Hotel World (20 page)

still being there like it would always be there I suppose that even if they did fill it up with concrete in a way even so it would still be there it would still be the same hole just filled with concrete that’s all & even if they knocked down the whole of the hotel & that lift shaft was taken apart & wasn’t there any more it would still somehow be there though you couldn’t see it & didn’t know it but that means if that’s true then it’s also true that because Sara was here because she walked along streets or pulled water towards her like when she used to swim her arms pulled it so she could propel herself through it then somehow she is still here too but that’s a lot of shit because she’s gone I mean she’s really really gone      aren’t you     & so if they ever knock down that building or even just its insides say if they were making it into a different building but keeping its outsides they like to do that keep the outer shell of a building & change all the insides like they did with that cinema in Merret St where you were going to see Happiness eventually I suppose they will do that change the building & by then it won’t matter that someone fell down it & died because by then no one will remember anyway no one will know

& since it happened there I think that’s why I was going & sitting outside it because I didn’t know where else to I don’t know why I just wanted to know something I don’t know what but all there was at home was fucking dents in the carpet fucking nothing just them sitting on stupid chairs staring at the off TV I don’t know I don’t know what I thought was going to happen did I think you
were going to come back again going to just appear out of nowhere round a corner waving saying hi thought I was dead didn’t you well no I’ve been here the whole time hanging around I’ve hired a room I live here now had you all worried didn’t I well of course I knew fucking nothing like that was going to happen & anyway dead people when they come back aren’t like when she came back just wearing her cardigan like normal usually they’re always vampires or weird & scary moaning on about revenge or not there at all they just move things round rooms invisible like with the what are they called      poltergeists or floating outside the windows like in that film Salem’s Lot those are just stories it wasn’t like that you wouldn’t be like that you wouldn’t be a vampire with stupid teeth you would be just yourself but what if she was herself like she is must be now under the ground her face all   no no she would just be standing there she would be wearing her swimming things or her jeans & pyjama top like at home like she was all the times when I thought she was standing there then I stopped being able to do that making her up didn’t I fucking lobotomic all that was left was the bits of her coming by themselves there has to be some way of stopping them doing it & then I found the uniform when I put it on it was a bit big the buttons all the way up the front it must be the spare the one she wasn’t wearing when not the uniform obviously it’s not the one because when she fell      it was just lying there under my coat folded up they must have missed it when they cleaned the wardrobe out nobody
noticed it because if they had they’d have thrown it out for sure I hadn’t noticed it till now so it was a sign I thought if I got inside I could find out for sure but then it was that woman at the front desk who was always coming out over the road who was on & she’d already been out tonight I’d already done a runner so I thought maybe tonight wasn’t the best night but then it was after all when I came back I had it on under my fleece I took the fleece off at the door I was going to try to slip past when I got inside like just be a new member of staff so she wouldn’t know or notice but when I went in she was asleep totally out of it with her head down on the desk I didn’t have to say anything to anybody about why was I there nobody asked nobody stopped me nobody even saw me I just walked up the stairs & went up to the top floor where it had happened I knew it was the top floor it had happened on it was in all the papers with that school photo of her from 6th form TALENTED SWIMMER DEAD      FREAK ACCIDENT CLAIMS LOCAL GIRL SWIMMER      TRAGIC TEENAGE DEATH DIVE when I looked them up in the library I found the hollow place by knocking on the wall     then later when that woman from the desk Lisa came upstairs & found me she didn’t throw me out or anything she wasn’t angry she said it was a bit of a mess & that she’d sort it out with the hotel maintenance actually she was nice I always thought she’d be horrible when she used to come across the road but she wasn’t she had this key in her pocket that could open any of the doors she knocked
