The night sparkles with so many stars it looks staged, like a set in a theatre. I never see any at home. Never have time to look. I stare at the dark outline of what I assume is Camelback Mountain. ‘I can’t see you yet, but I know you’re beautiful,’ I whisper, and start to cry.
Cut it out right now, Cara. Get to your room, and then you can do it all: cry, get something to eat, have a relaxing bath, sleep, wish you hadn’t given your phone to a rude stranger …
Getting to my room might be more of a challenge than I anticipated. The scale of the car park suggests the Swallowtail resort might be the size of a small town. It could be bigger than Hertford, come to think of it. As well as a sign saying ‘Main Hotel Building/Reception’, I’ve already seen several suggesting there are lots of different residential areas here: ‘Copper Star Villas’, ‘Monarch Suites’, ‘Swallowtail Village’, ‘The Residence’, ‘Camelback Casitas’.
The sign I saw for reception was quite a way back. I close my eyes, thinking of the effort it will take to wheel my suitcases back to that point – and God alone knows how long a walk it will be from there to my room. I’m not sure I can do it – not tonight at least. I could fall asleep here quite happily, with the car door open to the warm night. Maybe one of the M1 to M4 driver-seat-position buttons contains the memory of how to stretch out flat, like a bed.
The sound of an engine makes me sit up straight. Is it another guest arriving? The noise moves nearer, then stops. No, it wasn’t a car. The wrong pitch, and not loud enough. A lawnmower, maybe – one of those big ones you sit on and drive around if you’ve got a big field to trim. But at this time of night?
I hear footsteps coming closer. A man’s voice says, ‘Ma’am? I’ll bet you’re the lady I’ve been waiting for: Mrs Cara Burrows from Hertford, England. Last guest of the night. Am I right?’
The sound of his voice makes me feel so much better. It’s the opposite of Rock the Hole’s indifferent drone. I think it might be the most reassuring voice I’ve ever heard. Disembodied, in the dark, it makes me smile before I’ve seen the face it’s attached to.
‘Yes, I’m Cara Burrows. Sorry, I’m later than I said I’d be.’
‘No need whatsoever to apologise, ma’am. I’m just real glad you’re here now. Welcome to Arizona, and to the Swallowtail Resort and Spa. You’re gonna have a beautiful stay with us, I can promise you that. All our guests do!’
Of course they do. When you’re paying that much … I push away the thought I’ve managed to avoid so far: how much all this is going to cost. A third of the savings it’s taken Patrick and me fifteen years to build up. Oh, God. It’s worse when I think of it like this, worse than the specific sum of money. So irresponsible: a whole third.
I could have chosen somewhere less luxurious to stay and at least five times cheaper, could have booked a week instead of a fortnight. Could have, should have …
I didn’t, though. This is what I did. This was my choice. The best place I could find, money no object.
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to feel proud and ashamed at the same time, but it is. Guilt and defiant pride have been battling it out inside me since I made the booking.
I economised around the edges, not only by choosing a dodgy-looking car-hire firm, but also on the flights – one change in both directions, saving nearly seven hundred pounds – and I regretted it. If I’d had any self-respect I’d have spared myself the three pointless hours at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.
I hear a click. Torchlight turns the night yellow. The man with the best voice in the world leans down and smiles at me. He’s fifty-odd, bald, and wearing a blazer with a ‘Swallowtail Resort and Spa’ badge on it, and five gold stars. Beneath this is another badge that says, ‘Diggy’. The skin of his face is craggy-looking in places and pouchy in others, as if it was designed to include distinct hard and soft zones.
‘Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’m Diggy – that’s what everyone calls me. Now, much as I’d be happy to show you round tonight, it’s pretty dark, and I’m guessing you’re tired and maybe you’d rather leave it till tomorrow? So why don’t we get you to reception? I’ve got a club car here – drive you right there. No need to walk at Swallowtail if you’d rather get a ride! Tomorrow, once you’re rested, give the concierge’s desk a call, tell them you’re ready for Diggy’s tour. I’ll come pick you up from wherever you’re staying, and show you everything you need to see. How does that sound? The Diggy-mobile will be at your service!’
‘Brilliant. Thank you.’
