by Anna Raverat
“Look—there’s Daddy!” She points at a photograph of Adam on the back. He’s wearing a blue checked shirt, no tie, his thick brown hair slightly in need of a cut. He looks glamorous and confident.
“Gosh,” I say.
“And here’s the card.” Adam hands me one.
“They look great,” I say, and I mean it, but then I see the four large cardboard boxes in the narrow hallway.
“Thanks,” says Adam, and following my gaze, he adds, “It was practically the same price for two thousand as five hundred.”
“But what are you going to do with two thousand?” I say, and instantly wish I hadn’t because now we’re into an old area of disagreement.
“Send them out. Try and drum up a bit of business, Kate.” Adam turns his back on me and stacks the boxes against the wall.
It’s not fair to say that we don’t put anything away—I am the untidy one. Adam does put things away, but he never throws anything out. There’s a pile of magazines in the bathroom that keeps slipping over because it’s too tall, more magazines in the box room, files full of old bank statements, photographs that didn’t make it into the album, utility bills from previous addresses. Adam is a collector by nature. He has a jacket for every possible type of weather. He seldom wears a tie but he has kept every tie he’s ever bought or received, even those he dislikes, in a thick forest in the wardrobe.
“Sorry,” I say, “I shouldn’t have said that. They do look great.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep them under my desk,” he replies. We’re both really trying and it almost makes me cry, how hard it is to keep out of a row.
“I don’t want to be called Hester anymore,” says Hester. “I want to be called Diego.”
“Diego is a boy’s name,” says Milla scornfully, and then she says, “Mummy, why were you and Daddy fighting last night?”
“Oh! I thought you were asleep.”
“I stayed in bed but I was awake. You were shouting.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that.”
“What were you fighting about?”
“Well—” I scramble for something to tell her.
“We were just having an argument, nothing for you two girls to worry about,” Adam says.
“I saw someone get run over yesterday,” I say, changing tack.
“Ohhh!” say the girls.
“Did you?” says Adam. “You didn’t mention it last night.”
“Not everything gets mentioned,” I reply.
“Were they killed?” asks Milla, and I regret having brought this up.
“No, sweetheart. The car had slowed down to turn a corner—it wasn’t going fast enough to kill anyone.”
“Was there blood?” she asks.
“I didn’t see any.”
“They might have had all their teeth knocked out,” she says.
“Will the tooth fairy come?” Hester pipes up.
“No, Hester—the tooth fairy isn’t real,” says Milla.
“She is!” Hester protests. They go to collect their reading books from their bedroom, bickering all the way up the stairs.
“There was a little boy in the back of the car,” I say to Adam.
“Oh, no,” he says, and I feel a surge of love toward him for understanding. “Was he hurt?”
“He was very quiet. I did wonder if I should have gone to check on him. He must have been in shock. I should have gone over.”
“But what could you have done?”
“I should have gone over and waited with him,” I say, flooded with regret.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” says Adam, putting his arm around me.
“You haven’t. I’ve made myself cry.” I pull away to wipe my eyes as the girls come back downstairs.
“Let’s make Mummy a nice cup of coffee,” says Adam.
“I want to do it!”
“No, I want to!”
“We can all do it,” says Adam.
“Actually, I’d better go.”
“Are you friends again?” asks Milla. I hesitate, even though we made love last night for the first time in ages.
“Yes,” says Adam firmly. “Go and find your shoes.”
Milla stays exactly where she is, watching my face for confirmation, which I try to give through a reassuring smile. I check the time. Adam follows me into the hall and I put on my coat and scarf. From the kitchen I hear Hester say, “Poor Charlie,” and Milla shouts, “Hester, you’re not allowed! Get out!”
“We need to talk about it some more,” I tell Adam.
“Mummy! Hester is in Charlie’s basket again!”
“We will,” he says, and calls into the kitchen, “Mummy’s going to Poland today, come and say goodbye.”
The girls run to hug me. The leave-taking is always more intense when there’s been a row, and today both girls follow me over the threshold in their socks into the drizzly cold morning and venture onto the damp pavement. We wave goodbye until I get to the corner and then Adam shepherds them back inside and I hope he notices their socks and changes them.
5
The temperature is minus fifteen, apparently not too bad for Poland in December. So far the longest I have been outside is ten minutes; we disembarked from the plane but the doors of the bus would not open so we stood on the runway while it was fixed. My teeth began to ache and the air felt sharp in my nose, which was because little icicles had formed in my nostrils. By the time I got into the passport queue I could hardly move my face, and when the border guard pleasantly inquired whether the trip was business or pleasure I could only reply in slow motion, “Bisn-nis.”
I’ve come to visit a small hotel in Silesia staffed by people recovering from mental illness; they heal themselves through good work and community, and the reviews, especially ones about guests’ experiences, are amazing. I think there’s potential for a strategic partnership of some kind, or at the very least some inspiration for PHC. Trish doesn’t seem very interested, probably because it’s nonprofit, but Richard Robertson is. The much-loved president of PHC, Richard is known in the industry as a brilliant businessman and an inspiring leader. He’s one of the main reasons I joined PHC. “We have a duty to care,” says Richard—the same thing you hear from a lot of corporate leaders, but the difference is, Richard actually does care. He shares my view that if PHC is going to be truly successful it has to be a great place to work, because if you want happy guests, first you need happy staff.
