The Cannibal in the Wardrobe
Almost immediately she felt as if she’d made a mistake.
She’d been greedy, overreached herself and now here was a room far more desolate than the one awaiting her in London. She felt vibrations, heard the growing roar and the clang of rails and, through her grimy uPVC window, watched as her train hammered past, the 18.23 to Euston, carriage H, seat 23, so close that if she opened her window she might leap on to the roof, clamber between the carriages, wrench open the door and take her place. But the window didn’t open and so she returned to work, bringing order and consistency to an orgy in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. There were an improbable number of ‘beautiful’ penises, even for a suite, breasts so relentlessly ‘high’ that they were practically shoulders. The book was fantasy, of course, and a normal body would have been as out of place there as a colliery brass band, but even so she wondered if it was possible to eroticise the unremarkable bodies of the no-longer-young, mottled and veined, past a prime they’d never known they’d had. Inevitably she thought of her own scene by the tarn, how much she’d liked the way he’d looked, the way he’d looked at her. It was embarrassing but only partly so, and she wondered, What if we’d stayed a second night in that nice hotel?
But nothing sensual or romantic had ever happened in the Black Dog, could ever happen, and now she was saddled with the cost of another train ticket. Back to work. She wondered about the phrase ‘lavish bungalow’. She was sure that Beverly Hills had bungalows, but so did her aunty Pat. She looked up a synonym for ‘girth’, sighed and closed the lid.
Melancholy was creeping in, the kind of distilled, high-grade sadness found under a bus shelter in a rainy seaside town. How could she shake it off? A shower would leave her feeling dirty, and while online yoga might restore balance, she was wary of putting her face near the floor. What was Michael doing? As if in answer, she heard his door open, hurling herself across the room so swiftly that she had to wait a beat before answering the knock.
‘I don’t want to interrupt the party,’ said Michael, ‘but do you—’
‘Yes!’ she shouted, never more grateful. ‘Yes! Yes, please,’ and she left without bothering to change out of her boots.
They walked back towards the main street, pleased to be outside again, talking in normal voices. ‘Sorry about this.’
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s the first Psycho-themed hotel I’ve stayed in, that’s all. The bed’s okay, I just feel like I’m being watched through a peephole by someone masturbating in the wardrobe. A cannibal probably.’
‘That’s why I thought we should eat out.’
‘I agree. I don’t want to find a hank of someone’s hair in a pie.’
‘Shepherd’s pie!’ he said, and he looked so pleased with himself.
‘Very good,’ she said.
They found a chippy, bright and lively, with condensation on the windows and Formica tables. Michael said it was ‘notorious with hikers’, though Marnie wondered if ‘notorious’ was the right word. Cagoules and heavy boots, and trekking poles by the door, like a ski lodge. They slid into a red vinyl booth, finally facing each other, and she was reminded of the kind of cheap place teenagers go on first dates, struggling to spin the single course out past thirty minutes. Nick’s Big Easy Diner on Bromley High Street with Sean Hayward in 1998. A more innocent time, though this seemed innocent too. While Michael looked at the menu, Marnie looked around. She had long given up hope of encountering anyone young or cool on the journey. The website designers, the cinematographers and war reporters were all somewhere other than in this chippy on a midweek night. Here were the retirees determined to stay active, old school pals meeting up in middle age, long-married couples bickering over itineraries.
‘Too late for the Early-bird Special,’ said Michael.
‘Too young to die.’
‘Hm?’
‘I was just thinking this is the worst place in England to score MDMA.’
‘But the best place for scampi and a buttered roll.’
‘All those waterproofs. If the sprinklers go off, no one will even notice.’
‘D’you realise we’re probably the coolest people in the room?’
‘“We”?’
‘Is this the landline thing again?’
‘But you’re right, there’s a definite buzz.’
‘They’re excited about the switch to limestone pavement in the morning.’
‘Hang on, it’s paved?’
‘It’s a geological term, natural landform, distinctive, exposed white slabs—’
‘Coolest person in the room, you say?’
‘Actually, these guys are cooler,’ and he nodded towards an elderly couple, dapper and spry, the man in knitted tie and tweed jacket, the woman in neat cardigan and a pinafore dress, laughing and kissing as they waited to be seated. ‘They look like fun.’
‘Why do old people kiss like that?’ she said. ‘Like goldfish, over-puckering,’ and she demonstrated. ‘Old people and kids with puppies.’
‘I think it’s nice.’
‘Ah, do you, Michael, do you? It’s fine, but when I’m old I’m going to kiss normally. None of this pouty face-pulling, like they’re sucking at a straw.’
‘By the way, you may have noticed—’
‘Are you changing the subject?’
‘Yes. On top of the socks, I only brought one shirt.’
‘I did notice that.’
‘I apologise. I thought, well, I’m alone, two hours a night, nine nights, eighteen hours, no one’s going to see me.’
‘You don’t have to justify your low standards to me, Michael.’
‘It’s not low standards, I just thought I’d be invisible.’
