Checking Out- The Complete Trilogy

by T W M Ashford

  The looming barrel of my belly didn’t fancy a trip up six flights of stairs, so I pressed the button sitting between the two lift doors. Half a second later and the set to my right were opening; above, the arrow on the antique floor indicator was reclining against the L for Lobby. I almost expected a second gate to be pulled aside before I could get in - a metal mesh, like in the old elevators of New York - but instead a bellboy just stood to the back, inviting me in, asking what floor I required.

  ‘Sixth, please,’ I said, standing in the back-left of the golden box.

  The bellboy wore the same outfit as his lobby counterparts, with white gloves for pressing the art-deco elevator buttons. I wish I could complete the image by saying that he had a little stool, but he didn’t. What he did have was a set of infinite reflections, stretching out into an endless void of glass and gold, glass and gold. And from every angle I watched myself, too, steadily rising higher and higher still.

  Ting went the lift. The doors opened and as I disembarked the bellboy wished me a pleasant stay.

  628.

  The hall stretched out over the horizon, a perfect road of maroon criss-crossed by a pattern of waves. On each cream wall hung paintings of rural, city and ocean landscapes - watercolours and oils - with tiny reading lamps hung above their frames like insect antennae. Subtle but expensive bulbs blossomed from the ceiling. Little black desks backed by mirrors tabled nothing. From down the corridors faint laughter echoed and doors locked in place.

  The elevator doors closed behind me and its hum resumed.

  628.

  I wandered down the hall, quickly noticing that the even numbered rooms ran along the left hand side. It was a very nice hall. Very splendid. I don’t know what I’d expected, really - to be wowed into silence by the immense luxury of it all, perhaps - but it was just that. Splendid. Nice. Not too unlike the corridors of any reputable hotel - pleasant but forgettable.

  I suppose that’s the point. Some normality to act as a breather between the bedrooms and the decadence below. A little shadow to help the sunlight shine.

  I hadn’t even reached number 614 when a door to my right cracked open a little and two faces peered out. They were bright and smiling, belonging to two pretty girls who can’t have been far into their twenties, if that. Blonde hair and blue eyes, not yet blunt from life’s grinding stone. They giggled nervously, and through the gap in the door I could see a man stretched across the bed, clad in a white toga and picking grapes from out a bunch with his teeth. The girls noticed me standing there, burst into a fit of hysterics and shut the door with a slam.

  Standing there a moment longer, I couldn’t help but utter a chuckle in return. Each to their own, I thought, shrugging it off. I guess the rich can afford whatever fantasies they want.

  My door looked no different from any other. A plain brown canvass; a peep-hole in its centre; its number engrained in a plaque off to the side. A bronze handle reached out from its right, its keyhole waiting underneath.

  I fished out the key from my pocket and turned it in the lock. It seemed reluctant at first, coming to a dead stop only a quarter of the way around, but then relented with a concluding clunk. I pushed the door open with my back, pulling my suitcase in behind me.

  Now, I could bore you senseless with lengthy prose about how marvellous and deluxe my room, my suite at Le Petit Monde was. I could recount every stitch of the duvet, every mote of dust there wasn’t, every shimmering surface in a symphony of splendour.

  So I will.

  Straight ahead of me and the door was a walk-in closet, quite frankly preposterous for anybody staying in a hotel. Am I weird? Do guests normally bring their entire wardrobe with them? A little stool sat in the corner, being pointless. On the inside wall of the wardrobe were stands for an umbrella I didn’t have. I hung my jacket up and left my suitcase beside its floor-to-ceiling mirror, raindrops drooling down its plastic.

  The doors to the bedroom slid open on runners.

  The back wall was padded as if to resemble curtains of a beautiful beige. Actual curtains swam down the windows, and the only light came from two lamps - one on either side of the bed, and each consisting of pale-yellow shades emerging from towers of stacked glass beads - and a miniature chandelier suspended above. It was sensual, comfortable and more than capable of convincing me that I was at home on a cozy winter’s evening, not in a hotel room and only half way through the afternoon. The bed was a pristine white, dazzling even in that low lighting, and two tiny chocolate mints had been placed on the pillows.

