Hotel World (21 page)

& since the bits of her all broken apart still aren’t coming haven’t come tonight yet yet thank God thank fuck it is not them but my heart going so fast that’s keeping me awake yeah along with the fucking noise of him through there still snoring I can’t believe anyone could snore so much & not wake up he’s a heavy sleeper ha that is the fucking understatement of the year of the century of the millennium it sounds like someone drilling bricks out of the side of the house someone mowing the carpet with one of those lawn-mowers that you push that don’t have a motor except it sounds as loud as louder than a motor it is no fucking wonder I never fucking sleep haven’t slept properly for months I wonder if that Lisa will send me some of her sleep hours that was nice I don’t remember him snoring like that before it either he’s snoring or he’s getting up he’ll be getting up in a minute it’ll be that fucking wheeeeeee in a minute morning again he is always in there these days going at his face with the razor about three times a day I don’t remember really what it was like before it must have been different from
this I think he thinks I am insolent all the time not just because I don’t say anything but because I am the one who is still here      & also I know this is true that if I was thrown into a pool & they would have to throw me because there is no way I would do the jumping or the diving in that she could do no way never so if they would throw me in I would sink straight down & it would be so embarrassing someone the pool guard probably would have to dive in & rescue me off the bottom like I was one of those bricks people practise with sometimes I wouldn’t mind being just an ear just an eye an eyebrow just one single eyelash blown away like someone held me at the tip of their finger & made a wish on me blew me away light as a really really small piece of I don’t know uh leaf it would be a relief to be just that not this with all its feet & hands & mind going all the time Sara you are lucky oh God      what am God no I don’t mean it Sara I didn’t mean anything by it I didn’t      she had the most     fucking amazing eyelashes they were so long longer than anybody else’s I will ever know & there they were just on the ends of your eyelids going down & up whenever you closed your eyes & opened them or blinked just blinked like we all do thousands of times a day where did they go your eyelashes were they hurt a thing happened on     Saturday when I went to Sainsbury’s with mum she sat by the door while I paid at the till they gave me the change & the receipt I was scrunching it up to put it in my pocket & I noticed it said right at the bottom of it the words     goodbye hope to see you again & I was walking back over
to mum she was sitting near the newspapers & it came into my head from nowhere I remembered that night quite near the end when I was getting ready for bed & you were in your bed you were looking at me I could see your eyes in the dark you were just looking at me nothing else just the looking it was I don’t know suddenly terrible my whole insides filled it made me angry it was sore it filled me up as simply as water will fill a cup a sink a bath a pool a river the ocean basin or whatever you put it in it filled me so I could hardly breathe came right up over my nose like I was too small for the depth of it Sara do you remember you had a pain in your stomach one day in that week you first went to work at the hotel & do you remember you took that pink stuff that comes in the bottle with the plastic cup on the top of it well inside the bedside cabinet your cabinet from the side of your bed I went through it before they took it away I found the cup it was the week after you & there was a little of the pink stuff left at the bottom that you hadn’t drunk it had solidified inside the cup I picked it out with the tips of my nails it was exactly the shape of the inside of the cup & even had printed on it the writing from off the bottom of the cup except backwards that is amazing isn’t it it is interesting eh it is inside my cabinet at the back now I am going to keep it for as long as it keeps for I don’t know if it will last it is kind of papery-feeling now it has darkened in colour it doesn’t smell of anything but I touched it with my tongue it tastes sort of sweet it is lobotomic I know but I couldn’t not keep it in a way it is kind of like the five
pounds he owed you I put the five pounds in the cabinet too I won’t ever spend it it is yours in a way it means you maybe because it means you it will call you back or if you know it is here you will come back for it it belongs to you even if you don’t I will keep it for you it is worth more than anything I have flattened it out between two books Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs & your dictionary you had from school it is full of words you could have looked up I am always wondering when I look at it which of the words you needed to know the meanings of it is funny how many words there are & nothing ever even said it is as if I’ve thought so many fucking words out into this room not ours mine by now that I am swimming in them ha sinking more like they must be like several metres deep now maybe this bed is afloat on them like a ship a rowing boat no maybe I’m already under them & breathing like a fish through gills I didn’t know I had maybe I am a better swimmer than I thought here I go swimming swooping about who needs oxygen I am a great fucking swimmer God staying awake so late is better than drugs any time now I am swimming about on the deck of a boat & the boat is under what is the word for deep water under deep miles of all these words I haven’t said I wonder if words are light or heavy I suppose it depends what they’re saying or what they’re not saying well dictionaries though are hardly fucking light are they oh I think that was a bird was it there is always one bird starts the whole fucking raft of them off cheeping not long till the morning comes up till morning has broken like the first morning like that
hymn from school blackbird has spoken etc spoken ha ha more like fucking yelling it IT’S MORNING AGAIN EVERYBODY UP COME ON EVERYBODY WAKE UP when I was small I used to think that the day break would be the same as switching on a light in a dark room but really in actuality the light is grey hardly like light at all more like the going away of light I think the most fucking amazing morning I ever saw was when there was that low mist the light came up like usual but I couldn’t see anything just mist as if a block of light nobody could see through was wedged between the window & the rest of the world as though outside wasn’t there any more & as the day came up the mist moved I saw it move like a curtain across the garden like something was sweeping it back it was amazing to watch the world come back      God     that terrible night it first went away it was early much earlier than it is now first the phone going it woke me then the knocking on the door & I got up I was standing at our bedroom door & they were in the hall already there was the policeman & the policewoman dad was already dressed but his pyjama trousers top was coming out of the waistband of his work trousers then mum was flat against the wall the policeman standing next to dad with his helmet under his arm dad looked small beside him like he’d hurt his back then my heart was falling I felt it something happened the house had changed something had come in the door & changed it it wasn’t just our house it was everything outside too like it had all been smashed then
stuck together with glue by someone but all in the wrong order & we were standing in the hall at home it had got light outside by itself nobody in the hall moving up it came anyway same as usual the fucking light of day

