by Alison Moore
He used to fall asleep holding on to her, the weight of an arm and a leg pinning her to the mattress, the heat between them almost unbearable. Now he turns away, wants his space. Sometimes he wears a sleep mask and earplugs. These days, Bernard only notices Ester when other men do.
Ester does not normally enter the hotel through the front door, but today she does. She strides across the room, her heels beating time against the wooden floorboards. She walks towards the door at the side of the bar which leads to the bedrooms, and out of the corner of her eye she sees Bernard turning and watching her.
As she walks along the upstairs corridor, she hears the creak of the stairs behind her. She goes through the door marked ‘PRIVATE’ and into her and Bernard’s apartment. She waits in the bedroom.
She hears Bernard letting himself in and moments later he appears in the doorway. ‘What’s all this for?’ he asks, his gaze sweeping over her like a searchlight. He comes closer. ‘Who are you trying to impress?’ He holds her by the upper arms and squeezes, twisting her flesh a little, as if juicing an orange. Ester says nothing, just looks him in the eye until he relaxes his grip. She turns away so that he can undo the zip in the back of her dress. He does it slowly, and perhaps this is supposed to be seductive but she can only think that he is distracted by something or that he is warily delaying the moment when she will be undressed.
With Ester’s zip undone, Bernard walks round to his side of the bed. He closes the curtains but the room remains light. He sits down on the edge of the mattress to unlace his shoes, unbuckle his belt, unbutton his shirt. He looks at Ester and looks away. She steps out of her shoes and slips off her dress and stands by the bed in her knickers. Bernard pulls back the covers so that she can get under. She can feel where he held her, where his fingers pressed into her skin, where the evidence, the small, round bruises, will be later. The heel of one foot, rubbed by her new shoes, bleeds lightly into the bedsheet.
Bernard, naked now, takes off his watch, stopping to wind it before putting it down on the bedside table. He gets into bed and turns towards Ester. He looks at her as if she reminds him of someone, as if he is trying to remember who. It’s me, she wants to say to him, I remind you of me.
His camphor smell fills her nostrils, and his eyes close.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Disinfectant
Futh takes his breakfast to his table by the window. It is, he notices, brightening up a bit. Settling down, picking up his cutlery, he looks around the room. He sees a woman in her thirties entering, going to the bar. She orders coffee and opens the book she is carrying, reading it where she stands. Futh, working his way through an enormous helping of salami, notices that she has good skin. She is careful, he thinks, in the sun. Angela always wears face cream with built-in UV protection and he wonders if this woman does too. She sips her coffee and Futh glances at the cover of the book she is reading, recognising it as a novel which he has seen in Angela’s possession.
Polishing off his salami, Futh stands up and crosses the room, carrying his plate back to the buffet which is laid out at one end of the bar. He would like more. There is a short queue and he joins it, finding himself standing next to the woman at the bar.
‘Hello,’ he says.
The woman does not respond.
He tries again, asking, ‘Enjoying the book?’
She moves her gaze to the top of a new page, turning her head slightly away from him.
Even though the title of this woman’s book, like Angela’s, is in English, he rephrases the question in German. ‘Good book?’ he says, and then stands there awkwardly, his plate held out in front of him like a begging bowl. His hand goes to his pocket, seeking out and wrapping itself around the silver lighthouse.
He says, going back to English, ‘You wear the same perfume as my wife.’
She looks up, and her gaze drops down to his trousers, to the hand which is deep inside his pocket, gripping the silver lighthouse, his thumb anxiously circling its smooth, warm dome. Futh, noticing that the queue for the buffet has gone, moves on.
Back in his room, Futh sits on his bed and touches the painful parts of his feet. Seeing his sandals in his suitcase, he takes them out and tries them on with a pair of socks. Even without plasters, the sandals are heavenly; they do not rub his wounds.
When he leaves the hotel, he leaves his walking boots behind in the porch, not even glancing back at them. He is not expecting to see any more rain.
