Hotel de Dream (7 page)

Mr Poynter was there; and, worse still, he was talking animatedly to the dreadful lady who had arrived at the
hotel this morning. Mrs Houghton was wearing a silk dress and hat, and there was something about the style of her clothes that made Miss Scranton feel more naked than ever. After they had smiled at each other inanely for a few minutes, Mr Poynter and Mrs Houghton looked up in the direction of the French windows and relief appeared on their faces. Miss Scranton smelled something sweet and strong and bitter at the same time and began to gasp for breath. She tried to push her way over to the windows—she hardly cared now if they saw her in the nude, she was suffocating, she must be got out of this immediately—but strong dark blue arms grabbed her from behind. There was an outburst of screaming and coughing in the room, and then silence. Miss Scranton had a handkerchief placed over her mouth by the policemen. With the others, she was led out to the vans. But the feeling of suffocation persisted; and when she woke, to the familiar Wednesday lunch smell of shepherd's pie and carrots, she rose from her pillow wheezing and gulping at the air. She wondered, as she prepared herself shakily for the dining room, whether she was having a recurrence of those fits of childhood asthma.

Mrs Routledge lay in her bed and thought about the future, which, these days, only seemed capable of presenting itself as a revamped and frequently misty version of the past. She knew that Mr Rathbone and his Group of Companies, whatever they were, were considering the possibility of pulling down the Westringham and the accompanying houses in the terrace; that a state of general anaesthesia, so to speak, was being administered to the occupants—deafness to requests for repairs and maintenance, blindness to the carious condition of the façades, the rotting beams and sagging floorboards within, numb, puzzled smiles in response to the occasional angry demonstration—before, all of a sudden, the buildings were extracted and a row of dusty stumps remained, ready for redevelopment; but she could see no further than herself in some other Westringham, kindly moved there by Mr Rathbone and everything much the same as before if not a good deal better. In fact, when the move came, she saw herself stepping out of the house twenty years younger. Suitors would present themselves in the new Westringham and she would probably remarry. Seeing the future like this, Mrs Routledge had everything to look forward to and nothing to dread. The last couple of decades, since Mr Routledge's death and the necessity to turn a delightful home into what she could privately admit to herself was a low-standard boarding house, had been nothing but a silly mistake. Mr Rathbone, who had assumed husbandly and godly proportions in Mrs Routledge's mind, would make her young and comfortable elsewhere. Sometimes she
wondered if the time was ripe yet to meet him. But she was never feeling quite up to it. If she went to his office in the clothes she wore at the Westringham she would look eccentric and his secretaries might laugh. If he came to her, there was the problem of the basement, and the peculiarity of the residents, who seemed perfectly ordinary on admission but soon started to sleep obsessively, as if the doomed atmosphere of the area had turned the modest hotel into some latter-day temple to Aesculapius. He would be bound to find the place unattractive. Mrs Routledge wished she could set out, as Cecilia Houghton had this morning, on a round of shops and boutiques, fit herself up for the meeting with Mr Rathbone. Mrs Houghton had left for Harrods, complaining loudly that this was a bad part of London for taxis. It was years since Mrs Routledge had left the crumbling crescents and flyblown grocery stores that surrounded the Westringham and crept under the Westway; so long that she could hardly remember what a respectable district looked like, permeated as she was with the experience of living in something that was unnecessary and threatened, like a rumbling appendix. She imagined the streets were clean, and the buildings of uniform height. Sometimes she dreamed she was in a wonderful place like that, but Mr Poynter always appeared in the dream and she took care to wake herself up. Mrs Routledge had no fondness for Mr Poynter, for all his pretensions. When she found herself in a neat residential quarter, and saw him coming towards her through a well-tended garden abloom with fuchsias (dressed in some ridiculous outfit, usually), she asked loudly if this was where Mr Rathbone lived and was instantly woken by his infuriated response. At tea, on the mornings after these dreams, neither she nor Mr Poynter made any reference to the unintended meeting. In the Westringham, at least, it was Mrs Routledge who was in control and not the other way around. She had feared for some time that Mr Poynter, as the only male resident, would try and take charge of the
place and relegate her to the status of some kind of elevated housekeeper. He had appeared at tea a few months ago in a scarlet military tunic with gold tassels and had shouted at Cridge. She had made it perfectly clear that this would not happen again. But sometimes she was afraid to drop off to sleep, in case of seeing him in that beautiful place. If only Mr Rathbone would appear there once, and show him who really belonged where! It was time she pulled herself together and got Mr Rathbone on her side.