  One for me, and one for me.

  There was an alcove set into the wall which offered a full set of tea and coffee services, as well as some crumbly biscuits wrapped individually in cellophane. Below them a mini-fridge hid, disguised as a mahogany cupboard, housing a range of wines I didn’t have to peruse to know I could never afford. To the other side was a television set - almost as big as my own, I’m proud to say - welcoming me by name and churning out some superbly talented yet utterly forgettable piano solos.

  I unwrapped one of the chocolates and crossed over to the third and final stop on my one-man tour - the bathroom. Now let me tell you: I’ve seen some fancy bathrooms in my time. You don’t travel around in my line of work without making use of some damn fine facilities, believe me. But, whilst taking a dark bite of my delicious chocolate, I had to admit that this was by far the best bathroom I’d ever had the fortune of frequenting.

  Twin sinks, accompanied by taps that I swear looked good enough to be gold. Two enormous mirrors and a little circular one that swivelled on a stand coming out from the wall. Matching sets of dressing gowns, that same heavenly white with Le Petit Monde stencilled against their breast in pale blue thread. A spacious toilet, with its own phone. Who do they expect people to call while they’re taking a dump? It could come in handy should one run out of toilet paper, I suppose. Next to it was a rain shower that wouldn’t have struggled to host four people (and I wonder why that was, snigger snigger), with a door of delicate, frosted glass. Honestly, I’ve seen smaller second bedrooms. And opposite that was a bath, long and round, with a television set of its own.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ I remember saying to myself, throwing the chocolate’s wrapper into the bathroom’s bin. ‘So this is what you get when your bank account has a haemorrhage. A bigger space to shit.’

  The attitude was deliberate, and not particularly genuine. I loved the room; I loved everything about the room. And I did so because of its very ostentatious nature. But try as I might to enjoy the experience, to make the most of the wealth and luxury open to me, I couldn’t help but be cynical. It was so… much. So far apart from what I’d grown up with, from what I’d ever achieved myself, that it felt a little ridiculous to be standing there. I didn’t belong, and even though I’d paid for my room in advance I half expected somebody to knock on my door and ask me to leave, to call me out as an impostor. How could anybody afford to spend half a grand on a hotel room… per night? How, come to mention it, could I?

  I knew the answer, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself. An insurance payout can go a long way, even if every note and coin feels like blood money.

  But money it is, and as they say: you can’t take it with you.

  I twisted one of the left-hand sink’s unnecessarily splendid taps. Ice cold water flowed out hard and fast, with none of the choking and gurgling that old pipes seem to layer on for character. I cupped my hands together and for a second let a pool form between them before I splashed it up onto my face. I felt its chill trickle down the front of my shirt; I felt it drop from off my (now) messy hair. It speckled the mirror just like the rain pelting at the bathroom window.

  It’s funny how tired travelling can make you, even though by its nature you’re almost guaranteed to be doing very little. Perhaps it gives time a chance to catch you up.

  Who was it, in the mirror, looking back at me? He looked familiar, but I’m sure it couldn’t be me. Sure of it. I could never have got
ten so old. When had the grey started to creep amongst the brown, spreading into silver streaks like a plague? When had the lines begun to tear from out under my eyes… When had my eyes faded like dying stars, like a child’s chipped and forgotten marbles left to gather dust in the attic?

  I looked down at my stomach, at the bulge of my shirt climbing out and over my belt. Was this what people meant when they talked about middle age? That all of a man seems to congregate there, in the middle, like the trunk of a tree growing wider and wider?

  I turned away from the mirror. It was starting to dampen my mood.