on a door & when there wasn’t an answer she opened it with her key & went in & came back out with kleenex my nose was really blocked it was quite hard to breathe it can be quite hard to after you cry I had been really crying I think it was because of the lift shaft because actually fucking seeing it it was so dark in there old-smelling the thing was I couldn’t see the bottom of it or how far away or how near how long it would take or how short I knew as soon as I saw it all opened up like that I suppose I just knew that of all the things that were sad about it this was the saddest that it didn’t matter not really whether she had wanted to do it or not it didn’t make any difference either way just the fact that one minute she’d been there right there on the exact same spot where I was and the next she wasn’t      & she was holding out the kleenex now she asked me where my other shoe was I ignored her she said whose was all that money on the floor I thought if I just went on ignoring her she would go away but she said it looked like the wall was a giant slot machine & that I had hit the jackpot that kind of made me want to laugh because that was exactly what it looked like like all that money had come spewing out of the wall or     something she went back into the bedroom & came out with a wastepaper bin & picked up all the money & told me I had to go downstairs now with her I thought she might phone the police I was going to make a run for it but she had my arm she put me in a back room like an office with lockers & a kettle kind of place while she helped someone get their key & answered a phone then
she came & got me by the arm & she stood outside this cupboard & knocked on it & the door opened it was full of junk stuff everywhere & a man came out he was like a bear blinking in the light like he’d just been wakened out of a cave he used to know Sara the woman said for me to tell him my name & she told him I needed new shoes & he said what size was I & came back out with a pair of quite old-looking Doc boots with zips up their front in one hand & a newish pair of white ankle Nikes kind of low slung in the other really sleek like they’d hardly been worn at all they really fitted then she came back from behind the desk she had a Dustbuster she told him he had to go & clean up the top floor with it she said did I want to go back up there for a minute too so I asked her could I borrow her watch if it had a hand for seconds it did she gave it to me through the banister when I got up to the top floor the man who used to know Sara was standing staring at the wall like woah fuck sake he said to me did you do this I nodded I thought I was going to get it he sat down like his legs folded under him & he told me the whole story I didn’t think I wanted to know it but then it was kind of amazing to know they were watching TV just before & it was a western about some people in the snow with Warren Beatty & someone else in it & then that she bet him a fiver she could get into the lift & she did he saw her in it all folded in upside down he said he was going to say a sentence he was going to say you must be double-jointed because that lift was only big enough for a child of eight but by the time he got half way through the sentence
all there was was the cables whipping out & by the time he’d got to the end of the sentence there had already been the noise of it hitting oh God but I knew that stuff about the upside down already I did because I had read something about it in the papers so it wasn’t that new to me really he was shaking his head had his hands in his eyes & when I could hear & think again without that hum in my ears like something electric like his fucking wheeeeee razor I hadn’t really wanted to know not really I had only really wanted to do it I went over to the place I had my other trainer spare I could use I reckoned that would do it & I had the watch so this time I’d be able to do everything right I was careful I dropped it down & did the listening for it & when I looked back he had his hands out of his eyes now the man he was watching me well I was fucking well done by then anyway I was nearly off down the stairs but the man came after me held the door open with his foot he made this noise in his throat he was holding something out to me I didn’t know what it was it was grey-blue folded paper kind of scuffed he said this thing he said we made a bet & I owe it to her so can I give it to you I think he meant he owed you it Sara I unfolded it it was a five pound note it had been folded so hard right down into a square that when I unfolded it it had little squares all over it when I got down to the ground floor there was a new person at the desk I thought for a minute I would get caught & be in trouble about the wall I was just going to walk out the door like I was a guest the daughter of a guest or something but that Lisa came from
through the back she took me in there again & she made me sit down ordered me the breakfast full English it was on the menu she let me choose it I gave her back the watch it was half one I’d been up there ages it hadn’t felt like any time at all then she went away & came back with the breakfast it was huge there were two eggs not one there was bacon two sausages some round black stuff I think it was black pudding I don’t know there were beans in a bowl separate from everything else maybe in case people don’t like beans there was loads of toast it was cut into triangles piles of it on a plate I think she brought extra everybody had some the new woman at the front desk took some through on a plate & a man in overalls came & had some he was really nice to me & the man from the top floor who knew you he had some too when he came down & the butter was in these curls in white dishes there was a choice of jams they were in jars like actually smaller than my thumb you could get raspberry or strawberry or apricot or blackcurrant I had raspberry the breakfast was great it was on the house I couldn’t eat it all people kept saying come on more you can do it it was really nice people kept patting my back like they knew me or they’d known me for ages or something everybody was nice then that Lisa walked me home it was funny to walk home in the new Nikes the ground felt different like there was air between me & it she stayed outside till I shut the door waving goodbye funny for it to be so good & so sad both at once she said to me on the way home I looked like I needed sleep I told her I wasn’t