I watch, amazed, as he picks up my luggage as if it’s weightless and slings it into the back of a sort of golf buggy. It has silver wheels, white leather seats, open sides, and a kind of cream canvas awning on the top. I climb aboard. Diggy switches off his torch and leaps into the driver’s seat, saying, ‘All aboard the Diggy-mobile!’
I haven’t got a watch or my phone so I don’t know how long it takes us to trundle along to reception, but it’s between five and ten minutes – out of the car park and along a series of winding roads, with little golden-white globes of light behind cobbled borders on both sides to point the way in the dark. We pass low houses – some facing us straight on, some turned to the side – with curved edges, terraces, balconies, neat front gardens behind low walls. I catch a glimpse of moonlight reflected in water, lean out of the club car and see a small square swimming pool behind one of the villas. All kinds of shrubbery sprouts haphazardly at the side of each curvy street. I wasn’t expecting it; I’ve always thought of Arizona as dry and desert-like. As we pass a cluster of tennis courts on the right, a rotating sprayer shoots a refreshing mist into the club car from the left: a haze of water dust that lands on my face. Sprinklers: that’s what makes all this lush greenery possible.
There are cacti too, lots of them – some that look like eruptions of spikes, in large pots; others, twice my height or more, protruding from flat gravelled-over areas, as if they’ve grown out of the stone. These tall ones stand in clusters. Some have arms that look raised, as if they’re waving. Diggy points this out to me at the very moment that I’m thinking it. ‘They look like they’re saying hello and welcome, don’t they? You know how long it takes one of those arms to start growing? Seventy to a hundred years. Seventy minimum.’
We pass a fountain and some wide steps, a row of high palm trees with fairy lights wound around their trunks all the way to the top, glowing pale pink and pale blue. Lower down, I can see the corner of an illuminated rectangle of vivid turquoise that must be one of the resort pools. A few metres further on, when I turn and look the other way, I see two tall cast-iron lamp-posts topped by large shallow bowls that have been set alight. Actual fire is rising from them: orange flames rising to a point, making a glowing triangle on each side of … what? It looks like some sort of entrance.
‘Wow,’ I murmur.
‘Yeah, that’s our maze,’ says Diggy. ‘Make sure to get lost in it while you’re here – it’s one of Swallowtail’s most popular features. You only get the flames at night, though. Which doesn’t make it any easier to find your way out than in the daytime, I gotta warn you.’
Eventually the club car stops outside a building that’s much bigger than any of the individual houses we’ve passed. Its façade is a half-circle, with two long arm-like wings branching out from it.
‘Here we are, ma’am,’ says Diggy. ‘I’ll introduce you to Riyonna. She’ll take real good care of you.’
He strolls towards the building with my cases. Watching him, it dawns on me that I need to walk too. My limbs have been asleep and soon start to ache from the shock of having to move again after bobbing along in the club car. I wish the resort had the indoor equivalent, taking guests all the way to their rooms.
I follow Diggy into a spacious lobby area that’s all red marble with thin white and black veins in it. I might see it differently in the morning, but tonight it makes me think of the inside of a body. There are tall pot plants positioned in every corner – more like little t
rees – with rubbery dark green leaves and sturdy brown trunks. They look too alert for the way I feel.
Behind the wooden reception desk there’s a wide-shouldered black woman, about my age, with a big smile and the kind of braids that I’m pretty sure are called ‘cornrow’. Like Diggy, she has the Swallowtail badge on her jacket, and one that says, ‘Riyonna Briggs’. She seems genuinely delighted to see me, and I hope she doesn’t say anything too kind or solicitous. I’d burst into tears if she did.
I smile weakly as I hand over my passport and credit card. Each movement is difficult; every impression a blur. I knock something on the desk with my elbow, and it hurts. Looking down, I see it’s a tiny bronze Buddha statue, sitting cross-legged beside some kind of weird, messy plant. Is it a cactus? It doesn’t look hard-edged or prickly enough; it looks as if someone’s cooked a load of green beans and then tipped them haphazardly into a yellow ceramic pot.
