As she paused her smile gradually faded, then for a moment or two she began that rapid blinking again. She must have seen my reaction however – my startled expression – and as quickly took hold of herself.
“I’m sorry,” she began to apologize, “but my nerves aren’t up to much these days. I’m sure you’ve noticed, and . . .”
I held up a hand to stop her. “There’s really no need.”
But with her voice trembling ever so slightly, she quickly continued: “. . . And I think that you deserve an explanation. For it might have appeared I was being unnecessarily rude to you.”
“Mrs Anderson,” I began, “whatever the problem is, I don’t need you to explain. I’m only a little worried that my presence here might be aggravating things . . . my presence in room number seven, that is.”
Despite my apparent concern and words of sympathy, however, my mentioning the room was quite deliberate. Hannah had told me something about that room – she had even made it sound as if it was haunted or something – and I wanted to know more; it was as simple as that. Looking back on it, maybe I should have remembered what people say about cats and curiosity.
Mrs Anderson seemed to have gone three shades paler. “Room number seven,” she finally said. Not a question, nothing emphasized, she had simply repeated me coldly and parrot-fashion . . . as if my words had triggered some response in her brain causing it to switch off, or at the very least to switch channels. Then the blinking started up again and her hands began fluttering on the desk’s mahogany top.
Whatever this recurring condition of hers was, it was obvious that my words had brought on this latest attack. And now my concern was very real.
On impulse I reached across the desk and trapped her hands, pinning them there. She at once relaxed and in that moment, but only for the moment, I almost felt uplifted: some kind of faith healer! . . . But no, I didn’t have the touch; it was little more than concerned, caring human contact.
Sensing the calm come over her, as quickly as I had reacted to her problem I now released her and took a pace back from the desk. And: “I’m . . . so sorry!” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“There’s really no need,” she answered, no longer blinking and apparently in control once again, but avoiding further eye-to-eye contact by gazing at her slender white hands. “It’s not your fault, Mr Smith. It’s a matter of association: that room, and the memories. You see, I loved my husband very much, and—”
She paused, and before she was able to continue – assuming she intended to – the hotel’s frosted-glass outer doors beyond the small lobby swung open, and a rising babble reached us as a large party of noisy, chattering people began entering from the pavement in front of the place. Out there, a coach was just now pulling away.
Now Mrs Anderson looked up, away from me and towards these others as they claimed her attention, smiling and trading small talk with her where they passed us by. And some colour returned to her face when a pair of men carrying a wicker basket between them stopped and nodded, beamed their satisfaction and indicated their burden.
“For tonight,” one of the two said with a laugh, “that’s if chef will oblige?”
“Oh, I’m sure he will!” Mrs Anderson answered him. “That’s if you’ll pay something for his time, Mr Carson, and if you’ll also cover my losses?”
“But of course we’ll look after the chef!” Carson answered. “And your takings won’t suffer any. These—” he tapped a finger on the basket, “—are only for those who caught ’em, who took a chance and held back from ordering an evening meal. And there’s maybe a couple of pounds extra left over for your freezer.”
Now she was smiling, albeit a little wanly. “You had a good day, then? You made a good catch?”
“Some nice ling,” the other replied. “Wreck-fish, you know? And a few beautiful red mullet! Do you want to see?” He made as if to lift the basket’s lid.
“Goodness no!” She turned her face away. “Better get off to the kitchen before you stink the whole place out!”
And laughing, the two made off after the rest of the group.
“A fishing party,” I said, unnecessarily; many of them had been carrying their fishing tackle, and they’d certainly seemed overdressed for a warm summer day! Anyway, I now understood why the place had seemed so empty.
“Two coach loads of them,” Mrs Anderson answered. “They’ve been here for a week, fishing from some boats they’ve hired out of Brixham. The other coach should be arriving any time now. In a few more days they’ll be gone; the place will be mostly empty again and I’ll miss their custom. They’re no trouble and during the day they’re mostly out, but they do use the bar quite a lot in the evenings.”
