Hôtel du Lac
‘Can I just tell you I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I first saw you at the station,’ he said, and began to adjust the straps on her rucksack. ‘It’s sending me crazy. It’s throwing you off-balance for one thing, swinging free like that …’
Why had she closed her eyes?
‘… and you want the weight on your hips, not your shoulders.’
And frowning now, why was she frowning?
‘May I?’ he asked, and she licked her lips and nodded, and he undid the plastic belt buckle across her clavicle and reached down for the other buckle at her waist, pulling it tighter. ‘Bit late in the day but … there. What do you think?’
Her smile seemed tighter too. ‘That’s so much better!’ She rolled her shoulders. ‘It’s a bit like being properly fitted for a bra,’ she said, which seemed a strange thing to say but perhaps they were both still a little drunk.
They walked side by side along the gravel driveway, straight-backed, like teenagers preparing to get into a nightclub. The hotel was from the 1920s, flat-fronted, painted an expensive creamy white with a lush green lawn that rolled down to the shores of Ullswater. Wooden jetty, tasteful lawn furniture, even an artist’s easel set up to face the lake, and a woman in a loose white shift dress and sunhat, crouching and dabbing.
‘This is posh,’ he said, aware now of his mud-spattered trousers, his sticky, beery mouth, the salt and sweat stiffening his skin.
‘Too posh for us,’ she said. ‘We’re going to be asked to sleep in the gazebo.’
More than posh, it was romantic, extravagantly so, a honeymoon hotel or weekend retreat for new lovers. ‘Don’t stare,’ said Marnie, ‘but I think that’s someone from the Bloomsbury Group.’ The woman at the easel was waving with her paintbrush, and as he waved back, he caught the smell of his armpits.
‘I actually stink.’
‘It’d be funny to go up and look at her easel and it’s just a big cock and balls.’
‘Beer and sweat. I really don’t think they’re going to let us in here.’
‘We’s just as good as any toff,’ said Marnie. ‘Anyway, the rooms are paid for.’
‘Are we going to have to eat here?’
‘Well, I’m not walking anywhere. But listen, if you want dinner alone …’
Did he? ‘No, we should definitely have dinner. I’d like that.’
‘Me too.’
They waited at Reception: oak panels, parquet floors, a single white lily in a chemistry beaker. Sade’s ‘Smooth Operator’ whispered from the speakers. Suddenly he held up a finger. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘Sade. She just sang “coast to coast”!’
‘She did not.’
‘No, she did. It’s in the chorus,’ and he sang the melody.
‘“Smooth Operator” is not a song about rambling.’
‘I know!’
‘She’s singing about LA to Chicago.’
‘Okay, but I would point out that Chicago is not on the maritime coast.’
‘It’s a stop on the way to Key Largo. Anyway, you can tell her yourself.’
The receptionist, hair scraped back, glided towards them in rose-gold blouse and high-waisted tan trousers. ‘Can I help you?’
‘We have a reservation.’
‘Certainly. The name is?’
‘Walsh.’
‘And Bradshaw.’
‘Two rooms.’
Marnie was in Shelley, Michael in Keats. ‘They’re just opposite each other,’ said the receptionist, meaningfully, and she pointed out the bar and the library, the terrace for cream teas, a leaflet of romantic walks, a menu of spa treatments and facials, which they could do alone or together. The Wi-Fi code was romanticwordsworth, all lower case.
They climbed the wide wooden stairs, Marnie reading the leaflet as they went. ‘Hot stone massage?’
‘At least I’d be able to name the stone.’
‘Yep. Feels like … Is that my old friend … basalt?’
In the corridor, they stood on opposite sides, rucksacks brushing. ‘Ready?’ said Marnie, and they opened their doors at the same time. Keats was even worse than he’d expected: four-poster bed, fresh flowers with a heavy perfume, dark velvety wallpaper, as if the furniture and fittings were all conspiring in some grand act of seduction, and perhaps this was Cleo’s last joke. Perhaps if Conrad had stuck around, perhaps if Tessa the triathlete had stayed the course …
‘Let me see your room.’ Marnie was squeezing past him. ‘What a dump. What’s your view?’
‘The mountains.’
‘I got the lake.’
‘Do you want the mountains?’
‘No, I’ll muddle through.’
‘Four-poster bed?’
‘Oh, yes. Big double-ended bath. Really, if we ever get married again …’
‘We’ll know where to come,’ he said, and there was a silence.
‘Great! So. It’s five now. Shall we do our own thing? I’ll do some work and we’ll meet at seven thirty?’
‘Sounds good,’ he said and, somewhat awkwardly, she punched him lightly on the shoulder.
‘Today. That was fun,’ and she was gone.
His mind had become snagged on ‘Smooth Operator’, murmuring to a bossa-nova rhythm as he pulled off his boots, the lyrics tweaked to reference various long-distance national trails. Coast to coast, star-ting out in Cumbria/Pen-nine Way/Up the York-shire coast to Northumbria/Eleven days. Hot water roared into the immense high-sided copper bathtub as he tried to give a name to his behaviour and was forced to accept that he was flirting. Skittishness did not come naturally to him but where was the harm? God knows, it had been a while. He examined the complimentary toiletries and with a chef’s flourish added Black Pepper and Rosemary bath foam to the torrent. He climbed in, held his nose and submerged himself entirely.
More soberly, he thought back to their conversation. He was not an expert in human nature but he knew that humour could sometimes mask deep hurt, and he hoped he’d reacted appropriately and sympathetically, if only by listening. The main thing was that she had confided, that such confidences were a kind of gift and that he should probably offer up something in return. It might do him good to speak about these difficult last years to someone he liked, though he would need another drink and low lighting. The single-shirt policy only worked if he was alone, and there was nowhere in Patterdale to shop for fashion. Maybe if he ironed it and wore it with the sleeves rolled down or put his olive-green sweatshirt on top. Maybe if the restaurant was candle-lit, she wouldn’t notice.
The water was starting to cool. He contemplated masturbating but worried that the high-sided copper bath might clang out like a mighty old bell, his elbow the clapper, dong, dong, dong, echoing far across the valley, bringing the farmers running across the fields as if a barn was on fire. He’d refrain just in case, but in case of what?