He must have disappeared himself. I didn’t notice, actually. I’m staring at our room. No, not a room, a suite, though even that is far too tame a word. It’s white, bridal white, with one huge heart-shaped bed. The carpet is like snow, warm snow, the sort your feet sink into. The walls are ivory silk, etched with tiny silver hearts. Pictures everywhere – naughty pictures of naked gods and goddesses getting down to it: Jupiter and Danae, Bacchus and his groupies, Venus with a Cupid looking younger than the bellboy. Their names are underneath, picked out in silver.
I leave Norah on a love-seat, peek into the bathroom. The bath is circular, pure white marble sunk into the floor, and big enough to hold a tribe. The swan’s-neck taps look like solid gold, match the gleaming golden toilet seat and cistern. Beside it is a statue on a plinth – two white marble lovers embracing and entwined. I run the taps, surprised to see plain water gushing out and not hot and cold champagne. The soap is lily of the valley, gift-wrapped.
I close the door, sink into a white brocaded armchair in the bedroom. On the table, a huge bouquet of all-white flowers – carnations, iceberg roses and some exotic lily-things which smell whiffy like French cheese. My suitcase has arrived, its scuffed and shabby airforce blue disturbing that luxurious sea of white. I’d better hide it, hide away myself. I open a cupboard door, stop in shock as “Here Comes the Bride” tinkles out from some hidden music-box. “Shit,” I mutter, flop down on the bed. So this is the bridal suite. That explains the hearts, the wedding-white.
I glance at my bridegroom who is snoring on the love-seat, mouth open, thick lisle stockings bagging round her knees. She’s spilt gravy on her suit, airline gravy, which has dried on brown and stiff. The suit itself is green, a sage-green Crimplene number which the WRVS picked out for her at the Beechgrove jumble sale. It even fits, though they were less fortunate with the shoes which are brown and boat-like, gaping at both sides. Her coat was a present from a Friend, a cast-off in balding astrakhan and older than Norah is herself. The Friends all rallied round to help, once they’d recovered from the shock of a patient going anywhere beyond the day-trip to the coast which they organise themselves.
I lie back on the pillows, eight separate pillows, each a heart itself; see a tired and messy girl in a wrinkled denim skirt. Myself. The entire ceiling is mirrored, intended to reflect back the gymnastics of the honeymoon. The Gold Rush has its own luxurious Wedding Chapel. You can be wedded here, then bedded, with only a lift-ride in between. I reach out for the phone.
A bored girl answers, not a genie.
“Look,” I say. “We’re not the honeymooners.”
We must be. The computer can’t be wrong. I point out we’re both females, but it seems to make no difference. Las Vegas marries lesbians; it even marries dolls. There was a report in the (English) Standard which Jan had saved for me, about a clergyman from the American Fellowship Church joining two Cabbage Patch dolls in holy matrimony, in a Las Vegas Wedding Chapel. (“They were so in love,” he said.)
“Can you hold on a moment, Ma’ am? I’ll have to have a word with …”
“Oh, forget it,” I tell her. It’s hardly worth the fuss. I wish I hadn’t phoned. I’ve got this horrid frightening feeling that we’re just a computer error; that we didn’t win the prize at all; maybe don’t exist. Another girl’s come on now, asking if I’m Mrs Rita Holdsworth from Ohio.
“No,” I say. “I’m not Mrs anyone, but can we leave it till the morning? I’m really flaked. We’ve been travelling eighteen hours and …”
In the morning, she’ll probably send us packing, tell us to go home. Except there isn’t any home.
I sit down at the dressing table which has a string of miniature light bulbs round the mirror, like film-stars have in Hollywood, and real porcelain powder-bowls. To tell the truth, I feel a bit uneasy, let loose in all this luxury. I mean, some poor sods in Vauxhall are living seven to a room, with mould on the wall instead of goddesses, and a smelly outside loo. Jan’s place isn’t bad, but it’s still smaller than the bathroom here.
I can see Norah in the mirror. She’s slumped right over, falling off the seat. I suppose I ought to haul her into bed, have a kip myself. Yet it feels all wrong to arrive somewhere so exotic and way-out and just tamely go to sleep.