Smiling, I replied, “Where they down a few drinks and start telling tall tales of the ones that got away, right?”
“Myself, I don’t really approve of drink,” she said, frowning for no apparent reason. “Though I must confess that the bar keeps the place ticking over. Which reminds me: I have stock to take care of. Please excuse me . . .”
She went off about her business, and as Hannah appeared and began making entries in books behind the desk, once again I was obliged to rein in my curiosity. Then again – as I grudgingly told myself – whatever the mystery was here it wasn’t my business anyway. And some ten minutes later, finished with unpacking my few belongings, I was out on my balcony in time to watch the second coach unloading its passengers with their rods and gear. Quieter than the first batch, it appeared that their day hadn’t quite matched up to expectations . . .
I had checked into the hotel (which I’ll call the Seaview, once again because that wasn’t its name) in the middle of the afternoon. Now, with nothing to engage me until dinner, I determined to look more closely at the hotel’s exterior, fixing its design and orientation more firmly in my mind.
At the desk I collected a front door “key” – a swipe card – from Hannah, and left the hotel by the front entrance. Outside, I crossed the steeply sloping road’s canyon-like cutting to the high-walled far side, where because there was no pavement I was obliged to huddle close to the old stone wall in order to avoid descending cars. And from that somewhat dubious vantage point I scanned the wedge-shaped bulk of the Seaview.
Apart from the canopied entrance, the windows of Mrs Anderson’s office and those of the top floor, which were little more than a row of fanlights – and with one other exception, but an important one – the Seaview’s anterior aspect was more or less a blank wall and scarcely interesting, causing me to wonder why I had found the place so attractive in the first place. In just a little while I would discover the answer to that question.
I have mentioned the hotel’s wedge shape. The thick, unadorned end of this wedge was at the Seaview’s higher elevation, while the narrow, lower end sported and supported, at a height of some nine feet over the pavement, a lone, canopied balcony: in fact, my balcony, that of room number seven. And it was because the balcony was set at a skewed angle on the “pointed” or thin end of the building that it was able to offer sidelong views of both the seafront and the hillside . . . not to mention that other, higher, rather more dilapidated or deserted hotel that loomed up there, set well back from the road in rank and neglected gardens.
Standing in the road’s cutting under the massive, backward-leaning retaining wall that was literally securing the hillside, I wasn’t actually able to see that place on high; yet somehow I was aware of it, had been aware of it ever since gazing upon it from my room’s balcony. Indeed I could sense it – could almost feel it – frowning coldly down on the Seaview. Even in the glow of a late summer afternoon I could feel this oppressive weight; or perhaps it was only the fearful tonnage of the hillside that I felt, held back by the great wall . . .
There in the shade of that wall, just for a moment I felt a chill; or more properly I felt slightly uneasy. But then, as my gaze once more swept the Seaview end to end – and passed beyond the hotel, down the road to the seafront
– all such weird imaginings were put aside when I was suddenly reminded what it was that had inspired me to turn off the main road into the hotel’s car park in the first place. Quite simply, it was the view below and beyond the hotel: that of the promenade and inviting golden sands, and the glittering blue waters reaching right across the bay to the horizon. These were the things that had coloured my first impression of the hotel, not the building itself but that marvellous view which it commanded.
As for the intimidating chill I had felt: well, I had been standing in the shade of the great retaining wall, after all . . .
Back over the road, I walked along the pavement in front of the Seaview down to the building’s “sharp” end under the balcony of room number seven, then turned right to descend the steep drive to the gardens, the pool and parking lot.
By this time the shadows were falling slantingly towards the sea as inland the sun prepared to set behind higher ground. The back of the Seaview, with its double row of canopied balconies, now stood in its own shadow, and looking up at it I finally recognized the extent of my error in perspective. For the front of the hotel, with its more or less blank stone wall, was the actual rear of the place, while this ocean-facing, far more ornate elevation with its truly wonderful view of the bay was the real front.