He crosses the river again and enters woodland. It is good, he thinks, striding out, to leave things behind. He almost wishes that his suitcase, which is more than half full of dirty washing, was not being sent on to the next hotel. He could manage, he thinks, with what he is wearing and carrying. He could hand-wash his clothes every night in soap in the sink and hang them out of the window to dry.
He could even manage with less than this, he thinks. There are all sorts of things in his rucksack which he could jettison – he does not really need a spare pair of walking socks or a travel sewing kit. He has never used his spork or his compass. He has been carrying a novel around all week and has not even opened it since Hellhaus. He has brought along his swimming trunks and a towel, thinking that he might have a dip in the Rhine, just to be able to say to his father, to Kenny, to his Aunt Frieda, that he did it. But it all looks too deep and fast flowing and far too cold. He does not even think that there is anywhere to paddle.
He has not read his great big guidebook – he never looks to see where he is going. He will read it later, on the ferry home, or he will not read it at all. He once went to Rouen and spent some hours awestruck by the medieval houses, breathing in the history, only discovering later, reading the guidebook on the way back, that the houses were imitations, built after the war.
He is very aware of the silver lighthouse being in his pocket. It has never bothered him before but now he wishes it wasn’t there, poking at his groin with every step he takes, its little weight constantly against his leg. It could travel in the suitcase instead, he decides, and then he would be all the lighter.
In his back pocket, he has condoms, ‘protection’ as his Aunt Frieda used to call them. He does not appear to need any.
He thinks of all the boxes which are no doubt already waiting for him in his new flat. He wishes they were not there. He would have preferred, at the end of the week, to let himself in and find only the neutrally painted walls, the expanse of stain-resistant carpet and the basic furniture, and not all this stuff which belongs to the past and to a marriage which is over. He wishes he had just left it all behind, let Angela have it or let it be thrown out. In fact, he thinks, he would have preferred not to be going back at all.
As a child, he often fantasised about running away, changing his appearance and his name so that he would not be found, could just disappear. The thought still appeals to him, and he could even do it, he thinks; he could go anywhere, start a new life. He could stay in Germany or go to New York. He could just never go home and Angela and his father and Gloria would wonder what had become of him. He wonders who would be the first to notice his absence.
When his mother left, his father got rid of everything which had belonged to her, anything she had not taken with her. He built a bonfire and lit it before Futh woke up, throwing onto it all her books, photographs still in their frames, the pictures she had never hung, folders full of her Open University work, her pin board with indecipherable lists still attached, even furniture which he smashed first, even clothes and the kitchen curtain material, even her walking boots, and Futh’s, adding something to the fire to help it devour these things so that the air stank, filled with searing fumes. He pulled up the flowers and weeds in the bed she had planted and then neglected, in between the climbing frame and the fence. And then, while the bonfire blazed in the garden, he cleaned the house, hoovering and scrubbing until there was nothing left of Futh’s mother, only a lingering smell of disinfectant in every room. Although, Futh supposed, there had to be microscopic particles whic
h his father had missed, and there were the books hidden under Futh’s mattress – his mother’s banned literature – and there was the silver lighthouse which Futh still carried with him everywhere he went.
Looking at his watch, he sees that it is lunchtime. He ate all that salami for breakfast and then, after that awkward exchange with the woman at the bar, he went back to the buffet table and got some more, but when he thinks about it, he could eat again. He wants to eat plenty of meat and carbohydrates, to build up his strength. What he would really like is a big ham sandwich and a homemade cake or pastry, but he only had room in his pockets for a plain roll and a small banana from the buffet. But, he thinks, does he really need any more than that? He could live like this, surely, eating only as much as he really needs to, spending very little, getting by. He sits down in a clearing to eat his lunch and two minutes later it is gone and he feels hungrier than he did when he started. But is it not good, he thinks – a little bit of hunger, fasting – for the soul?