sleeping much & she said she was sleeping too much & I could have some of her sleep hours she’d send them to me imagine if you could do that lend someone some hours you weren’t using that would be so cool to be able to do that you could put them in an envelope & send them through the post saw-these-hours-&-thought-of-you but it is funny not ha ha but peculiar that it could be so sad I could be there & feel how sad it was then the next minute I could be eating this great breakfast & wearing these great Nikes & feeling really the best in ages it is sort of the same thing as reading the book & the story suddenly stopping because actually though it looked like it had stopped it hadn’t it went on & it’s all right to be relieved that it did because actually it’s okay that it did that it does it’s even good kind of like the date thing when everybody in the class was expecting me to be feeling something & for one fucking minute I had forgotten what it was I was supposed to be feeling as if like someone sent me a minute of relief a minute of something else through the post saw-this-minute-&-thought-of-you well it’s like tonight started out being about the usual end thing then it changed into something quite different unexpected kind of as if someone somewhere must have seen this evening & thought of me

& since you went quite early on after you went I started making them while I was lying here lists of all the things that you could have been including a swimmer a swimmer obviously but the thing is you could have been anything a doctor someone selling jumpers in a shop selling shoes in
a shoe shop papers in a paper shop someone who looked after trees & bushes at a garden centre see all anyone is talking about at school is the millennium this the millennium that what will you do for the millennium five hundred words on how you will make the world a better place in the millennium & all I can think is that the list of things it would have been possible for you to do is never fucking ending it goes on forever new things adding to it all the time you could have been a TV vet or done the things they keep telling us to do at school with computers & personnel or got married or been a person working in a hospital the night a dead girl who’d fallen down a lift shaft got brought in & then like on ER the story would have gone on for you instead of stopping I guess nobody would watch that programme if it just stopped every time someone that got brought in died the story goes on & on for the doctors & nurses every week & on Casualty too even though there are patients that die on them all the time imagine if it stopped just because people stopped there would be nothing but blank screens on the TVs all round the country five minutes after the start of each episode people would be banging the tops of their TVs throwing their remotes across the room there would be riots I am watching TV for you in case you are missing it I am keeping up with Brookside for you it is seriously crap & not just George Clooney is out of ER now but there is a rumour that Carol is going to leave too so you would be pretty pissed off though it is funny to think how you maybe don’t know about that when everybody in the
whole wide fucking world knows it & when I eat a piece of toast it is slowly so I will remember for you what it tastes like first the burnt taste then the taste where the butter has melted in & the jam taste like tonight then the tougher taste when you get to the crust whatever I eat I eat slowly to see what it really tastes like to eat an orange or whatever & chicken & a potato in gravy that I know you liked for instance today at lunch there were frozen peas they tasted of peas like frozen peas taste do you remember & one time I stood up on the arm of the couch when there was nobody else in the room & put my hand on the top of the door for you where the wood is still kind of rough up there it isn’t painted I don’t think it has ever been painted since whoever built the house there’s loads of like years’ worth of dust & stuff is all layered on I think our whole fucking family is up there in layers including the cats & when I came down I touched the velvet of the armcover of the reclining chair so you would know what it felt like though the touch of velvet makes a shiver go down my spine like if you scratch your finger across one of those old vinyl singles in his collection     not you      me      & I look at things hard so you will know if you want to what they look like the new cars I saw on the car transporter coming into town were so new they didn’t have numberplates they were really cool really smooth-looking they looked really good really fast because cars are getting faster & I have even been to the pool yeah the pool me so I can smell it for you too the smell of the water & the chemical & shampoo smell      the smell is