With eyes half closed in pleasant reverie, Mrs Routledge imagined herself in the cocktail-dress department of Harrods, side by side with Cecilia Houghton but infinitely more splendidly attired. She smiled to herself as she lay on the pink bed, the brownish half-moons left by her own greasy head and that of the late Mr Routledge (paler than hers, but still a vivid reminder of their marriage) hanging above her on the padded chintz bedhead like signs from some long-forgotten corporeal zodiac. The sun came in through the window and lit up the frilly lampshades and the silk curtains, hemmed with rows of greying white bobbles. A large fly, woken by the spring heat, droned about the room and settled on her foot. Mrs Routledge waggled her toes and thought of Miss Scranton and the sand at tea that morning. The smile slowly faded from her face. Where could Miss Scranton have found a sand-pit? Had she regressed to childhood, a possibility she had read about in one of the new psychology magazines she leafed through in the newsagent on the corner? Or was this part of what Miss Scranton called a “project” at the school where she taught? Whatever it was, it didn't look good. Mrs Routledge remembered that even if she did buy herself a new dress and invite Mr Rathbone to the Westringham, there was the risk of Miss Scranton's sandy feet spoiling everything. She sighed; and made a mental note to invite the residents for sherry in the dining room tomorrow evening, Thursday, when the basement had been cleaned out. It was the only way, as she often explained
to them, of airing problems and grievances, even if it did too frequently become a mutual criticism session. She would tell Miss Scranton then that shoes and stockings were
de rigueur
in the hotel, and she would do it before Mrs Houghton came down for the drink. Thinking about these difficulties made Mrs Routledge's eyes open again and she sat up, looking accusingly round the familiar room as if her clients were already there and awaiting her expressions of disapproval. She felt restless and dissatisfied. Perhaps she would go to Miss Scranton now and get it over—call on all the guests in turn and inform them that a very important person was invited for sherry tomorrow. That their future depended on the way they conducted themselves on that occasion. The more she considered the idea, the better it seemed to Mrs Routledge. Her hand went out to the address book on the bedside table, and then paused. It would be more sensible to ascertain the condition of the residents of the Westringham before giving the invitation. When one was normal, another could be decidedly odd. She pulled on her mules, and hoisted her heavy body off the side of the bed.

A clear voice was speaking on the landing of the floor below. Mrs Routledge frowned; the voice was instantly recognisable but she couldn't quite place it; she went to the door and shuffled over to the banister to look down. She recalled, as she peered through the gloom, that Mrs Houghton had complained of there being someone in Miss Briggs's room that morning—a foreigner, that was it, some exiled monarch or other, causing Mrs Routledge to doubt Mrs Houghton's sanity—but the voice was undoubtedly English. On the other hand, the vowels and consonants could have been warped by the uneven plaster and boarding of the wall that separated Mrs Houghton's room from Miss Briggs's; and Mrs Houghton had shown, by going off to Harrods as she had—and she had mentioned lunch later in Harvey Nichols with one of the rich Knightsbridge relations—that her sanity was no longer in question. What if Miss Briggs was in fact hiding someone
in her quarters, housing two for the price of one, sneaking out to buy food for the illegal occupant? Mrs Routledge went on tiptoe down the first couple of stairs, screwed up her eyes in the accustomed darkness of the stairwell.

Her Majesty the Queen was standing on the first floor landing. She was wearing a tiara and an off-the-shoulder white tulle ball dress, with a great sash over one shoulder. Mrs Routledge was unable to see her face, but there was no doubt about the identity of the monarch, who was smiling and waving in the direction of Miss Briggs's half-open door. Mrs Routledge found herself smiling, and waiting for the famous voice to continue.

“I shall do my utmost,” came the clear syllables. “We will overcome!”

“Good heavens!” Mrs Routledge had spoken in spite of herself: like the smile, the words had come unbidden to her lips at the sight of the unexpected visitor.

“Ah, Mrs Routledge!”

The Queen turned, and in a shaft of light from Miss Briggs's room looked up at the landlady on the stairs above her. “We are delighted to meet you here at last. And we have matters to discuss. Shall we repair to the lower floor?”

“Miss Briggs!” Mrs Routledge trembled with rage, caught her foot on the uneven stairs and came down with a thud by the side of the impostor. She took hold of the gartered shoulder roughly and pushed Miss Briggs back into her room, where they stood confronting each other on the lino floor, the tired boards groaning beneath Mrs Routledge's weight.