“Fancy a quick flutter at roulette, Norah? Or a few hundred topless dancing girls?”
No answer. I wouldn’t mind a drink. There’s no sign of our champagne, though. It was promised in the package – a magnum of Bollinger awaiting our arrival. I presume the computer got that wrong as well.
“Norah, champagne or Ovaltine?”
Ovaltine’s the magic word, seems to wake her up. She peers in my direction, head weaving like a silkworm’s, makes a little moaning noise. I think I must have overdone her pills. Sister Watkins gave me strict instructions, but poor Toomey seemed so anxious on the last part of the trip, refused to eat her scones, kept telling me she hadn’t stolen them.
I lead her to the bed, heave her up on one half of the heart, try to take her clothes off. She’s heavy, unco-operative. I remove her shoes, struggle with her suit buttons. For the first time, I admire the Beechgrove nurses. In the end, I leave her suit-top on, and a thermal petticoat in flesh-pink flannel stuff. She hasn’t got a nightdress, hasn’t even got a change of clothes until her case shows up.
I turn the satin sheets back, tuck her in. She keeps licking her lips and swallowing, seems confused and feverish. I stare down at her pale and sweaty face, brush the limp hair from her forehead. Although she’s lying down now, I can still feel her weight around my neck. All the Beechgrove staff tried to talk her out of going, even after my marathon with Matron whom I silenced in the end with my borrowed legal skills. My law-school friend even wrote a letter for me on paper stolen from a posh solicitor, pointing out Norah’s legal rights. That may have done the trick, or maybe just the fact that with Beechgrove closing and everyone and everything disrupted, Matron had more vital things to fuss about. What if she was right, though, and Norah goes to pieces? I could even have poisoned her or something. Those drugs have side-effects.
She’s quiet now, deathly quiet, not even swallowing.
“Norah!” I shout. She opens her eyes. They look glassy and unfocused, but at least she’s still alive. I thank God automatically, wish I were more sure that He existed. I feel horribly alone – alone in a hotel with five thousand inmates. That only makes it worse. I’m just a tiny fraction of some huge great tourist-camp, issued with a number as if I was a prisoner. Our suite is number 2024. The door is shut and bolted. Cindy advised us to keep it on a chain in case of break-ins, and that despite her bragging that the Gold Rush employs twice as many security guards as the police force of an average town. There’s no sound at all, no human voice or radio, no burst of music or passing car. The walls are sound-proofed, insulated. A five-star padded cell.
I unchain the door, look out. No one. Just that stretch of ritzy corridor, and spiky shadows from the bowls of hothouse flowers. Even a mugger would be company, another human face. I suppose I could explore, whizz down in that lift again, stroll through the casino, order a meal with thunder-while-I-eat. I’ve lost all track of time – their time, our time – but the Gold Rush glitters twenty-four hours a day. That was in their Bible. Yet restaurants and casinos seem somehow still more threatening. I’ve never gambled in my life and waiters in those tailcoat-things always make me nervous. Anyway, how can I leave Norah? She’s not used to sleeping on her own, might wake in pain or panic.
I close the door, pace up and down the carpet. The pile’s so deep it’s lapping at my feet, muffling any noise. I feel it’s trying to stifle me, suck me into it. I’d better watch TV, find some serial or soap-opera, something comforting and witless which will act as a sort of sedative, lull me off to sleep. I press a button on the set which is white (of course) and mounted on a fancy stand with side-wings. A man in a dinner jacket with a red bow-tie and matching cummerbund is standing by a green baize table explaining double odds. I t
ry and switch channels, but the red bow-tie keeps smiling, talking very fast. “The same rule applies as if the shooter was making a first roll: if the next roll is seven, you win; if it’s two, three or twelve, you …”
I feel confused, even slightly scared. They give us all those gambling chips, but what if I don’t understand the games? Anyway, the whole prize thing is chancy now. No champagne, so maybe no chips either. Or free confetti instead. A computer could turn you into anyone – not just a bride, but a millionaire high-roller, or a bankrupt or cut-throat or a Sicilian Mafioso. It could even lose you altogether, simply wipe you off the files. Maybe that’s why Norah’s weak and gasping – the computer is unplugging her, doesn’t want her here.
