“Well,” Waits said, and paused. “Well, the company’s...”
“No, no, no,” the man said. “All private bookings. We have to for a course like this, for tax reasons. I thought you’d said you were, ah, between jobs anyway...”
“I...” Waits said, but had no idea how to continue.
“Not that it’s any of my business,” the man said, seemingly worried that he’d offended Straw. “A lot... most of my customers are between jobs. That’s why they came on the course after all. Most don’t admit it obviously...”
“I have to be...” Waits said.
“Wait,” the man said, and Waits gave a slight start as he thought he heard his own name – he didn’t feel like he’d heard it for days. “Wait before you go,” the man said, “and speaking of money, are you planning to come back to the afternoon session? If not, I could really do with the final payment...”
“No, no, I’ll be back,” Waits said. “I’ll pay you this afternoon.”
Leaving quickly he scuttled to the car-park. No wonder the course had been full of people claiming to be high-flyers – they were all pretending! He pulled out the business card the woman had given him the previous day, saw for the first time how yellowed and tattered round the edges it was. Much like he now noticed Straw’s was. They must be desperate, those people, he thought, if they’re out of a job and think that paying for a course like this will... But then why had his boss sent him on it?
No, no, this is Straw’s course, Straw’s life, Waits told himself, you must remember that.
While he had been thinking all this, Waits had been walking round the hotel car-park, surreptitiously pressing the button on Straw’s car key. Finally he was in range for he pressed it again and saw a car’s lights flash, heard the click as it unlocked.
If he’s really unemployed, Waits thought, how can he afford a car like that?
***
The car was a make Waits didn’t even know – neither the model or manufacturer’s logo were in any way familiar to him. It’s not like I don’t know about cars, Waits thought, so why... He decided the car was obviously so classy and expensive it had passed him by: soft-top, streamlined, sports car. A mid-life crisis car, Waits decided, but that didn’t diminish the pleasure he felt when he climbed in: it was obviously imported, for the driver seat was on the left. He rested his hand on the gearstick, and it felt odd to feel it in the ‘wrong’ hand; just like it had, Waits thought, when he’d first reached for the light in the room next door...
He drove off, feeling the surge of Straw’s engine. At first he thought everyone else on the roads mad or suicidal, until he realised: the car wasn’t imported at all. It was just that here, wherever he was, people drove on the opposite side of the road, like a reflection.
***
Still, the way home seemed the same. He found that if he didn’t think about driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road then it came naturally to him. He was trying not to think about a lot of things now; Waits was good at not thinking about things.
Outside everything was almost the same.
The music on the radio was unfamiliar but that wasn’t unusual – Waits turned it up, and the bass sound of the engine seemed another part of the music. There were no speed cameras that he knew of on the way back, and besides it was Straw’s car anyway... Waits enjoyed the easy way the car overtook others, effortless in the fast-lane. How can Straw afford this, Waits thought; except that wasn’t quite true. At first he caught himself thinking, how am I affording this?
When he pulled off the motorway he felt his trepidation grow. He almost didn’t want the drive to end, and he felt sick with nerves as he neared his own street, his own house. Come on, he thought, imagine Teresa’s face when you pull up in this. LOVE YOU BABE, he thought, but no that had been someone...
He parked up outside his house and even before he had got out Teresa had opened the front door, was coming out in her bare feet with a wide eyed expression on her face. Waits grinned, felt suddenly ridiculously relieved. He got out the car.
“Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head.
“Isn’t it?” Waits said, looking at the car.
“Fucking unbelievable,” Teresa repeated, and Waits realised for the first time how barely under control her voice was. “Unbelievable. If you think you can spend everything before the papers come through, you’re very much mistaken.”
“What?” Waits said. “Papers?”
“Don’t try and pretend you haven’t had them,” Teresa snapped. “My lawyer was very clear. He also said that anything you buy is half mine, until it’s finally done. So go ahead – try and pull another twenty year old with your mid-life crisis mobile. If there’s another one stupid enough. But you’ll only have to sell it anyway.”
“Teresa, what...?” Waits said. He ran his hands through his hair, was for a hazy moment convinced they’d come back covered in dye. “Teresa what do you mean? You’re divorcing me?”
“What do you expect?” Teresa yelled, the control gone. “You lose your job and don’t even tell me? Blow your redundancy money staying in hotels and, and... god knows what!”
“But I...,” Waits said. “It’s a course...” But why was he defending himself, he hadn’t done any of those things! Straw had.
“I have to get back,” he said. “This is the wrong...”
“Yes you fuck off back to your hotel,” Teresa said. “You aren’t coming in.”
Say my name, Waits thought, say ‘Straw’ – then I’ll know...
“Well go then,” Teresa said. “Blow more money at the mini-bar.”
Say my...
“Just go will you!”
Waits got back into his car.
***
He sat there for a while, breathing slowly. Teresa had gone back inside and slammed the front door – my front door, Waits thought. Where was he to go? Back to the hotel? But he had no way to pay – Straw’s card had been cancelled, he was spending like there was no tomorrow...