The beach was beginning to clear; tourists and other holiday-makers strolled the esplanade where sunlight yet struck home; with two hours yet to dinner, I spent a few minutes watching a lone swimmer performing his expert crawl, to and fro, the full length of the pool, before going in through the Seaview’s rear entrance and up to my room . . .
As if to counter the unseasonal chill that I had felt earlier, the room was very warm. This was, however, in no way unnatural; despite that the hotel’s central heating had been shut down for the summer, number seven’s floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors had trapped much of the day’s sunlight, and I could still feel its warmth radiating from the walls and floor.
Showering, drying off and changing for the evening from my rough driving clothes into summer casuals – slacks and a light shirt – I went out on to the balcony. Along with a small table, there was a deckchair which I unfolded and set to a comfortable angle, so that I could sit facing that portion of the bay which my rather awkward sidelong view afforded me.
In a little while, however, I became aware of the strain on my neck – and sensed once again that indefinable heaviness of atmosphere: an “unparalleled, extraordinary nonesuch sensation” perhaps? Or more properly feeling that someone’s unfriendly eyes were fixed upon me, I repositioned the deckchair to face the road and settled back with my eyes closed, gradually easing the cramps in my neck and shoulder. More comfortable in that position I began to nod off . . . only to start awake again as the notion that I was under observation returned in such force that I could no longer ignore it!
Not that there was any way some unknown other could have me under observation . . . nor any reason he would want to, for that matter. But still I snatched open my eyes, as if to catch someone at it.
Across the road, the retaining wall rose in its own shadow; above it, the steep weed- and ivy-festooned hillside climbed up and back through neglected, overgrown terraces to that frowning scarecrow of a place, the deserted hotel up there. Standing now in early evening shade – with its empty, higher windows behind their balconies staring lifelessly out; also its lower windows, like a row of bleary eyes, gazing over the parapet of a balustraded patio – the place looked more gaunt than ever, and even ghostly.
But that was all. No one was spying on me – except perhaps that forsaken hotel itself, if that were at all possible. Which it wasn’t . . .
But in any case I narrowed my eyes and studied the place more closely. Not that there was much to study, for the hotel’s front was more properly a façade: an Andalusian mask – plaster as opposed to plastic surgery – applied over bricks and mortar presumably in order to enhance the looks of the place, in which task it had failed utterly.
Craning my neck, I stared at the place top to bottom and in that order. Three storeys high, with its close to gothic aspect it reminded me of a de-sanctified church. Above the flat roof’s parapet wall, the hollow, sharply-pointed triangles of ornamental gables were pierced through by shallowly slanting beams of sunlight. Then there was that frowning façade, and finally the patio behind its balustrade wall.
As to the latter: because of the steep angle I couldn’t see the patio in its entirety, but even so there was something up there that I found just a little odd. While it was obvious that the place had been stripped to the bone and no longer functioned as a hotel, still it appeared that certain of its former embellishments had been left behind.
At each end of the patio and in its centre, standing there like stiff, lonely sentinels, a trio of large, folded-down sunshade parasols continued to watch over places once occupied by hotel guests at alfresco tables. In the case of the parasol on the far right, however, “standing” is probably misleading; for, in fact, it had toppled and now leaned over the parapet in that corner, where its canvas burden tended to sag a little. At the far left its opposite number remained upright but it, too, had suffered an indignity: its canopy had not been fully collapsed, resulting in bare ribs and a badly torn canvas that flapped in an evening breeze off the sea like a tattered pennant.
Only the central parasol appeared in good functional condition: its stem entirely perpendicular and its folded-down canvas canopy secured at the frill three-quarters of the way down its length. I knew that under that frill eight hardwood spokes would be clasped about the stem in a circle, like the arms of some deep-sea octopus. I understood the design of these things by virtue of the fact that my landlady in Exeter had just such a parasol in her garden, beneath which I would often sit reading a book.