* * *
The taxi is as warm as a nest. Soft voices from the radio curl around each other; a dashboard statuette of the Virgin Mary gazes out over the backseat, her sky-blue robes faded around the hem; there is holy water in a plastic vial next to a box of tissues; three cushions and a blanket that I wrap around my legs.
In the outskirts of Poznań we pass row upon row of accommodation blocks. Some of the paint is cracked and peeling and there’s very little variation in the color of doors and windows. Set too far apart with nothing growing in between, the blocks look as though they came off a factory assembly line a long, long time ago.
We pass a church and the driver crosses himself and bows to the figurine of Mary. Out in the countryside we see roadside shrines: tall metal crosses, statues of saints on pillars, or tiny chapels with open doors, a jar of fresh-cut flowers inside, a freshly lit candle. I begin to watch for them; they remind me of the ones we saw in Crete.
We need another holiday like that. I decide to suggest it to Adam. He’ll probably say we can’t afford it, but now that I’m bringing in a regular salary maybe, by summertime, we could.
I look out of the taxi. We’re on a straight road through flat farmland, a sprinkling of snow in the dips and furrows, an unending forest to our left. The landscape looks drained, all life retracted into the earth; even the trees are pale. Tall grasses at the edge of the road bend gracefully, translucent seed-heads made golden by the winter sun. The emptiness is soothing and I like moving through this new, strange country in the warm taxi, Mary serene on the das
hboard.
Ahead, suddenly, a dark shape is barreling across the vast field—a large animal, fast-moving, low to the ground. “Look!” I say. The boar reaches the edge of the forest and plows in. As we pass that spot the driver slows the car. We crane round, but there’s no sign of him now.
“Wah!” says the driver, exhilarated.
“A wild boar! He was moving so fast!” I say.
“Fast,” agrees the driver, and adds something in Polish.
* * *
Nestled deep inside the town through old, crooked streets is Hotel Logica. I should have laid down a trail of crumbs to find my way back. Even though I am stiff from the car, after two and a half hours of looking through the window and daydreaming I am reluctant to come to the surface.
“Welcome,” says the receptionist warmly. “We have been expecting you, Kate,” and maybe because she uses my name, I feel I have come to the right place. The driver converses with the receptionist as I sort out the fare and a good tip. “Have a safe trip back,” I say. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen as he smiles. We shake hands and I feel I’m losing a companion even though we barely spoke.
“He tells me you saw a wild boar,” says the receptionist. “It’s unusual, to see them out in the open like that. You’re very lucky. Where you saw him, this is the Lower Silesian Forest—you also have wolves inside. They nearly died away, but now they are protected, they come back.”
“Do you ever see the wolves?”
“They stay in the forest. If you want to see them you have to go there.”
* * *
“So! You want to find out something about our hotel?” says the manager, whose name is Marcin, a lean man with salt-and-pepper hair, a rock-star smile, and tobacco-stained teeth. His voice is very low, no doubt seasoned by years of smoking. “But first, I will show you your room and we will make sure you are comfortable.”
It’s a small hotel, twenty-seven rooms. There’s no lift. Marcin carries my bag and leads the way. On the third floor we walk along the corridor to a narrower staircase, which goes up one more flight. He unlocks the wooden door with a proper key and sets my bag inside.
“This is your room, we hope you like it.”
“It’s very nice, thank you.”
“You can settle in now and I will send you some tea perhaps, or some coffee?”
“Tea, please.”
“Ah, yes! You are English! Of course!” He laughs.
“Does this mean I can make jokes about Poles?” I say.
“Of course!” Marcin says. “But there aren’t any!”
* * *
The room has very little in it, just the necessary. I wouldn’t have chosen any of it, but it’s a relief not to have to choose. One of the great things about staying in a hotel is that real life is someone else’s job: someone else takes the decisions; someone else does the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry. It’s like being a child again.
Tea arrives. On the tray is a round, brown teapot full of good strong tea in a knitted cozy, a jug of milk and a saucer with slices of lemon, a bowl of sugar, and a big slice of homemade cake: my favorite. I know that cake is not supposed to feature in the diet of someone who wants to lose three or four pounds, but cake is good for the soul.
There are two windows in my room. One has a view across the street to the tall painted buildings opposite and the other is in a nook jutting out from the roof that’s barely high enough to stand in but wide enough for an armchair and low table. I pull this table closer to the chair and put the tea things there. The window has small panes and a low sill, perfect to sit by. It looks over cascading rooftops and gives a glimpse of the countryside and forests beyond the town. It has started snowing and large flakes drift slowly past the window. I pour the tea, piping hot and a little bit too strong, which I use as an excuse to add a spoonful of soft brown sugar. I give it a good stir and while the tea is still whirling I pull up my legs onto the chair and shift the cushion so it’s in just the right place. I sip the hot, bittersweet tea and gaze out over the rooftops and chimneys toward the Silesian Forest, thinking of the wolves.
