by Alan Keslian
The twin beds had been thrown onto their sides and the mattresses and bedding were strewn higgledy-piggledy across the floor. The dressing table was leaning acutely, its once square angles now grossly distorted, the drawers tossed about the room, the mirror broken, half of it lying in pieces on the floor. The television lay face down, the tube shattered and the back dashed into splinters; the kettle, tea and coffee- making things had been flung down on top of it.
Two inverted ‘V’s of damp on the wall and dark patches on the carpet showed where the men had urinated. The light fittings, broken and torn away, were hanging by their wires. In spray paint on the wall, above where the heads of the beds had been, was the outline of a giant erect male organ with the obscenity ‘SHIT SHAGGERS’ scrawled in thick marker-pen below it.
The major cause of the stench lay in the tangle of crumpled bedding on the floor. They had defecated on the white cotton of my sheets. With the room’s en suite toilet a few yards away, the action demonstrated real malice. The mess on my bedding appalled me more than all the other damage. As I opened the windows to let out the stink the braided curtains seemed to hang with chaste disapproval over the devastation below.
The perpetrators of this outrage had doubtless made their escape before the house stirred. The prospect of cleaning up what they had left in the sheet made me nauseous. I stood at the window for several minutes inhaling fresh air, watching the boughs of the street’s plane trees swaying in the breeze. In the hotel downstairs activity would be continuing as usual; the cook and waiter would be busy with breakfasts, and people checking out that morning would be asking for their bills. If I went down to normality now the smell and the mess in the room would be waiting to be dealt with, and would be constantly on my mind.
With no rubber gloves to hand I gingerly lifted up the soiled bedding, keeping my fingers clear of its repulsive contents, and manoeuvred the faeces towards the toilet. After flushing the excreta away and putting the soiled linen into black plastic sacks, I washed my hands, flushed the toilet a second time and washed my hands again, hoping to make doubly certain that every last trace of the filth had gone. On leaving the room I carefully edged the door closed, hiding the devastation from other guests who might pass.
I called the police, and during a lull in breakfast activity took the part-time cook and waiter up to see the damage. Sharing the horror with them helped me a little, but at ten-thirty they went off duty leaving me on my own. Darren had left for an early shift at the hamburger dive, the cleaner was not due in that day, and there was no answer to my ’phone calls to Tom or Andrew.
I apologised to the guests who had heard the disturbance, saying this was the first time there had been any trouble and that the hotel was normally very quiet. Fortunately none of them made a fuss. When everyone had gone, various hotel duties kept me occupied for a time, but after putting the last of the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher I sat miserably in the bay window of the dining room waiting for the police, wishing merciless vengeance on the pair who had vandalised my room.
People hardly ever come to the hotel without having made a booking, but expensive bags and new leather jackets gave the impression that the two men had money. My little dial-up unit for checking credit cards had cleared the one they proffered as valid. Nothing about them made me suspicious. The police would no doubt check and discover that the credit card had been stolen, and that the names and addresses they gave were false. A few hundred pounds’ worth of damage was unlikely to merit much of an investigation. Like the men who had abused Darren, they would go unpunished, free to gloat over their actions.
Two officers arrived an hour and a half later, a man and a woman. They spent about twenty minutes in the hotel examining the wreckage and making a few notes. Having a police car outside and officers in the hotel was not likely to encourage business, and at first they put me on edge by looking at the rack of leaflets and cards for gay clubs and organisations in the hall. The female officer asked with what looked to be a forced smile how many people had been staying last night, and if the hotel guests were exclusively male. At first I feared prejudice and was expecting hostile questions about the nature of the business, but she reassured me by saying that the hotel was in the right area, in easy reach of quite a few gay pubs and clubs.
The male officer used his radio to check the credit card number and the address the two vandals had given, and minutes later received confirmation that they were fraudulent. They asked me not to clean any glass surfaces, cups or similar objects until the fingerprint specialist had come, and said they would send me a letter with an incident number for my insurers as proof that the crime had been reported.
After the police left, the prospect of going back up to the vandalised room for a fourth time that day was too unpleasant. The best thing would have been for me to have gone out for an hour to walk in the park or do some shopping, but as the fingerprint expert was on his way I had to wait in. As the cleaner was off duty his chores fell to me, but unable to face doing the rooms I moped around in the kitchen.
The fingerprint specialist arrived shortly before mid-day with his little case of equipment, but he found no prints that could definitely be identified as belonging to the wreckers. Presumably thinking already of another more important case, as he was leaving he asked if any cars had been stolen in the area recently, giving me the impression there was little chance of my pair of vandals ever being caught.
Tom came over at lunchtime as soon as he picked up my message, and ran ahead of me up the stairs to see the damage. The earlier overpowering stench had gone, but even with the windows open the room smelt of urine. He carefully inspected the wreckage, asking rhetorically several times, ‘How on earth could anyone do something like this?’ He hugged me protectively and said, ‘You must feel as if you’ve been punched in the face. If I get hold of them I’ll tie them to the back of the van and drag them round the streets.’
