the kindness shown to the stranger, and Miss Scranton, who had felt her hackles rise as soon as she saw him, sympathy for Tapp was expressed once it was firmly established that he was one of the world's victims. He was laid out on two chairs in the dining room while preparations were made for him in Room 26. Marcus Tapp was the first to sleep, and to dream, in the Westringham Hotel that night.

Johnny and Melinda were sitting in the kitchen of their hideaway, the white farmhouse in a fringe of trees hidden in a maze of narrow lanes off Exit 39. For the past hour they had been congratulating themselves on the easiness of their escape, and the possible methods of despatching Mrs Houghton into the next world when they felt like showing their faces again; now, as they sipped tea and looked out at the leafless trees, the bleak spring landscape of grassy banks that looked as if they had been crushed by winter and might not find their form again, they both began to feel aware of a blankness, an emptiness in their lives which, in the days of resisting Mrs Houghton, they had never known. They saw that the interior of the farmhouse was blank and white too: each room had the same proportions, no pictures hung on the walls, and there were no books anywhere. They had welcomed the rooms at first, but now they found the square whiteness oppressive, as if sheets of unused paper were constructed about them; and without admitting it to each other both characters caught themselves hoping for a written word to appear at the cornice, for others to follow it, and for a whole page of their lives to unfurl right across the room and down to the skirting board. The silence, too, was unnerving—and when a tractor started up in a distant field Melinda and Johnny exchanged a quick, surreptitious glance, mistaking the sound for a moment for the familiar rattle of keys. They were free—they were no longer pursued—but the impetus to murder their creator seemed to have gone with the achievement of their freedom. Melinda felt an increasing sense of
guilt, the need to apologise to Mrs Houghton for deserting her like this and a plea to be taken back. Johnny, still maintaining an air of bravado, chain-smoked and drummed with his fingers on the table, traits which had been written into him at an early stage and which he knew it would take a long time to throw off.