* * *
The evening meeting has a pace unfamiliar to me. Two of the twelve staff cover reception, but all the others are present, and for my benefit they are running the meeting as much as possible in English.
“People need to work,” says Marcin. “It is important for a person to feel useful. But the work must be meaningful, and people need other things. It’s easy to forget this and trudge along and so to help us remember we ask everyone here to name what’s most important to them. So, who will speak next?”
“I need time. I like to work slow,” says a woman, smiling at me.
“I need sunshine,” says the woman next to her, and the rest of us laugh since it is dark and snowing outside.
“I need family,” says one man, and starts to cry. His neighbor places an arm around his shoulder to comfort him.
Marcin leans closer and whispers, “He lost his family.” I want to ask how, what happened to them, but the meeting moves on.
“I need clear skies,” someone else says. “Nights when I can see the stars.”
“I need to love what I do.”
“I need rules.”
“I need to break rules! I need freedom!” says a painfully thin young woman, rather angrily.
“What do you need, Kate?” asks Marcin, for which I am completely unprepared.
“I need cake!” I say, realizing immediately that this is too flip after what others have said, so I look for something to say on that level. “And I need—” I continue, but don’t know what to say. “I need…” Something is working its way up. I am aware of being watched and closely listened to. “I need to believe.” To my surprise, this brings up a sob. The man who needs family passes me the box of tissues. When I look up, several people are smiling at me and their faces are kind.
* * *
When I return to my room, housekeeping has been. The tea tray is gone, the duvet turned back, the curtains closed, my pajamas folded and placed on the pillow; just like the turndown service in any other good hotel. At PHC it’s policy for the head of housekeeping to leave handwritten notes on branded notepaper with gifts of chocolate to welcome guests. The notes always say the same thing, but the chocolate varies; once, I found three Mars bars piled like logs on my pillow, another time there was a single Ferrero Rocher and a bath towel twisted into a large white swan. All this is supposed to make you feel welcome and special, but in fact I was filled with self-loathing after gorging on two and a half of the Mars bars and guilt when I dropped the half-eaten one out of the window, and the towel origami was unnerving because I had to wring the swan’s neck to undo it.
Here, someone has given more than the few minutes per room allocated at PHC: the earrings I left by the side of the sink are paired and lying in a saucer; the knotted cord of my headphones has been untangled and loosely coiled next to my phone; my hat, scarf, and gloves are warming on a radiator; the papers I’d left strewn over the table are in a neat pile; my shoes straightened. These little attentions are touching, and make me cry again—just a little bit.
I call Adam and resolve not to bring up Louise Phelps. If I mention her we will argue again, and the structure already feels shaky: another blasting row could bring the whole thing down. I decide I won’t even mention her name. I ask how the girls are, what they had for breakfast. The subject of the inappropriate friendship rises in my throat. I force it back down and ask what the weather’s like, but it bursts out anyway.
“Was it an affair, though?” I hear myself say.
“You saw the emails! I ended it before you even found out!”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“NOTHING HAPPENED,” says Adam, slowly and emphatically.
“Maybe it was an infatuation,” I say.
“What difference does it make? Stop banging on about it, Kate, please—it’s driving me mad.” And then he says, more patiently, “Maybe it was an
infatuation, but it’s over now and we have to concentrate on us.”
He’s right. An infatuation is just a crush; everyone gets them. Like flu or the common cold, they pass. I had one once, for a long time, on my art teacher. He took our class to the National Gallery, asked me what my favorite work of art was: there I was in uniform, thirteen, with bare knees; I couldn’t tell him it was him. I liked the Rubens and Rembrandts, so I said that. He told me he liked John Singer Sargent, that his favorite was Van Gogh. He also told me that Van Gogh only became famous after his death and that during his lifetime the only person who liked his work was his brother. Van Gogh died penniless and unrecognized, which is how I felt around the art teacher. I was just a girl then, had never loved any other man; for I thought this was love. It survived my first kiss with a lad from town, the boyfriends with bikes and then mopeds and then cars. I wonder what he’s doing now, the art teacher, what he’s done with his life. And what have I done? I married an executive who hated his job so much he quit and, perhaps feeling penniless and unrecognized, had an infatuation with a girl from the office. It’s not so very different.
6
I arrive home and open the front door to the sound of splashing and the smell of food cooking—a rich, meaty, garlicky smell. I drop my bag in the hallway, rush to Adam as if I’ve been overboard all this time and he’s the lifeboat; he stops stirring the bolognese, puts both arms around me, and pulls me out of the sea of worry. I crumple into his shoulder; he kisses my hair.
“The girls are dying to see you,” he says. “They’re having a squabble-bath.” We call them that because they always fight over who has the most bubbles and try to divide them into equal soap-mountains.
* * *
“Mummy, guess what?” says Hester as they get into their pajamas.
“Daddy took Charlie to her class,” says Milla.
“I was going to tell her!” shouts Hester.
“Milla, let Hester tell Mummy, all right?” says Adam.
“Well, Daddy brought Charlie and we all hugged him,” Hester continues.
“Who did you all hug—Daddy or Charlie?” I say.