Maybe I have other places to go, Waits thought, maybe I know people. He opened the car’s glove-box. Inside were several sheets of A4 paper, with Wait’s handwriting on both sides. He had never seen them before. He pulled them out, unfolded them on his knees, and read them.
They were all identical – no, not quite identical, Waits realised. There were slight changes to the wording, different and more expressive phrases used. More invective; more remorse – the most crumpled piece of paper was obviously a first draft, the others, in roughly the order they had been folded together the later, more definitive versions. Straw was obviously a man who tried things out before he did them, Waits thought...
I have to get back. I have to get back into 224, back into my own room, my own clothes, my own life...
Straw was obviously a person who tried things out before he did them: he had written his suicide note at least seven times. Hands shaking, Waits put the papers, carefully folded, back into the glove-box, and locked it. His left hand groped uselessly before he realised – he put the car into first with his right, and slowly pulled off.
***
He drove back to the hotel; he had nowhere else to go. It wasn’t yet check out time, and so he told the receptionist he would be staying an extra night and would settle in the morning. There wasn’t a problem, no one else had reserved room 222. But how to get into 224, Waits wondered...
“Sir?” the receptionist said as he turned to leave. “Mister Straw?”
“Yes?”
“Someone was looking for you earlier? The gentleman running the seminar in the conference suite...?”
“Ah yes,” Waits said slowly. “I, uh, caught up with him. All taken care of.”
He headed upstairs, walked slowly to 222, not wanting to get there. Not knowing what he was to do when he got there. Order some food on the room, maybe, then he wouldn’t have to worry about how to pay until next morning at least. Out of habit, knowing it wouldn’t work, he tried Straw’s room card in the slot for room 22
4...
The light clicked red.
Teresa..., he thought.
He put Straw’s card in the slot for 222, the light clicked green, he entered.
He put Straw’s card down on the bedside cabinet...
Straw’s card?
Waits paused – suddenly an excited idea bubbled up in his mind, and he almost daren’t move for how fragile it seemed. Straw’s swipe-card – no. This was his, the one thing he had brought from his life in room 224 – indeed that was how he had got into 222 in the first place, how he had got into this whole hellish mess; his card had opened Straw’s room. And so that meant that Straw’s room card might be here too, and if that one was the opposite of his it might open...
If he could find it.
Waits searched Straw’s room, searched through Straw’s luggage, becoming increasingly more frantic. Everything he found was expected, everything he found was a reflection of something Waits owned: the clothes, the shoe horn, the initialled handkerchiefs (the initials the wrong way round of course). The only unexpected things he found were half a dozen packets of pills – Waits read the name of the tablets but had no idea what they were. He flung them down on the mattress and carried on searching. Think, he thought, where would you..?
He went to the wardrobe on the left-hand side of the room, searched in the inner jacket pocket of the spare suit. Inside was a swipe-card. Waits took it out, held it besides Straw’s to assure himself he was right, there were two, he hadn’t just found the same card again. The two were identical – well, they were meant to be identical, but even down to the faint wearing away of the magnetic strip on them they were almost identical – one worn away down the left-hand side, one the right.
Don’t get them confused, Waits thought – he put the newly found card, Straw’s card, in his right pocket, put his own in his left. Then he went out into the hotel corridor, let the door for 222 slam behind him. Cautiously, as if afraid of what it would mean to fail, he tried his own card in the door for 224.
The light clicked red.
No, no, no, Waits thought in agitation, you’re getting muddled, your card works in 222, that’s the whole point. Try...
He tried Straw’s card. The light clicked green.
Feeling the breath catch in his throat, Waits opened the door. Inside it was dark (already? he thought) and his hand groped for the light switch – but it was like a repeat of a few days before, he had grown used to 222 and now his right arm had searched for the switch on a wall that wasn’t there. The door to the bathroom on the left appeared wrong, the room appeared a reflection of itself...
And it was empty, it took Waits little time to realise. The wardrobe on the right was empty, no spare jacket hung up, no suitcase beneath. There was no unwashed coffee cup by the bed, no magazine with a partially filled in crossword, no razor or faded toothbrush in the bathroom on his left. The room was obviously uninhabited, none of his things were here, not his car keys, not his mobile to call Teresa on (the real Teresa) not his wallet or credit card...
But it doesn’t matter, Waits thought, if I’m just back then at...
He flung open the curtains, his thought half finished. In the distance the lights of the motorway could be seen, the constant stream of traffic. He could see it moving orderly, regularly, driving on the wrong side of the road.
Waits sat down on the neatly made bed and wept.
***
Eventually, he returned to Room 222, not knowing what else to do. At least he had Straw’s things there. He called room service, had them deliver a bottle of whisky, told them to put it on the room. Knowing he, Straw, could never pay. He lay down on the bed drunk, having to move the packets of tablets as he did so. He thought of Straw blowing his redundancy money on ridiculously expensive cars and teenage hookers; thought of the drafts and revisions of Straw’s suicide note in the glove-box of his car. He thought how it would look.
Or..., Waits thought, you could always... But like so often, his thoughts were unfinished.
If he had lost his job would he have tried to hide it? From Teresa, from himself? I probably have lost it, Waits thought, back there, on the other side or wherever, for he hadn’t turned up for days. Or had his reflection gone in his stead, had Straw got his life while he had got his...
