by Mark Watson
There, things were progressing as might have been expected. There had been ferocious arguments, in the course of which Sarah-Jane apparently struck Howard several times on the head, while JD sat numbly waiting for his hero to do something: to summon a defence which never came. I heard all this from JD the next day, and heard also that he and his mother had gone to the South of France. They would be staying there for a while, he said. I was to keep an eye on Chas.
This order was, of course, quite unnecessary. Chas stayed at my house the next two nights. The following day Pattie came back, and I had to tell her everything that had happened.
‘Why the hell,’ she asked, after a full minute of silence, ‘didn’t you ever say anything to me?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said – truthfully. ‘It was easier just to pretend that the whole thing was the way Howard said.’
‘And what are you going to do now? You can’t go back to work there now, can you? Could you not have hung on just a few more years and—’
‘No,’ I cut in. ‘I am not going back to work there. I am going to – well, to be frank, I don’t know exactly what I shall do. But the first thing is that I am going to take Chas for a little trip up north. Up to Inverness, to see Caroline and Christopher.’
‘For how long?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t really have a plan.’
‘You always have a plan.’
It was true; or had always been true. There had never been a week of my life in which I could not predict, with absolute certainty, where I would be the following week. Now there were no certainties; just possibilities.
After a couple of days spent taking stock of our changed situation, through long conversations – sometimes about what had happened, sometimes about trivial things – we went back to the Alpha. Howard came to meet Chas in the atrium, clutching him – as always – as if he had been away for years. Chas returned the embrace, his head angled down at the floor. I studied Howard’s face over the jumble of their arms. For the first time ever, I was seeing him unshaven: the coating of hair on his chin was surprisingly thick and as white as Father Christmas’s. He looked poorly rested and his suit jacket was rumpled as if from several days’ consecutive service. When he spoke, his eyebrows seemed to labour into their normal playful elevation; the light in his eyes flickered for a moment and then dimmed again.
‘I guess we have some talking to do,’ he said.
‘We do,’ said Chas very quietly, and the two of them retired through the corridor to the living room.
Since it felt too odd to be there without working, I took what had always been my place alongside Suzie at the reception desk. Bright blue oozed through the skylight and a big group of laughing holidaymakers took turns to photograph each other in the atrium. I went down to the cellar and found my old check-in ledgers in a retired filing cabinet, not far from a case containing several magnums of champagne. I squatted down and leafed through one of the books from the 1980s; the patterns of names arrived and departed belonging to people now dispersed in a thousand different directions. There had been some idea in my mind that I might want to take some of them with me – to salvage the original Bakelite telephone, perhaps, or the typewriter, or one of the old thrillers Agatha used to pore over. But when it came to it, they were only objects.
I stood for some time in the cool of the cellar, listening to the hotel above as if it were some great creature which had swallowed me. It was churning through its daily excitements and routines as it had done all this time, and as its predecessor had done in Victorian days, when some errand boy or chef’s mate now long dead must have stood upon this exact spot in the bowels of the building. The hotel would be perfectly all right without me. It was a sorry thought, but in a certain way also a comforting one.
Chas came back into the atrium in the evening; Howard patted him on the back before heading into the Alpha Bar.
‘How did it go?’
‘It was all right,’ said Chas. ‘He wants to see you in the bar.’
‘How all right was it?’ I could not help asking.
Chas smiled. ‘I’m still coming with you, if that’s what you mean.’
Ray had reserved an area of the bar with a bottle of wine on the table. Howard was very still. As I approached, he half rose from his seat as if for a formal greeting, and then seemed to think better of it. We shook hands across the table and sat facing one another with the wine between us. Howard sloshed it out into two oversized glasses: almost the whole bottle gone in one go. I studied his face.
‘So, Madman.’
I glanced towards the bar, where Ray was making a show of fiddling with his telephone; he caught my eye and immediately took a glass down from a rack and began to polish it with something. I wondered how many of the Alpha’s staff knew what had happened, knew now the truth about the man sitting opposite me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘for all the trouble I must have caused.’