The Buddha, facing straight ahead as if determined to ignore the weird bean-cactus, has a pile of ivory-coloured Swallowtail resort business cards balanced on the upturned palms of his hands as if to say, ‘Spend your money here and all the wisdom will be yours.’ It’s clever marketing, I suppose, but it makes me shudder. Or perhaps it’s the exhaustion that’s doing that.
Riyonna’s eyes are full of curiosity, and for a moment I’m afraid she’s going to lean forward and say, ‘So what’s wrong with you? Life falling apart? Run away from home?’
How do most guests behave who arrive in the middle of the night? I can’t imagine they’re full of beans and eager to chat.
Luckily, Riyonna keeps it businesslike. I try to look as if I’m listening as she tells me about WiFi codes and breakfast times. I don’t need to know. Sleep is the only thing I care about. Tell me about sleep.
Diggy takes his leave, after repeating his promise to show me around tomorrow.
No. The day after. Please. I can’t promise to wake up in time for tomorrow.
Riyonna folds a piece of cardboard in half and inserts a plastic key card into the slit. I was wrong – she’s not my age. More like ten years older: late forties. There are lines around her eyes that she’s tried very hard to cover with make-up.
I nod automatically at everything she says, not really listening, and start slightly as she moves out from behind the reception desk, holding my room key in her hand. She’s short – shorter than I imagined her to be, even in her high stiletto heels. Strange. Sitting down, she looked taller; it must have been because of her broad shoulders.
‘I … you don’t need to come with me. Really. Thanks,’ I manage to say.
‘Are you sure? Your room’s right here in the main hotel building, so it’s not far. We like to check guests are happy with their rooms.’
‘I’ll be fine. Thanks.’ I hope I’m not being rude. I can’t bear the thought of having to make polite conversation for a second longer. If she tags along in spite of my protests, I’m going to lie down on the red marble floor and cry.
She laughs and nods. ‘I hear ya! No problem. You go get yourself some rest.’ She hands me the key and I grab it. Nearly there.
I start to walk towards where the lifts ought to be – where I’d have put them if I’d designed the building.
‘I’ll have someone bring up your bags immediately,’ Riyonna calls after me.
That’s not soon enough. The last thing I want once I’m in my room is someone knocking at the door. I’d completely forgotten about my suitcases. ‘No, it’s okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll take them up myself.’
‘Absolutely fine,’ says Riyonna. ‘Whatever you want. Oh – elevators are that way.’ She points in a direction that would not have occurred to me. Clearly Swallowtail’s architect and I would never agree on anything.
The number on my paper key wallet begins with a ‘3’, which I suppose means my room’s on the third floor. As the lift doors slide closed, I groan with relief. Nearly there now. So so close. I feel numb, and therefore better. I’m too tired to think, worry, regret, miss my family.
I get out at level 3 and struggle to interpret the signs on the wall, though they can’t be complicated – I’m just in the wrong condition to be staring at lots of numbers that begin with 3, and arrows pointing all over the place. It takes me five seconds longer than it should to work out that my room is right beside the lift: a sharp left turn around a corner and I’m there.
I touch the key card against the pad on the door and a green light flashes. I let myself in and wheel my cases into the room, swearing under my breath as I bang them against the door frame. It’s dark, but I can see I’m in a rectangular space, about six feet by twelve, that widens out at the end. In the light that floods into the room from the corridor, I see what look like the bottom ends of two double beds.
My fingers scrabble for a light switch. Instead, they find a small box-like structure attached to the wall. I know from family holidays in Greek and Spanish hotels that this is the slot where I need to insert my key card if I want the lights to work. I try to put it in and find I can’t. Opening the door wider for more light, I see why: there’s already a card in the slot. The person who had the room before me must have left it in, and whoever made up the room didn’t notice. I pull out the card, drop it on the floor and replace it with mine. No lights come on.
The door next to the key-card slot has to be the bathroom, opposite the fitted wardrobes, minibar and safe. I open it and walk in, feeling a sudden urgent need to splash cold water on my face. The door to the third-floor corridor clunks shut, and it’s suddenly pitch black in here. Fumbling again for a light switch, I find nothing on the smooth, cool bathroom walls.
Feels like more marble. Probably red with white and black veins.
I reach around to grope outside in the hallway – there must be a switch somewhere, surely – and find one eventually, lower than I expected it to be.