I press another button. The red bow-tie returns. He’s on to blackjack now. “A tie is a standoff and nobody wins. If the dealer hits a …”
These must be the free gambling lessons offered in our rooms. I had imagined live ones, certainly didn’t realise they would hog every TV channel on the set. Perhaps the thing’s fouled up, or I’m pressing the wrong buttons. I try again. The same tuxedoed smile, but different spiel – a free plug for Las Vegas. “… Biggest adult playground in the globe; entertainment capital of the world.” His eyes seek mine, seem to bore right into them. “You owe it to yourself to try these games, try them all, make yourself a winner, change your life.”
That phrase again. Do I really want my life changed? I could win and still be lonely.
I turn him off, reach for the room-phone to ask how I get Dallas, and suddenly there’s a hammering on the door, a really thunderous knock. I freeze. Full-frontal photographs of muggers, Mafiosi, millionaire high-rollers who have mistaken our suite for theirs, flash lurid through my mind.
“Who is it?”
“Room service, Madam.”
That could be a ploy. Easy to say “room service” and then lunge in with a knife. I creep towards the door, glue my eye to the spy-hole. I can see a Christmas tree. I unhook the chain, open the door a centimetre. The tree walks in, on bellboy legs. A waiter follows, the frightening tailcoat kind, with an icebucket on a sort of silver pedestal. The Bollinger. Behind him is a waitress with a huge film-star bowl of fruit, and a second girl with two silver goblet things. I watch, amazed, as the procession files right past me, through a flush white door I’d assumed was just a cupboard, into another room I haven’t even seen – a palatial sort of dining-room-cum-lounge. The four unload their goodies, and I’m suddenly a prize-winner, official and computer-certified, as the champagne cork explodes across the room and golden bubbles froth into the goblets. The bellboy is fussing with the Christmas tree, the white-gloved waiter shining up the fruit-knives. I smile at them, but their faces stay like masks.
I wish they’d stick around, make a little party. But it’s like the hospital again – inmates versus staff – impossible to bridge the gulf. They’re already at the door, bowing and salaaming, bidding me goodnight. It must be night (official) and they’ve turned it into Christmas with the tree. I feel touched and close to tears. It’s such a glamorous tree – golden boughs with tiny golden birds on them, shining golden balls, gold star at the top.
My father always bought a real tree, the sort which sheds its needles and drove my mother mad. She made him stand it on a dust-sheet and kept hoovering around it, so that all the tinsel trembled and half the things fell off. We never had expensive decorations, only bits and pieces made of silver foil or milk-tops, and some wooden pegs Dad dressed in bits of lace and stuff as dolls, painting in their faces with smiling mouths and kiss-curls. Every December, from the time I was six or seven right up to last year, my mother said, “Surely you’re too old now for a tree.” I used to die inside, imagining no tree, no smiling pegs, no Christmas Eve wobbling on the ladder. But my father always worked the Christmas miracle, braved my mother’s nagging.
It was a Beechgrove tree this year, Beechgrove everything. We had senile turkey yesterday and pre-sliced Christmas pudding, semi-cold; and all the staff wore tinsel on their caps and were fiercely and continuously jolly which made things quite a strain. (Though half the patients in Norah’s ward didn’t even realise it was Christmas. I envied them. I even envied Norah, who just ploughed on with her jigsaw whenever there was a break in all the whoopee.)
I sit stiffly at the table, goblet in both hands. It seems wrong to drink alone, especially with that second glass still spitting bubbles at me. I wonder if I’ll ever have a honeymoon. I’d like to be a couple. It must be far less frightening to be joined and vowed to someone, one flesh and one heart. I’ve never been that close to anyone. Even with Jon, I felt awfully sort of separate. All the same, I’m missing him, feeling almost randy. All this crazy luxury sort of turns me on – satin sheets, fur rugs.
I have to smile when I think of Jon on satin. Once he’d moved into his lodgings, he never bothered with sheets and things at all – or pyjamas either, come to that – just a rumpled sleeping-bag rolled out on the mattress. I shut my eyes to see him in it: dark head and sturdy shoulders sticking out the top, one hand flung across his middle, nails bitten to the bone; phone numbers and memos scribbled on the palm in smudgy ink. I watch him getting up: the four hairs on his tummy (he was very proud of those), the black shock lower down, his size eleven feet keep tripping over things. I still miss him quite a lot.