Although the room looked a complete wreck, he thought most things could probably be repaired or replaced reasonably quickly, and pointed out that the effects could have been worse if they had ripped out bathroom fittings and caused a flood, or smashed the windows or knocked holes in the partition walls. He suggested fixing the things that could be done quickly first, and then when he had worked for about an hour would break for a cup of tea and assess what remained to be done.
Leaving him to repair the damage, I found the energy to make a start on the hotel rooms, having to skimp because there was so little of the day left. After an energetic hour I went down to the kitchen, switched on the kettle and put some raspberries with vanilla ice-cream into three little glass dishes.
When Darren came back from work he joined Tom and me for this little treat, after which we all went up to the vandalised room. It already looked much better than before. Tom had removed the pieces of broken mirror and righted the dressing table so that its angles were square again. He had put the beds back in place and rehung the door. The remaining obvious signs of damage were the graffiti, still obscenely prominent, and a light fitting which was too twisted out of shape to repair. He had removed the broken television to a cupboard on the landing.
‘I’ll paint over that obscenity on the wall, but I’m not sure what to do about the carpet.’
‘I suppose I’ll have throw it out.’
Darren offered to try to clean it. ‘It’s only a bit of weewee. If we get it down into the garden, I’ll give it a good hosing down and use carpet shampoo on it. You shouldn’t have to throw it away.’
‘You’re an expert on cleaning carpets now are you?’ I asked. ‘How long do you think it’s going to take to dry?’
‘It’s worth trying.’
He and Tom rolled it up while I went for two black plastic sacks to put over the ends so they would be able to carry it without getting urine on their clothes. On my way back to the room I noticed the window on the stairs was open. ‘I hope you’re not intending to put it out through there.’
‘No, of course w
e’re not. We wanted some fresh air.’
They slid the bags into place and began to manoeuvre the carpet down the first flight of steps, Tom going first, having to walk down backwards. Darren followed him looking as though he might collapse under the weight. Seeing him struggle I tried to help by supporting the middle. When Tom reached the open window he said: ‘Right, one, two, three, now!’
He heaved his end up and out, while Darren ran towards me shouting, ‘Look out Mark.’ Tom energetically shoved the carpet through the window until the force of gravity took over and it plummeted out of sight, hitting the ground with a loud thud. I looked down at the two of them in exasperation as they leaned out to see how it had landed.
‘Yeah, wow!’
Tom turned to look at me. ‘Wonder how that happened,’ he said in mock innocence.
‘What if it hit something, or someone, on the way down?’
‘I made sure the area was clear before we let it go. If we pushed hard enough it was bound to fall clear of the house. It’s flattened a bit of grass on the lawn, that’s all.’
Darren ran off down the stairs, and we watched him unroll the carpet onto the concrete outside the kitchen. He uncoiled the garden hose and began drenching it thoroughly. In the room Tom showed me where he had glued together the split wood of the door frame, explaining that he had used longer screws than before to make sure the hinges would hold. Then he tested the door to show that it would open and close properly. ‘You try it,’ he suggested.
I stepped forward, turned the handle, opened the door wide, then gently shut it again, letting my hand rest on the handle. ‘Seems to be okay.’ He was standing directly behind me, very close, smelling faintly of aftershave or cologne. He reached forward and put his hand over mine, pressing downwards until the latch clicked; in concert we opened and closed the door again. Our shoulders touched, and the side of his chin brushed against my cheek as he leaned against me. I turned round in his arms to see that his face, like mine, was full of smiles. There was something we could do together to purge the room of the desecration it had suffered. We locked the door in case Darren came upstairs looking for us.
Chapter 11
New Chapter
Darren and I were to meet Lizetta at a Belgian-style mussels and chips restaurant near Blackfriars Bridge. To make a good impression on her he wore the new suit Andrew had bought him and a shirt and tie. He did not have to dress up for lunch with Lizetta, but this was his first opportunity to show off his new clothes.
He looked different; his long bones did not seem nearly as knobbly as they did in his usual jeans and T-shirt. Nobody seeing him now would assume he was doomed to a lifetime of clearing tables in a fast food outlet; the impression he gave was of being a young man with prospects.
He was nervous, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, evidence that he was taking this opportunity seriously. I glanced at him now and again as we waited for the bus to Blackfriars, trying to accustom myself to his changed appearance. ‘Do I look all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes. You look good in that packaging.’
‘Is my hair all right?’
‘You’re fine. We’re going for a friendly chat over lunch. It won’t be like an interview. You can relax – well don’t be too relaxed – you know what I mean.’
‘What is she going to ask me?’
‘The things that we’ve talked about. She’ll need to know what subjects you were doing at school, what’s happened since, what you’re interested in. Talk to her naturally, as though you were speaking to Andrew or me, you’ll be fine.’