Howard gave a sort of grimace, almost amused, and inclined his head. ‘You could make a case that I caused it, mate.’
‘You could indeed,’ I agreed, ‘but – well, there it is.’
‘Been a rough few days, certainly. The Captain isn’t answering the phone. JD is answering his, but … ’
‘But not in the way you would like.’
‘Precisely.’ Howard scratched his new stubble, took a gulp of wine and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘He’s angry. Everyone’s angry, obviously. Everyone’s going to be angry for a long time.’ The wine, sliding down inside him, seemed to give him a brief shot of courage. ‘But, well, I’ll just have to wait it out.’ He rested his hands on his knees and looked steadily at me; but his voice betrayed a waning of the defiance.
‘So you and Chas are going away?’
It sounded more realistic each time I said it out loud. Yes, he and I are going for a little trip. Up to Scotland, to see my daughter and grandson. We’ll stay there for a while, I think. And after that …’
I tailed off. He reached out to touch my sleeve.
‘I’ll sort you out, you know, mate,’ he said. ‘Finance-wise. We’ll come to whatever arrangement you want in terms of – you know. A golden handshake. Whatever they call it. We can make that—’
‘You don’t owe me anything, Howard.’ My hand had turned cold, and I moved it up from the stem to the body of the glass for the sake of having something to cling to. ‘Indeed, without you … ’
A couple of young businessmen came in, shiny fellows with well-pressed suits and short, fashionably spiky hair. One clapped the other on the back making some remark about a long night’s drinking ahead. Howard watched them with what looked like wistfulness for a moment. I cleared my throat.
‘I am hoping to track down – or at least take steps to track down – or, anyway, I—’
‘You want to try and find Agatha.’
‘Perhaps.’ I felt my cheeks warm.
‘And Chas says he wants to see if he can find his real dad. His biological dad.’
‘I don’t think he will ever replace you.’ It was as painful as ever to be reassuring Howard; it felt, as always, like an inversion of the way things ought to be. I saw, with a qualm that crept all the way through my body, his eyes seeking further comfort from me.
‘Do you think he’ll come back? When he’s done all that, when he’s … worked out whatever he needs to? Do you think he’ll ever want to live with me again?’
‘You must have asked him that yourself.’
‘He said it was too early to say. Which it is. Of course it is.’ Howard shrugged wryly, lowering his eyes to the table with a small smile like an ace card-player finally accepting defeat. ‘God knows, I had things my way for twenty-one years.’
Really he had had his own way a lot longer than that, I thought; he’d had nothing but his own way. I thought it without resentment: even with a certain admiration, or sympathy, at least. We sat there for quite some time in silence, watching more latecomers filter into the bar,
listening to the rising hum of their conversation. It was a scene so familiar, my brain could not accommodate the idea I would never see it again.
For old times’ sake, I came in the following morning and handled my final check-ins with much the same routine I had introduced on a bright morning forty years before. Breakfast is served at these times. We can make restaurant bookings. Suzie stood by with an encouraging smile, knowing this was the last time she would have to watch me plod through this rigmarole. I swept my hand for the last time through the rack of A-shaped keys, and bade farewell to the Mercedes, patting its chassis and the steering wheel as if it really had been alive all this time and would miss me. People kept dropping by to wish me good luck. I spoke on the telephone to the man at Fortnum & Mason, concluding a friendship which had run along quite nicely considering that we never managed to meet. Finally, the hire car was delivered outside and Chas was ready with his things. I glanced up at the skylight, grabbed his wrist and walked through the mahogany doors one last time.
The cedars in the forecourt seemed to look down at me in surprise or reproach. All sorts of things are still to happen here, they said, and you will have no part in them. And indeed, as we stood there, a couple came gliding past arm in arm, guests I had never seen before. They pushed open the doors and went inside, and it struck me powerfully that new people would come here every day, that laughter would ring out in the bar and events would take place in the rooms quite as if I had never been there at all.