I wish he hadn’t left me. I’ve been worrying ever since that it wasn’t just the court case, but the fact I wasn’t good enough in bed. That’s something you can never really gauge. I mean, you can’t compare yourself with friends, when it’s such a private thing, and there are no official gradings, like for eggs or civil servants, so that at least you’d know you’d made it. It’s not that I don’t come – I do – but I’m always worried that other girls come better or more quickly, or take huge cocks down their throats and still don’t gag, or have it twice a day. I’ve only done it eight times in my life – eight and a half if I count the Irish boy – and not at all since Beechgrove. The pills just killed it, even thoughts of it, damped down everything: grief, death, ambition, sex. I’ve stopped them now. Dr Bates said not to, but I didn’t want a Vegas dulled with Valium.
I push my chair back, get up to inspect a statue in a niche – a naked Grecian boy with all his vital bits and pieces sculpted in. He’s marble like the floor, hard and chilly marble. I walk up and down that floor, just to hear my footsteps, prove I’m still alive. It echoes and applauds. Wonderful. I stop at the window, push aside the curtain, gasp when I realise how high up we are. Below is the main street – what they call The Strip. Strip is such a small word – strip of paper, strip of lino, strip of sticking-plaster – crazy word for that huge great shining switchback of a street. Lights cascade like fountains, spin like catherine wheels; colours eat each other up, spit out showers of sparks. I can’t see any people. I suppose I’m too high up to make them out, but it feels more as if they’ve all been marched away, locked up in their cells.
It’s still completely silent. The cars have muzzled engines, thick padding round their wheels. I check my watch. It’s stopped. Not much point rewinding it when I don’t know what the time is. There isn’t any time. I’m in a sort of limbo where it’s dark and night for ever, and nothing’s fixed or certain any more. I’m almost missing Beechgrove – the comfort of the timetable which served up time in small and easy portions; day and night always carefully divided into different pills and rituals; clocks ticking reassuringly so you couldn’t lose your bearings. It must be worse for Norah. She’s had timetables for over fifty years.
“Norah,” I say softly. I need to try my voice out, make sure they haven’t gagged me. It seems ages since I spoke last, at least to anyone that answered. “Jon,” I beg. “Come back.” Or Jan. Yes, Jan, I’d like you here.
Jan went home for Christmas, a whole six days ago, got some extra time off. I’d love to have gone with her, if only for a day or two, but her mother doesn’t invite me since the court case. My own mother is unwell, which is what she calls it when the C
ure has failed (again) and the doctors re-admit her. She didn’t even write or send a card. I felt really wretched yesterday. It was quite the loneliest Christmas of my life. The only thing which saved it was thinking of today – the holiday, excitement.
It’s hard to feel excited on your own. I trail back to Norah who is breathing very heavily, a hoarse and whistling sigh with every in-breath. Even if I wanted to share the bed with her, there wouldn’t be much room, despite its size. She’s sprawled right across the heart diagonally, lying on her face like a baby in its cot. I steal two pillows, ease the bedspread off, lug them into the other room, make up my own bed on a white velvet sofa with a white goatskin rug in front of it. I feel like some rejected spouse who’s just had a quarrel with her other half. No one’s meant to sleep alone in Vegas – brides with bridegrooms, gamblers with their moneybags, even the Mafioso with their molls. I’m beginning to wish I’d never come at all.
I get up to switch the lights off, but instead of blessed dark, there’s a blaze of coloured light-effects, my own private light-show echoing the one outside. I blink as blue and silver breakdance on the ceiling, turquoise chasing pink. The damn thing won’t turn off. “Fucking hell,” I say, as I creep back to the sofa, hide my eyes. Even so, it’s impossible to sleep. The sofa’s sort of bony, and my waistband feels too tight. I peel my skirt and tights off, toss them on the floor. Some passing genie will probably pick them up. I haven’t unpacked yet and my nightie’s at the bottom of the case. Who wants nighties in this heat? I’d rather have a nightcap.
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