Or, or..., Waits thought, you could...
He picked up one of the packs of tablets. Do not exceed the stated dose. He did have a headache. And the prescription note with them was in his name, sort of. If you held it up to a...
But there were no mirrors in this hotel room.
Or, or...
Straw stared at the tablets in his hand for a long time.
Home Time
The boys snigger as he walks past, semi-audible taunts that he can’t quite make out. He ignores them of course, for he is twenty-one now, well nearly, what does he care what such boys do? He knows their type well – twelve year old boys whose first sign of puberty isn’t a broken voice or sudden growth spurt, but a macho-man desire to prove themselves by humiliating others. He knows such boys well, and it seems like only yesterday when he would have reacted to their jeers by blushing, wincing oddly, and speeding up in case the abuse got physical.
But that was then, not now. Now – after he’s grown up, left home, gone to university. Now it is a clear autumn day beneath a peaceful sky, with an equal amount of leaves on the trees above him and on the path below. He is on a Headington hill overlooking the city, and the Oxford spires can be seen dreaming in the near distance, so detailed he feels as though he could touch them. Now, today, he is uncharacteristically happy, due to the surroundings, the new book under his arm, and a first date that night... First ever.
“Wanker!” one of the boys calls out behind him, causing his heart to stop-start nervously. The boy’s accent is odd; he can’t place it - not from around here. He tries not to be angry at the kids; he knows that’s how it’s done, insulting grownups because they can’t react as though they’ve heard. But he does feel angry, because the shouted words remind him of the village he grew up in, and that he will have to return there at the end of term, for a month’s long Christmas.
It will still be the same, he thinks, a mining village without a mine. Despite the local front-page demolition the Pit’s shadow still remains, for the ex-miners still drink down the Welfare, still sleep the same hours, still seem to carry coal dust in the bags under their eyes. He sighs heavily as he walks through the leaves, thinking of the old Council estates, the now ironically named Black Diamond pub, the tiny flats (the kids used to call them the ‘Granny Flats’) that are now just home to a young couple’s arguments, because they can afford nowhere else. He thinks of joy-riders, of the streaks and seams of graffiti, declaring hate or lust or even love (although the later emotion is reserved for football teams only). He thinks of the Parish Council, trying to improve things by installing hanging baskets of flowers every six months, which at least provides some variety for the vandals. It is all still frighteningly close in his head, and he knows that once he has been back a few days he will regress into it and his old life, as if he never left, as if he never will.
He looks behind him. Are those boys following him? Surely not. He cannot see because he has rounded a corner whilst he was reminiscing. The path is coated in damp, spongy leaves, so he couldn’t hear footsteps even if there were any – but why is he thinking that? He shakes his head irritably. Already his good mood seems long gone, something he imagined. The trees are low above his head, the sun is sinking and sooty shadows are falling on the city in front of him, settling in every crevice of the architecture. And, against his will, his mind drops back a decade again.
He remembers the schoolyard bully-boys, who had once loomed so large in his life. He hadn’t been bullied any more than anyone else, or any less, it was just one of those things. Adults had always said “Stand up to them, the bullies are just cowards underneath, if you stand up to them they’ll leave you alone...” The stupid kids had believed this, and got their heads
kicked in. He’d been wise and kept his own head down, putting up with the taunts when they came, hoping the boys would get bored quickly and not all be waiting for him outside the school gates... He’d felt like a coward, for not standing up to them, but of course he is beyond that now. It hadn’t happened that much anyway, not really. Strange to think though, that threats and violence had played such a part in his formative years.
He kicks the leaves up as he walks, and there is the smell of decay underneath, and all around.
He’s forgiven and forgotten now, so he tells himself. Now he is an adult... But then, in one of his weekly duty-calls back to the terraces, his mum had told him how four of his prepubescent tormentors had died, and his heart had quivered with a quick thrill. They’d all four died in the same car, wrapping it around a bridge support upon which they had spray-painted their own names only a few nights earlier. His mum had expected him to be upset, she’d never known about the bullying. But instead he had smiled and gone back to his books, as though he’d finally shown them... His imagination had given him a view of the car wreckage, filled not with adults, but with four crushed and twisted eleven year olds. He wonders how they would have reacted if they could see him now, walking around while blatantly holding a book of poetry. That would have marked him out for a beating, even if it was Larkin, with his swearing and cynicism. He can’t wait to read it...
There is the sound of contemptuous laughter behind him, and when he looks round he sees the boys are following him, hands in their pockets, déjà-vu inducing smiles. He shakes his head at the ridiculousness of it, hoping they can see his careful scorn. He walks faster to avoid a confrontation, but only for their sake’s of course. As if he can be threatened by such kids now! But then, he thinks, there are a few of them – three? Four? Could four boys beat up one twenty year old man? If they crowded round, spitting perhaps, pressing him against the brick wall... But there is no wall! He shakes his head again, trying to get rid of his stupidest thoughts. There is no wall, only the dark trees, and the spires in the distance, being eaten base upwards by the shadows.
The Other Room Page 3