During the past few weeks Andrew had been pressing him ever more strongly to return to his studies. He had been over to Biddulph Mansions half a dozen times to talk about catching up on the exams he had missed and what kind of career in horticulture he should aim for. The possibility of giving up the burger bar to work part-time at the hotel had yet to be mentioned to him, but as Andrew anticipated my reluctance had dwindled away and I began to think it might work out quite well, making me less dependant on casual staff and freeing me from some of the routine work. Andrew gently nudged us into a closer friendship, asking for my opinion about how his future might develop, and deflecting some of the questions Darren asked him, for instance about how long a college course was likely to last, onto me. The boy became more anxious to please me than ever. When he was not on morning shift at the burger bar he would help clear up in the breakfast room and kitchen, and he had begun learning how to key in data for the hotel’s accounts. There was no doubt that, working for me part-time, he would be a great help.
We travelled into central London on the upper floor of a bus, something I had not done for years and years, although it would have been quicker to ask Andrew to have one of his staff drive us up. The presence of other passengers made it difficult to talk, and a drab day made London’s streets look their least attractive, but in those early months of being indoors in the hotel for so much of my time any opportunity to get out and do something different was enjoyable.
Lizetta was sitting at the restaurant bar sipping a Campari. She smiled warmly when I introduced her to Darren, and when we took our places for the meal I sat beside her so that they were facing each other. ‘Have you been to this type of restaurant before?’ she asked.
‘No. First time.’ His voice wavered slightly and for a few moments I was worried that he would panic and, struggling to find something to say, would launch into one of his revolting tales from work about hypodermic needles being found in a staff locker or maggots wriggling around in the rubbish bins. His brow furrowed as he looked at the menu. I asked, ‘See anything that appeals to you?’
‘I don’t really know what to choose.’
Lizetta said, ‘Have the Moules Marinière with chips. I love them. You’ll be able to say you’ve eaten the classic Belgian mussels dish once, even if you never come here again.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I’ll have. Will it be all right if I have mineral water to drink?’ He looked up; his face, far from showing panic, was full of youthful innocence, as though to drink anything other than mother’s milk was an adventure for him. I gave him a reassuring smile and hoped Lizetta would not think he was putting on an act.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I think we deserve a glass of wine each. We’ll have a bottle of water too. I’m sorry, Mark, I ought to let you decide.’
As she was doing me a favour by seeing him, the meal was to be my treat. A waitress keyed our order into a little hand-held unit and pointed it towards an infra-red receiver in the ceiling, sending the details electronically to the kitchen. While we waited for our food Lizetta explained a little about her job as personnel manager, saying that she quite often arranged courses for new recruits in the firm.
She mentioned West London Tertiary College, where she knew some of the staff, and thought some of the courses might suit him. As though everything was settled he said, ‘Yeah, is it fairly easy to get to? Would I be able to cycle there?’
‘Possibly, but first of all we need to look at the prospectus to see if it’s right for you. They have a selection procedure you would have to go through. We may need to consider other colleges as well. WLTC do run a course approved by the Royal Horticultural Society, that was partly why I mentioned them. You would have to finish your school exams and get good grades to get a place on it though. You’re interested in gardening, Mark tells me?’
‘Yes. At the hotel I planted out the gardens and some containers for the porch. Andrew, who runs the local garden centre, has taught me loads. He lends me his books, he’s got hundreds of them.’
‘Have you had practical experience apart from the gardens and containers at the hotel?’
He said he had learned at home from his father, where they had grown vegetables as well as ornamental plants. Our waitress interrupted with three large bowls of mussels in their shells and golden chips on side plates, leaving hardly any space for glasses of water or wine on our compact table. As we began to eat, to impress us
he told us the two palm trees in tubs on either side of the restaurant entrance had the botanical name Trachycarpus fortunei, that they were hardy outdoors in sheltered places in England, and that the palm tree whose name he liked even more was Phoenix dactylifera, the date palm, but it could not withstand frost and needed to be grown in a greenhouse. He spoke of work being done at the Buckinghamshire nursery on crossbreeding plants to produce new hybrids with a bigger range of flower colours and to improve disease resistance.
When he and Andrew lapsed into discussions about plants my mind tended to switch to other things, but listening to him in the restaurant articulating multi-syllabic botanical terms he seemed to be really knowledgeable. Lizetta asked him about house plants, which ones would be best in bright positions and which in shade. He thought for a few moments before answering, recommended half a dozen for each situation, and offered to photocopy a list from one of Andrew’s books for her. ‘Thank you, that would be really useful. Would you like to go into the same line of work as Andrew?’
‘Andrew might give me a start, but there are botanical gardens with full-time employees doing scientific work. They may not pay all that well, but if something interests you, that’s more important, isn’t it?’
All the while the ill-constructed pile of empty mussel shells on his plate was growing and beginning to look as though it might collapse over the table. Lizetta, who had been neatly sliding one empty shell into another as she ate, rescued him by scooping the top of his stack onto her own plate. He looked towards me for reassurance, and as he was a slow eater and might start to worry about falling behind I said, ‘You seem to be getting on well with those, Darren. Take your time, we’re not in any hurry.’