  Back in the bedroom I put my briefcase atop the round and wooden desk, brushing aside the branded pad and pen left for me by the staff. The black leather case squeaked and creaked atop its polished surface. It was a good briefcase - a professional briefcase - and one I’d taken with me to every client meeting I’d had since unwrapping it on my birthday eight years before. It had survived the years a hell of a lot better than I had and, unlike its owner, looked perfectly at home in our surroundings. I thumbed the two golden catches and popped open its lid.

  Nothing went into my briefcase unless it weighed with importance. Contracts, proposals… and a birth certificate, once upon a time. You’d never have found a half-eaten sandwich or a sticky tub of hair wax rolling about amongst the red and velvet lining, for example. That afternoon was no different. Everything was still in its place; nothing had inexplicably vanished into the netherworld between Littlewick Green and London. I traced the contents longingly, affectionately… and then pulled my hand away. It would be too easy to become lost inside a memory, to be overcome. It was not time.

  There was, however, time for a nap, to refresh myself before the events of the evening. I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my shirt and trousers, then slid between the cool and crisp sheets. It was a good bed. A great bed. It took less than a minute for me to slip into a calm and dreamless sleep.

  I didn’t know it then, but I needed the rest. It would be a long, long evening, and a very abrupt night.

  Chapter Three

  Something about the restaurant was off - wrong, somehow. Something behind the scenes… or a fleeting incorrection, like a shadow walking separate from its host.

  It was staggering, not that I expected any less. Both in size and beauty, that is; it stretched beyond sight - or at least the mirrored walls made it look as though it did - and every inch of its interior was dolled up to resemble an art deco restaurant ripped straight from 1920s Paris. Pillars of gold and marble ran in rows and columns. Simple but elegant wooden chairs flanked a hundred or more tables, each clad with overlaid squares of tablecloths and folded napkins. Wine glasses sparkled in the vibrant light. A large clock face watched from atop the far wall, its slow hands drifting in silence above the heads of the diners.

  It was brilliant, delicious, authentic. But it didn’t feel quite right. I guess things hadn’t since the evening started.

  I’d woken up about three hours after climbing into bed; if my phone hadn’t screamed out its tinny rendition of The House of the Rising Sun I may well have carried on my slumber amongst the goose down for hours still. Blinking until my eyes grew accustomed to the bedroom’s dim light, I’d crossed the room in my boxers and thrown open the curtains.

  Darkness had fallen across London, the last remnants of sun licking the rooftops across the river as it relinquished the day to another April night. Purples lay the groundwork for blacks, streaking across a sky still full of deep clouds threatening to bombard the city once more. The rain had abated, for the time being. It drizzled upon the cobbled streets and made them shine like stones on a shore, but I was confident the storm would rear its ugly head again before the witching hour.

  I don’t know what came over me, but I pulled down my boxers and stood bollock naked by the window for a moment. A long moment. I couldn’t tell you what possessed me to do it - I certainly didn’t want to be seen by anybody (though what a sorry sight that would have been, for anybody expecting a quiet evening stroll along the Thames). Perhaps I thought a brief moment of freedom, of unabashed display, might send something familiar crawling through me, that by crossing the threshold between the world within and the world without something inside me might change. I thought there’d be embarrassment, if not excitement. But there was nothing, only the same dull numbness.

  I kicked my boxers off my feet and over to where the rest of my clothes lay, then wandered into the bathroom.

  The shower had been perfect from the second I’d turned the faux-crystal faucet, a proper Goldilocks moment. Not cold, not lobster-scolding hot, but just right, as if pre-set to my personal preference. Its monsoon downpour sent clouds of steam billowing around the cubicle until I could see so poorly that I almost tripped over the complimentary bottles of shampoo at my feet. I’d stood amongst that mist for a good twenty minutes or so whilst the little boy in me imagined trudging through a tropical jungle, wary of tigers and natives. But then I remembered I was forty-two, so I snapped the tap back to its off position and walked out into the steaming bathroom, water dripping off me in ribbons.