“What the hell do you think you are doing dressed like this? I'll … I'll …”

“Please, Mrs Routledge.” Miss Briggs's smile was sweet and gracious. “I have assumed the mantle of responsibility now. A little respectfulness would be quite in order, if you don't mind.”

“But where did you get those clothes from?” Mrs Routledge stared at the tiara, saw it was paste with several stones
missing, hissed in disgust at the tatty white net dress Miss Briggs must have run up that evening she had asked to borrow the electric sewing machine. She thought of the cocktail party—for this was what tomorrow's meeting with Mr Rathbone had become in her mind, Mrs Houghton and Mr Rathbone chatting and discussing acquaintances in common while Cridge, carefully bathed and combed, handed the drinks—and her shoulders sagged, so that for a moment the straight-backed Miss Briggs did seem a superior and controlled person in comparison with her. Then she turned on her heel and went to the door. Miss Briggs put out a restraining hand.

“Mrs Routledge, I am not quite ready to appear in public like this yet.”

“Is that so?” But Mrs Routledge felt a tiny flicker of hope. The cocktail party sprang into her mind once more.

“My subjects must become accustomed to the change. Please rest assured, Mrs Routledge, that I will not come down to the dining room in … in my regalia.”

“Very well then. But I hope you'll get rid of this nonsense soon, Miss Briggs.”

“There is too much licence, too much licentiousness in this country, Mrs Routledge, do you not agree?”

“I don't see what that's got to do with it.” Mrs Routledge's tone was gruff; she went to the top of the stairs and began to go down.

“You will! Dear Mrs Routledge, you will!”

The maddening, queenly voice followed Mrs Routledge into the foyer and rang in her ears as she took up her position in Reception. She sighed deeply and picked up the mail, most of which was expensive-looking and addressed to Cecilia Houghton. There was one letter for The Proprietor, Westringham Hotel; and Rathbone Group of Companies was inscribed on the back in heavy cream on white, with an emblem underneath—a brooding eagle over crossed swords. Mrs Routledge caught her breath. With a thudding heart
she ran a varnished fingernail along the top of the envelope and slit it open. A belch of stale air from the basement heralded Cridge, but she paid no attention to him as she perched her spectacles on top of her nose and began to read.

After Cecilia Houghton left for Harrods, Johnny and Melinda sat in the room in the state of despairing silence which was usual to them when their author was not feeding them with scraps of dialogue, meaningful pauses and the occasional burst of eloquence at a moment of tension in their relationship. Johnny was chain smoking, and Melinda watched him at this habit with the sullen contempt of seven years' familiarity. Often she wished that Mrs Houghton was less intellectual and observant, and was a writer of ordinary romances: that way there would be fewer sexual hang-ups (they were in the middle of one now, and as they had never found each other attractive in the first place—one of the writer's most important misconceptions—it was a particularly agonising experience); and that she and her reluctant partner had not been made to be so politically aware, radical and impotent and middle class. If only she could have been a humble serving girl and Johnny a young Duke! Or Johnny a criminal even, an eighteenth-century dandy and rake with a mania for gambling and she a young heiress who fell prey to his designs. They would be married by now—or ruined, and rescued and revived in further volumes—at least this interminable soul-searching wouldn't have to take place all the time. She had no idea as to how Mrs Houghton intended to complete the trilogy, but she had an unpleasant feeling that a quiet married life in Dorset—and however much she dreaded the idea, it would mean peace, a garden, old age—was not on the agenda at all. Something
bitter and unhappy would come in the last chapter: the author wanted her readers and reviewers to be resigned and contemplative when they had finished her work, and not reassured by any kind of bland statement. She and Johnny would probably drift apart (she longed for this, but at the same time had become horribly emotionally dependent on him and was afraid of the future alone); it would be shown that their different political commitments, their inability to believe in anything, and the imminent collapse of the family made it finally impossible to be together. Melinda would go off into a void of tired promiscuity. Johnny would become a lecturer and would give up his ambition to write poetry. The last few pages would probably be devoted to a minor character, a sort of looker-on, who had plumped for a safe life and was sad and admiring in his condemnation of the couple. There might be some surprises of course—when Mrs Houghton was in one of her Blocks she frequently freed herself by introducing a scene of unexpected savagery—but Melinda was fairly certain of the outcome of the thing. All she hoped was that it would be over soon, and that they wouldn't be left sitting in this room interminably while the nice summer weather was going on outside and their author's imagination suffered from one of its disastrous failures.