& since it has been good since then to have some reasons for it & for getting up & breakfast & more of the same & another day again

& since breakfast can actually I forgot taste & smell like really good

& since Sara you used to smell of specially cleaned water & since now you are nothing but air you are not even air any more I don’t know what you are

& since when you used to set the table after we got home from school you used to hit the sideboard with the sides of the knives along to whatever was playing on the radio or whatever was on the TV

& since I have the photo of us at Christmas time last year it is in the cabinet under the dictionary he won’t find it there neither of them will so she won’t be upset by it either it is okay to have it

& since you would laugh about the hoover & the handkerchief thing & the pink stuff in the cup I know you would

& since there was that day when you pulled my hair really hard

& since you got into real trouble when mum brushed my hair & it all came out in a big clump on the brush

& since it hasn’t ever grown back properly there since then

& since you could swear better than anybody

& since you covered my arm in bruises after I told about you swearing

& since I went to Bourne’s on my first day in my new blazer & all those girls from your year your friends crowded round me at the south gate saying was I your little sister I don’t know if you knew they did that

& since I will always know off by heart I will not forget the sound of you breathing in the dark

& since there was the night when I was eleven when they played the old song about the long and winding road on the radio & for some reason I don’t know why it made me frightened that the earth was full of dead people even the earth round the flowers outside in the garden though I didn’t say anything I was in bed you were in the other bed you said what’s wrong are you scared you knew I was without me having to say anything you went through to the kitchen & made toast & brought it through & climbed in we ate it I fell asleep on you I woke up the next morning & the plate was still on the bed on the blankets the crumbs on it so that proved it happened

& since you could hold your breath for so long under water

& since you could walk on it water I mean because there was the time there was almost nobody else in the pool I was up in the spectator gallery you were below me you were treading water at the deep end I was amazed I remember wondering how come she can do that stay on
the surface of the deep water like that as if she is just running on the spot how come she can float like that on nothing

& since maybe now you can walk on air too

& since wherever you are now I know you will be keeping us me & mum & dad safe

& since you were there you were definitely there all those times at the pool I saw you I can see you now up there on the top board high up much higher than the spectator seats so we were all looking up at you looking down at the water there’s always the moment before you jump when you wait just for a split second it looks like you might not do the dive you can back out of it if you want as if so what who needs to do it & then all the same you always did it you stepped forward sent the board down then up down then up your arms out & you were off into the air falling it was always so fucking brilliant you would flash easy through the air like the air was stretched out beautiful like I don’t know what like a fish like a hot knife through butter like you just diving as usual into water

& since in the end when you went & you went with legs & arms all I know I know upside down stuck in I know & then it was all over all of it the broken tops of all the waters over & done with still listen Sara even though you couldn’t even though you couldn’t move couldn’t do anything about it listen to me you were fast you were really really fast I know because I went there to see tonight I was there & you were so fast I still can’t
believe how fast you were less than four seconds just under four three & a bit that’s all you took I know I counted for you

Morning.

The garden is wet after last night’s rain. Winter, with more winter to come; the place is shabby already with the leftovers of the year and it will be three more months before everything dies down and spring can begin to be seen.

The tree is hung with yellows and reds, small inedible apples clawed or dropped. Either way, on the tree or on the ground, they’re for the frost. There are leaves left on the branches but the new leaves behind them, sealed shut inside, are inching them steadily off. The lilac is bare. The rhubarb has furled up and gone underground. Two of its huge summer leaves, left over the lawn-mower to protect it from rain, are stuck and rotting on the metal of the blades and frame. The new grass looks singed where the cold scuffed across it. The forsythia is a straggle of dead sticks. But the cranesbill is still flowering. The marigolds are flowering. The daisies and the campanula are finally flowering. The rock rose hasn’t stopped flowering. There are little flies suspended in the air, new and reckless. The feverfew is green. The snow-in-summer is green. The strawberry patch is still producing the occasional green strawberry under the leaves at the edge even this late in
the year. The birds pick at them if they find them; there are still plenty birds in the sky, the garden, the gradual revelation of branches.

Morning. Already some of the ghosts are out and about.

A Marks and Spencer carrier bag snagged by the wind on a fence can call the ghosts of a thousand middle-aged ladies back to linger by the jumpers and cardigans once more, wandering the aisles and fashions of the not-yet-open store, yearning to finger the wool of the sleeves of the new winter lines if only they could, to hold clothes up against them again and to smell the scent of the new, with the ghosts of their husbands waiting by the door, arms folded, bored, eternally impatient.