He could live off the land, eating wild meat. People eat squirrel meat, and there is always the river. Or he could be a wandering ascetic surviving on roots and berries. But, thinks Futh, don’t some of them die? They starve to death, or go missing in deserts.
He thinks about the big meals Gloria made for just the two of them after his mother left. Despite his father, Futh had begun to go to Gloria’s house as often as he could come suppertime. Sometimes she gave him drinks, wanting him to try a new liqueur or a cocktail, and sometimes she fed him. Even if he’d had supper with his father, he still went over to Gloria’s for more. ‘You’re hollow,’ she told him, ‘you young boys.’
Futh had supposed that Kenny – whose father’s work had always meant a lot of travelling and who had sometimes been in Europe for weeks and months at a time – was living a long way away. He had expected postcards and letters with foreign postmarks. He had started collecting stamps although so far he only had one from his Aunt Frieda.
But now Futh was quite often at Gloria’s kitchen table, in the middle of his second supper, when Kenny came in, dropped off by his father after football practice or jujitsu or some other activity. Kenny lived, it turned out, just a few miles away and regularly spent a night at his mother’s.
Kenny would eat but then he would go to his bedroom and shut the door. Sometimes Futh would go into Kenny’s room and hang out with him, and sometimes Gloria would say, ‘We’d better leave him be. We’ll keep each other company.’
Kenny had started smoking. Futh, going into Kenny’s bedroom, found him leaning out of the window so that the smoke would go outside. He went over and stood beside him, looking out at the back of his own house, inside which his father was crashed out on the sofa, the only light – flickering, flashing – coming from the television whose sound Futh had turned down before coming out.
Kenny was making smoke rings, blowing them out of the window, blowing one in Futh’s face, and Futh closed his eyes as the smoke enveloped him.
‘Here,’ said Kenny, passing the cigarette to Futh, who took it.
When Gloria, whose footsteps Futh had not heard on the stairs, opened the door saying, ‘Are you smoking in here?’ Kenny was on the bed, reading a bike magazine. Futh did try to say that he had not been the one smoking but Gloria was not having any of it. ‘You’ve been caught red-handed,’ she said. ‘Either you’ve been smoking in here or you were just about to.’
She sent him home to his father. ‘I’m going to call him,’ she said, ‘and tell him why I’ve sent you home.’ And even though Futh had never so much as put a cigarette to his lips, he knew he was going to be punished for it. It was only much later that Futh wondered why Kenny, hearing Gloria coming up the stairs, had not just dropped the cigarette out of the window.
On one occasion, Gloria rented a video which Kenny wanted to see, and Futh was to see it as well and to sleep over afterwards. Futh’s father had not been keen on the idea but Gloria had spoken to him, had taken care of it.
Futh packed his pyjamas, his toothbrush, his sleeping bag and his torch, none of which he would end up using. Gloria made slabs of ham with apple sauce and they all sat together in the kitchen to eat. When they had finished, she sent the boys into the living room to draw the curtains and put in the video while she made popcorn. ‘You’ve got to have popcorn with a film,’ she said to Futh, ‘haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Futh, even though the smell of popcorn made him feel nauseous.
Kenny took the video out of its box and pushed it into the player and then sat sullenly at one end of the sofa with the remote control. Futh closed the curtains and sat down at the other end, leaving space for Gloria in between them. He wanted to wait for her but Kenny was already playing the video and would not stop it. While the trailers were on, Futh picked up and unscrewed the lid of a pot of Gloria’s hand cream which was on the arm of the sofa. He put the pot to his nose to smell its blissful scent of tangerines, all the more potent in the dim room.
‘Why are you here?’ said Kenny.
Futh, surprised, said, ‘You asked me over.’
‘No I didn’t,’ said Kenny. ‘My mum invited you.’ He looked at Futh who was still holding the hand cream. ‘Stop smelling that,’ he said. ‘Stop touching her things.’ Futh put the pot down but Kenny was standing up anyway. ‘I’m going to my room,’ he said. He left, and Futh reached for the remote control left behind on a cushion, pressing ‘pause’.