‘Are you OK?’ said Chas.
‘I am,’ I said. ‘Shall we … ?’
The doors flew open and Howard stood there, with one final trick in his bag. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘are you absolutely sure about this?’
I tried to turn away.
‘I did a bad thing,’ he said, ‘but I tried to make it good, you know. You’re the best friends I’ve had. The only ones I’ve got, now.’
‘Don’t start talking like this, Howard.’ My voice came out gruff and uneven.
‘I tried to make it all right,’ he said again. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to go on without you two. I honestly don’t know what to do.’
His voice shook. I went up to him and held him against me, breathing in his leathery aroma. I took a step back and allowed Chas to grab him in turn. My heart was beating very quickly; as quickly as it had when I made the decision to tell the truth. I thought for a moment that Chas would be dragged back into the hotel, but he turned to me and said, ‘Come on, then.’ I led him to the car without looking back at Howard. And I piled our belongings into the boot and started the engine, knowing that he was still standing there; knowing that I had never been so fond of anyone, but that the end had come.
I locate what is grandly called a ‘minibar’: a squat brown refrigerator containing only a carton of milk and two cans of beer. We sit sipping at the beers. Chas has already called down to reception to connect his computer to the Internet, at a cost of fifteen pounds which I told him I would pay. I watch him now; he’s like a shopkeeper setting out his stall, running briskly through all the button-presses which will configure his laptop for action. It chats away to him in its robotic tone. Voice-aid enabled. Left-click to open window. You are now connected.
There is a slab of cheap wood which passes for a desk, and the two of us are perched upon black plastic swivelling chairs like the ones that invaded the Alpha’s computer room. Chas gives me directions to get onto the Internet and check the route we will be driving tomorrow as we proceed from here, somewhere in the Lake District, to Inverness. The computer program is ingenious. It includes diagrams of the locations of speed cameras and service stations. You can get live traffic reports, Chas says excitedly. You can find out how the traffic is looking before you set off. He begins to demonstrate another feature of the website; he refers to the merits of ‘googling’ something. Then he looks up from the computer and straight ahead, as if staring right into the wall: one of those looks of his which, with the pupils motionless, are so difficult to read meaning into. Our neighbours’ television is in good voice; it broadcasts a noisy argument, a soap opera, perhaps. I put a hand on Chas’s shoulder.
‘Are you missing Howard?’
Chas rises as if in response to the question. ‘Can you start the shower running for me?’
We stand together in the bathroom, where halfway up the wall a shower head dangles from a perch over a bath which looks too small for a moderately tall guest. For a moment I fight off nostalgia for the place we have left, its free-standing tubs, its mosaic tilework, the tranquillity of its rooms. It serves no purpose to think about it. I reach up and start the water.
‘I suppose I am missing him,’ says Chas.
‘I can take you back, you know,’ I say, not wanting to do any such thing. ‘You can go back whenever you want.’
Chas’s eyes rove sightlessly over the plain walls as the water batters the base of the cheap bath. ‘What I miss is Howard as I thought he was.’ I lean over the side of the tub to check the water with one hand; it is still running cold. ‘I miss that,’ he repeats.
‘You will feel differently, in time.’ I am well practised in saying the right thing. You will come to forgive Howard.’
‘Maybe.’
You will see him as what he has always been; what he has really been. As your … ’
But what is Howard now? The two of us stand there with the sound of the water and of voices and slamming doors in the corridor outside.
‘I’m more interested in what comes next,’ says Chas.
The hair stands up on the back of my neck, which is a phenomenon I have heard people describe before. I ensure that Chas can feel his way into the shower before I withdraw, shutting the door behind me, and sit at the desk, looking at the computer.