As for this forlorn trio: since in their day these sunshades would have been attractive and expensive heavy-duty items of outdoor furniture, I was at first surprised that they had been left behind – especially the pair that appeared to be in good order. That was what I had found a little strange. On reflection, however, I reasoned that just like the parasol with the torn canvas, the other two might also be damaged, their defects hidden or disguised by distance, but sufficient to make salvaging them unprofitable.
Then, as the shadows deepened and my balcony cooled, I went inside, fell asleep on my bed, and woke from disturbing but unremembered dreams barely in time for dinner . . .
At dinner I discovered that the Czech girls – Hannah’s “common room-maids” – had duties other than cleaning, tidying and changing the linen: they also served meals. They were pretty girls, too, very much down to earth, unlike the rather haughty Hannah.
“Haughty Hannah” . . . from Hamburg, or maybe Hanover? I had to smile at the alliterative “sound” of it: even though it only sounded in my mind, it served to bring back to mind the title of that novelty song, “Hard-Hearted Hannah”, about a lady who “pours water on a drowning man”. Also, it told me that for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on I had taken a dislike to the German woman. Perhaps it was because she had “poured water” on my questions about Mrs Anderson.
Anyway, the Czech girls served dinner to me and a room full of amateur fishermen and women, and the chef – decked out in a white hat and apron – came out of the kitchen to enquire about his culinary offerings: were they up to expectations? And actually they had been; indeed the food had been exceptional.
I told him so in the bar later, where I was drinking Coca-Cola with a slice of lemon, and lusting after his Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 on the rocks. A burly, pigtailed Scotsman – “It keeps mah hair oot o’ the grub!” – he appreciated my compliments, and he fully understood why I refrained from joining him in a glass of the hard stuff.
“Oh aye,” Gavin McCann quietly announced, nodding and lifting a confidential forefinger to tap the side of his nose. “Mah old man – mah father – he found it somethin’ o’ a problem, too. He liked his wee dram. Truth is, he liked eve
ry wee dram in the whole damn bottle! And he paid for it, the old lad: he saw more than his fair share o’ pink elephants, that yin. Until the time came when they stampeded all over him, especially on his liver! Aye, and they made a right mess o’ that, too.”
Pink elephants? Well, I hadn’t come across any of them. But other stuff? Oh yes, I had seen other stuff.
“How about you?” I asked him – and quickly added. “But hey, ignore me if that’s a bit too personal! It’s just that—”
“Am I an alcoholic, d’ye mean?” He shook his head. “No, not yet. So don’t be affeard o’ buyin’ me a drink or two! Mind you, I’ve seen enough o’ drinkin’ in this place – and in the town – not tae mention the Andersons’ old place down in Polperro. Aye, and ye’d think it would put a body off; but a man gets a taste, and . . . well, let’s face it: There’s no too much else tae enjoy any more, now is there?” With which he tossed back the drink he was working on, stared expectantly at me, and speculatively at his empty glass.
This was rather more than a subtle hint, but with a little luck I might finally have found a means of discovering something more about the Seaview’s – or Mrs Anderson’s – mystery, assuming there was such a thing. And so when McCann was sipping on his next drink, a double I had bought him, and which I wished was mine: “Chef,” I asked him, “Gavin, what do you make of Mrs Anderson, the Seaview’s boss lady?”
“Eh?” he answered sharply, narrowing his eyes and lowering his glass. “What’s that, ye say? Janet Anderson? Ye’ve noticed somethin’ about that poor lass? Well let me tell ye: she’s one very unfortunate lady, aye! But not so unlucky as some I could mention. Hmm! Maybe ye’d care tae hear about it?”
I said I would, of course. And as the drink went in so the story came out and the mystery began to unravel; by which time we had moved to a corner table well away from the other guests, where McCann could tell his story in relative privacy . . .
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Page 44