Gloria appeared in the living room doorway with a bowl of popcorn in her hands. ‘Where’s Kenny?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think he wants to watch the film,’ said Futh.
Gloria went to Kenny’s room and when she came back she said, ‘Did you two have a fight?’
‘No,’ said Futh. He had started toying again with the pot of hand cream.
‘Well, he’s being difficult,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to watch this with just me, do you?’ But even as she said this, she was advancing with the popcorn. Futh wondered if he should go and talk to Kenny in his room. Perhaps he should just go home. But Gloria was settling down next to him, unpausing the video. The film was starting and he did not move. She put the bowl of popcorn in her lap, telling Futh to help himself. ‘I always make too much,’ she said, ‘and it’s just the two of us now.’ She retrieved her pot of hand cream, dabbing some onto the back of each hand and rubbing it in and the smell of popcorn got mixed up with the smell of tangerines.
Futh fell asleep on the sofa, on Gloria, and Gloria must have put him into bed with Kenny rather than into his sleeping bag on the floor because that’s where he was when he woke up in the morning and Kenny was pulling back the covers and saying, ‘Fucking get out.’
After that, Kenny’s visits to Gloria’s house never coincided with Futh’s. Futh, opening Gloria’s back door, would ask if Kenny was around, but Kenny was always at his father’s or out doing something. ‘But,’ said Gloria, ‘come in anyway and keep me company.’
Futh, feeling peckish, stops to pick some blackberries, eating them quickly so that he won’t think about the grubs which might be inside them. When he reaches into the bush for more, unseen thorns tear his skin, the palm of his hand. Extricating himself, he walks on, sucking at the scratches, without his second helping of blackberries. It is only when he stops to look at his map and sees the red smear he leaves across it, when he looks at his hand and sees the blood still coming out of him, that he realises how deep the wound is. But still, he thinks, as he shrugs off his rucksack and takes out his first-aid kit, opening a packet of disinfectant wipes, this is nothing compared with the way a head wound bleeds.
Not long after the sleepover, he ran into Kenny unexpectedly when, following Angela home from school, Futh missed his turning and ended up on a strange estate. Afterwards, looking at an A to Z, he would be astonished to see how close to home he had been, but at the time he didn’t know where he was, could only guess which way to go, and set off in a direction which would take him a long way round, taking the wrong alleywa
y out of the estate.
The alleyway had six-foot walls on either side, although here and there it was lower where the bricks had fallen away, and it curved so that Futh could not see all the way from one end to the other. He was more than halfway down it when he caught the smell of cigarette smoke, and as he rounded the bend he saw Kenny standing against the wall blowing smoke rings.
At first it looked as though Kenny was on his own, but then Futh, following the alleyway’s curve, saw that there were other boys with him, leaning against the wall or sitting on top of it where it was lower. Futh recognised some of them from school, and a part of him wanted to turn around or climb over the wall, to go another way, but he didn’t, he just kept moving forward like a train on a track.
He thought that Kenny might ignore him, or even worse make fun of him in front of these boys, tell them about him wetting the bed in his sleep, or perhaps he already had. He wondered whether he should stop and say hello or if he should just put his head down and keep moving.
As he neared the group, he saw Kenny see him, and as he slowed, one of the boys said something which made the others look at Futh and laugh. Futh, drawing level with Kenny, caught the look in his eye and kept walking, stepping over and around the litter and rubble. An empty drink can bounced off his shoulder, followed by a chunk of broken brick striking him on the back of his head.
He arrived home with blood on his fingertips, having touched them to his scalp where it hurt. He went to the bathroom cabinet and took out the disinfectant, soaking a cotton wool ball with it. His mother had done this countless times, cleaning him up while he sat on the edge of the bath. He felt for the wound and pressed the cotton wool ball against it, closing his eyes when the soothing sting came.