You like to live in the past, don’t you! Howard said years ago. No, I retorted: the present. And yet he was right, as he so often was. I have lived a great part of my life in homage to my own past. Now, however, it feels as if everything lies in front of me. Tonight, looking out of the window at night falling over the motorway which will carry us forward tomorrow, I can say that I have moved forward. Yes, we are living in the present now, all right.
AFTERWORD
Hotel Alpha is designed to be read in two stages. There is the novel which you have just finished and, I hope, enjoyed – unless you’re one of those people who always flick to the back first. Then there are one hundred extra stories, which appear on a website: www.hotelalphastories.com. You will find eight of them here, once you turn the page. The extra stories span the same time period as the novel. They shine an alternative light on the plot, show the hidden links between some of its main events, solve mysteries, and give voice to some of the thousands of minor characters and dramas which make up the life of the Hotel Alpha while the main story is playing out. They can be read in any order and in any quantity. Or, of course, you can ignore them altogether – it’s entirely up to you.
Everyone knows that human stories are always bigger and more complex than they appear – the relationships and connections between us all are infinite, and a book can only do so much. The Internet, though, removes the physical limitations of the novel, opening up possibilities that have never before existed for readers and writers. We can now choose how much of a story we want to tell, and how much of it we want to know: in theory we can keep going forever. The one hundred extra stories of Hotel Alpha don’t quite go that far, and you as a reader probably have other plans for the rest of your life. But it’s a start …
Mark Watson, May 2014
RESTAURANT AND ELSEWHERE, 1964
Anthony and Rosalynn won’t meet for fifteen years, but tonight they came within yards of one another in the Hotel Alpha’s restaurant. Anthony and Rosalynn, who will one day sleep together as Tony and Roz, are going to set eyes on each other tonight as seven-year-olds without either of them thinking twice about it. Strange how often life teases you with these film trailers, these little hints as to what lies ahead.
&n
bsp; Tonight, both seven-year-olds have peeped at the new Post Office Tower, nearly finished now, an exoskeleton of shiny steel covering the spine of disc-like innards which were once vulnerably exposed to the sceptical brown-grey city. It doesn’t look vulnerable any more: it looks, now, like the sort of weird, excitingly modern monster the future is meant to consist of. There’s a lot of construction going on. The Hotel Alpha itself is new. Actually, the building is old; it was built in the 1870s and the exterior is much as it always was, but inside, everything is modern: the informal manner of the owner, the self-consciously late hours of the restaurant, the garish floral shirts and long hair of the bar crowd. Even the things which follow the existing grand-hotel tradition – the marble floor and chunky reception desk, the chandeliers – exhibit a note of cheeky subversion. The hotel isn’t all that grand, in fact, except in its ambitions.
None of this is of interest to Anthony or Rosalynn, the two children whose paths cross tonight. Not only are they both too young to care how hotels look: both are unhappy.
Anthony is lying on a camp bed pretending to be asleep, as he has been for the past couple of hours. His parents have been arguing the entire time. The mood between them was scratchy all day. They’re in London to visit his uncle Ken, his dad’s brother; but Ken didn’t have room for them all to stay because of some problem with his landlord. This annoyed Anthony’s mother, because it meant a late change of plan. Then they couldn’t find a hotel, and, not knowing London at all, ended up booking into the Alpha. Although pretty reasonable (his mum’s view) it’s still a sight more than they should be spending (his dad’s), and so he too got annoyed. They ate dinner in near silence in the restaurant, and Anthony didn’t dare ask if he could have dessert, even though he would have given everything in his piggy bank for an ice-cream sundae like the one that arrived for the girl on the next table. Then they came up to the room and things worsened. His dad shouted at his mum for taking too long in the bathroom taking off her make-up. She said something about how she hadn’t wanted to come on this trip, and some things about his side of the family which Anthony didn’t understand. He washed his face and brushed his teeth as quickly as he could, got into the camp bed the hotel concierge had set up for them, rolled over onto his side facing away from his parents, towards the window, and wished he was asleep.