Light, at last. I was right: I’m in the bathroom.
Not right, says a voice in my head as my heart starts to pound. Something is wrong in here …
The room is full of somebody’s possessions: a green and black one-piece swimming costume hanging from a hook on the wall – petite-woman-sized, or teenage girl maybe; a pair of men’s swimming trunks draped over the door of the glass shower cubicle; lots of thin metal hair grips; two toothbrushes; two deodorants; one of those old-fashioned rubber swimming caps in a pale pinky-beige colour; shaving foam, a packet of disposable razors.
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Someone’s here, in the room. They must be – asleep in the beds I saw. No one would leave this many of their possessions behind.
The key card that was in the slot when I walked in …
I hear a girl’s voice say, ‘I spilled Coke on Poggy. And Doodle Dandy.’
She sounds young and upset. And terrifyingly close.
Because she is.
Looks like I’m not the only one who’s not at my best in the middle of the night. Riyonna the receptionist screwed up. This room’s already occupied – by someone who, in less than twenty seconds, will find me in their bathroom.
What the hell do I do?
Stay calm, Cara. Think fast.
There’s no chance of me escaping undetected, not now that someone’s awake in there. All my luggage is in the hallway. No way I could get it all out quick enough.
The next voice I hear is a man’s. ‘Coke? What?’ He sounds disorientated, as if he’s been dragged from a deep sleep. ‘You shouldn’t be drinking Coke in the middle of the night, honey. You brushed your teeth already.’
‘I wasn’t drinking it.’ The girl sounds upset. Unjustly accused. ‘I knocked it over by accident. It was on the table, left over from dinner. I was going to the bathroom to see who’s in there.’
‘No one’s in there.’
‘Yes, they are. I heard someone moving around.’
Oh, shit. Here it comes. Why am I still standing here, silent and frozen, as if I might be able to wish myself elsewhere? I should have declared my presence at
once, soon as I heard the girl speak.
The man says, ‘The light’s on in there. Did you switch it on?’
‘No!’ The girl sounds as if she’s crying. ‘There’s someone in there, I know it.’
‘Honey, there really isn’t. Sssh. Stay where you are, okay? I’ll go check it out.’
‘But I spilled Coke on Poggy,’ the girl whines. ‘Look at him!’
‘Poggy’s gonna be fine. Listen to me: Poggy will clean up and look as good as new, I promise. The Coke’ll wash out. And there’s no one in our bathroom. It was probably water pipes you heard – but let me go have a look anyway, just so we’re sure.’
I shut my eyes and wait. This is going to be unbearably awful. I’m stuck in a nightmare. Please let me wake up. What if he hits me?
‘What the hell are these …?’ His voice is so close. He must be right outside the bathroom door, staring at my two suitcases.
What’s wrong with me? How can I let this carry on for a second longer? I have to say something now, before he pushes open the door and sees me. The worst thing I can do is look as if I’m trying to get away with it, hoping not to be found.
‘The cases are mine. I’m … I’m in your bathroom,’ I call out with my eyes squeezed tightly shut. My voice is unsteady and hoarse. ‘I’m a woman, on my own, as freaked out as you are, I swear. This is a mistake, and I’ll leave immediately. I’ve just got off a plane from England and driven through the night, I’m exhausted, and this isn’t my fault. The receptionist sent me to the wrong room, so … please don’t be angry with me. My name’s Cara Burrows. I’m from Hertford in England and I’m completely harmless.’
When I open my eyes, a man and a girl are standing in the hall outside the bathroom, staring in at me, their mouths open. They look as shaken as I feel. Neither of them lunges at me with a raised fist or a weapon. That’s something to be grateful for.
The man’s big with a hairy chest, muscly arms and a bit of a belly hanging over the top of his white boxer shorts. Dark hair, bad haircut: ever so slightly too long at the sides and too short on top. I’m surprised by the girl, who looks about thirteen, maybe a bit older. She could easily be in Jess’s year at school or the year above. From what I heard when I couldn’t see her, I’d have guessed she was no older than seven or eight. What kind of thirteen-year-old cries because she’s spilled some Coke?
Did You See Melody? Page 2