‘It’s fine, just stay over there.’
‘It’s not even a nice shirt.’
‘I like it – it really pops. I have a tea-towel in that fabric.’
‘Absorbency, it’s what you need in a shirt. And if you look closely …’ he tugged at the shoulder ‘… it’s got these fine black criss-cross lines on it.’
‘Detailing! A graph-paper shirt. Even your clothes are like homework.’
‘It allows me to chart the course of the evening.’
‘Where are we right now?’
‘It’s an exponential curve.’
‘But going up or down?’
‘We’ll find out. If you want to sit in another booth …’
‘Too late. Look out,’ and her eyes flicked to the elderly couple, the kissers, approaching now. ‘Don’t let them talk us into any perverted mind-games.’
‘Mind if we …?’ said the man.
‘Please, do,’ said Michael and they shuffled dutifully down the bench. After a moment, the lady, small and stylish, white-haired and bright-eyed, put her hand on Michael’s arm. ‘It’s nice to see you both with your clothes on,’ she said, in an Edinburgh accent, and they began to laugh.
‘Oh, God, it was you!’ said Marnie.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Michael.
‘Oh, not at all. We found it most amusing.’
‘Did you make it into the water?’ said the man.
‘I wanted to,’ said Michael. ‘She stopped me.’
‘Oh, is that right?’ said Marnie.
‘We chickened out, I’m afraid.’
‘Aye, very wise,’ said the man. ‘I think it would have killed you.’
‘Almost certainly.’
‘Are you walking all the way across?’ said the woman.
‘He is,’ said Marnie. ‘I’m not.’
‘Well, we’ll have to race you,’ said the man. ‘How many days?’
And Michael told them. They ordered and then lapsed into the old familiar conversation, high-level versus low-level, weather forecasts, the state of their feet, the genteel boastfulness of How far are you going? It was both dull and comforting, like the sound of a radio through a wall. The food arrived, delicious, they agreed, and Marnie accepted that she would not talk to Michael after all. Instead, she sat quietly and took him in, charming and plausibly interested in things that were surely of interest to no one, so that giving him up for the night felt generous, like lending an umbrella that you wanted for yourself. She thought, too, of the last time the four of them had been together, his leg between hers, his hand on her hip. Oh, he was the nice young man now but what if she lifted her foot, put it between his legs, and pressed there, watching his face? But that wouldn’t work with her boots on and so, with an effort, she tuned in. They were talking about the best sock/boot combination, and she thought, Okay,well, that’s enough of that.
‘So, what are your names?’
They were Brian and Barbara from Morningside and they were meeting their two sons and their daughter-in-law tomorrow to walk for a day or two. They’d been married for forty-two years, for as long as Michael had been alive! ‘Are you from around here?’ asked Brian.
‘I live in York, Marnie’s up in London. “Up” or “down”?’
‘Seems like “down” to me,’ said Marnie.
‘Ah, London,’ said Barbara, darkly. ‘Does that make this difficult?’
‘Sorry, what?’
‘The long-distance relationship.’
‘We’re just friends,’ said Michael.
‘It looked a little more than that to me,’ said Barbara, twinkling.
‘But have you seen the way she eats her fish?’ said Michael, changing the subject and they all three teased her for a while. She didn’t mind, let them have their fun, but the generosity was gone. She wanted Michael back, and she felt the same petulant impatience she’d known as a small child at the shops when her mum would stop to chat to dull old people.
Marnie’s phone bleeped and, in revenge, she allowed herself to pick it up. A text read,Hey. You should be back in London by now. Hope it got better. I feel bad about leaving. Want to go for a drink and I’ll explain? No walking required! Maybe this weekend? Conrad xxx
I feel bad. Well, that was something. She grinned, half wanting Michael to notice, and sure enough, ‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, just a little message,’ and she flashed it at Michael, a subliminal glimpse.
‘A date?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She was aware that Brian and Barbara were watching them.
‘Well. There you go. Are you going to say yes?’
‘Not now. I’m still annoyed. Got to toy with him a little first. Cat with a mouse. Let the games commence!’
‘Well, I’m pleased,’ said Michael and soon after that, they said their goodbyes and headed out, the village in darkness now, the road sinister.
‘We could go on to the pub for a drink,’ she said, but the moment had passed. Cars drove past. After a while, she said, ‘Nothing happened, by the way. With Conrad.’
‘Maybe that’s what he wants to talk to you about.’
‘Wouldn’t have thought so.’
‘Well, I think you should.’
‘Go for it?’ She shrugged. Outside the Black Dog, she hesitated once again, dreading her room, but he had closed down. ‘I should go,’ she said. ‘I’ve got that guy waiting in the wardrobe …’
‘Of course. Big day tomorrow. A twenty-miler!’
‘And you’ve still got to zip your booty shorts back together.’
‘That’s true.’ He insisted on paying for her room in advance, then said he’d have one more drink, which he carried to a small table, and she left him to sit in the light of the big TV, watching the snooker alone.