  The enormous cotton towel left me looking like a hamster that had gone three rounds in a tumble drier. I zipped open my suitcase and got out my change of clothes, reprimanding myself for not hanging up my suit before hitting the hay. Still, it hadn’t creased. It was my good suit, black and sharp and only worn once before. That had been a funeral, and I was lucky I hadn’t put on much weight in the three years since. Pay attention, all you dieters out there: stress works wonders for your figure.

  So I’d gotten dressed in my best suit and my best tie and my best shoes, my hair looking slick and my cologne smelling good, and I’d gone down to the restaurant to claim my table for one.

  The table in question was good, small in size but in a great location. It was near enough to the reception of the restaurant that I could easily get the attention of any passing waiters, yet far enough from the stage that whatever entertainment they had planned wouldn’t burst my eardrums. It was busy and yet not crowded; every table seemed full, even as more guests were ushered through the doors by the staff. And no matter how many of those tables needed serving, there always seemed to be a well-dressed steward to hand.

  In fact, the very moment I’d put down my menu I’d found a smiling waiter beside me, pad and pen at the ready.

  I’d ordered a main of Bœuf Bourguignon washed down with a large glass of Château Beaumont Haut-Médoc, vintage 2010. Christ, when did seven years become a vintage? Sure, it might taste great, but I’ve kept fire alarm batteries longer than that. But taste good it did. It was a red with none of that ugly sharpness that adults have to pretend not to notice at dinner parties.

  I started to wish I’d bought a bottle, then remembered that it didn’t really matter.

  There was some faint piano being pumped through hidden speakers, quiet enough not to notice unless you were straining your ears yet present enough to fill up the gaps in conversation. Which was handy, given I only had myself for company. But this fortunate fact also gave me a chance to watch my fellow guests without distraction… save for the wine, of course. If my dinner hadn’t arrived not too long afterwards I fear it would have all gone straight to my head.

  On a long table a little way off to my left was a pride of businessmen, every one of them in a suit that made my jacket look like an old man’s sweater. One of them, a portly fellow with a sickly yellow tie and white moustache, cracked what apparently passed as a joke, and everybody else fell about laughing, coughing up their whiskeys and hammering the table with their fists. Only a single woman sat with them, the black sheep of the board meeting, and the fat man’s hand was climbing up the inside of her thigh.

  On the table next to that sat a nuclear family of four, and thankfully there was no under-the-table grabbing to speak of. None that I could make out, at least. Their youngest, a boy of about three, was using his spoon to flick mashed potato at his big sister - the same girl, I’m sure, that
seemed so defiant in leaving the hotel earlier that afternoon. The parents looked embarrassed and frustrated.

  And off to the right was another table of four - two couples having a double-date, it seemed to me. But what struck me as odd was that neither couple looked to suit the other. I don’t mean to be disparaging of their friendship, or to suggest that one couple looked rich and the other poor; no, the neck of either woman possessed more wealth than all the money I’d accrued in my lifetime. All four of them belonged, truly, to Le Petit Monde. Rather, they looked as if they should occupy not different spaces, but different times. One couple resembled characters stolen from the pages of The Great Gatsby, the other that of Great Expectations. I swear the man from the latter couple had a top hat hanging from the nearby coat hooks.

  Nobody else seemed to bat an eyelid at their presence, however, so I guessed there was something I’d missed. Some sort of historical reenactment club’s meeting, perhaps. The hotel was open to all, at the end of the day… so long as the trenches of their wallets ran deep enough.

  My beef arrived, accompanied by its own mashed potato date. They were unfathomably delicious. The meat was tender and full of deep flavour, the gravy thick and running through the mash like volcanic rivers. Another upside for the solo eater: the chance to really appreciate one’s food, without having to think of what next to say.

  As soon as I was finished a waiter appeared to clear the table. You know a meal is good when you start to miss it.

  Damn, I thought. I should have got them to bring me another glass…

  ‘More wine, sir?’ asked a smiling waitress to my right. Her uniform consisted of a plain white shirt and black pencil skirt, and I thought she looked quite cute. More important, however, was the bottle held out towards me.