of you      I went on Tuesday last week in lunchbreak there were kids splashing this guy dived in he was crap he hit the water too hard sounded like it was sore yeah I know believe it or not the pool where I wouldn’t have gone for any money I wouldn’t have been seen dead there ha ha get it listen a dog goes into a bar in the Wild West right & he goes up to the bar & he says I’m looking for the man who shot my paw or is that like a stupid little sister joke & maybe you can hear things like that joke anyway when it’s actually happening maybe you were listening when Laura told me it at the newsagents I don’t know whether I have to remember them & tell you later like now I hope it’s not boring to hear it over again if you heard it already did you hear the one about the man who built a paper shop it blew away I am going fucking mad talking to a dead person a person who’s dead & can’t hear anything & here I am talking to it telling it jokes for fuck sake I am losing my mind would Clare Wilby’s mind please report to customer services it’s me that’s the joke I am such a joke still my heart is going so fast about something it is racing away ahead of me it is kind of amazing to talk to her like that amazing because I talk to her all the time now we never used to talk at all hardly ever but now all the time I can’t get my head round it if someone is dead they can be more alive than they are when they’re actually like alive that is mad that is lobotomic it really is I have to not think like that it is backward it is fucking retarded if anybody knew it was me who was leaving those sweets there they would put me
in a mental hospital but I don’t see what the difference is it is okay to plant stupid crocuses though I don’t know if she ever even liked crocuses but I do know that she liked them because she showed me how to suck the sugar dust off & what the toffee looked like after you did muddy white she had it between her teeth opened her mouth so I could see she said there were two different ways to eat it you could eat it with the sugar still on just chew it really hard straight away that was one way & one taste then you could also do the sucking the sugar off thing then chew it & that was a different taste so I thought they were as good a thing to leave maybe even better actually since she stopped getting to eat any of that stuff to slim down for swimming so she could be faster I can still remember when she showed me it in her mouth it was all lit up because of the way it was covered in her saliva that is so fucking weird I am going weird if anyone knew I thought these things or went around leaving sweets in cemeteries for a dead person who can’t fucking well exactly eat them can she I still just don’t get it a dead person & her a dead person & her how the two things are the same thing where does it go where did she how one minute can you be walking about & the next you can’t as if like you just got lifted up & disappeared into the sky or you turned a corner & fell off the side of the world & nobody can phone you or anything & I saw what happened to that mouse that we put in the shed after Fluff got it it wasn’t bleeding but it was in shock that’s what mum said we put it on the saucer & put another saucer with water near it
but when we got back from the holiday & opened the shed door there weren’t even any bones left just a swarm of white things moving back & fore on the saucer we threw it away the whole thing the saucer too      & also & also there are all these rules like when Teresa Drewe her family’s Catholic she went to a Catholic school before Bourne’s she came up to me at art when we were doing the time capsules & told me about how saints actually get to be saints because they have had to endure these painful deaths so maybe it was good to go like that she said but then she said was it true that it was on purpose because that meant that she couldn’t get into heaven & that wherever she was buried it would turn the ground into unconcentrated ground well it wasn’t on purpose was it & that thing about how there are even people who carry bits of dead saint around with them to keep safe or blessed or whatever it is it’s kind of like people who have those real white rabbits’ paws on their keyrings for good luck like Uncle Martin showed us that time with the claws of the rabbit still in it well I suppose the handkerchief in the drawer the handkerchief in the drawer is kind of like that maybe though I don’t want to not have it I like knowing it’s there certainly wouldn’t tell anybody about it or show anybody because they would think it was so disgusting & lobotomic but Sara I know Sara would laugh she would laugh about the hoover if she was here then I would make a joke about how she is so light now how she is so not heavy any more that she could easy shave 0.45 off her butterfly in fact she could easy be the
fastest swimmer in the whole fucking world if she wanted to if that’s what she wanted to be she’s so light now she could be fast as the wind fast as fucking light I would say it & she would hit me over the top of my head that stern look on her face her hand scuffing the top of my hair like it was a stupid little sister thing & I wonder if I maybe looked a bit like her when I had the uniform on we don’t really didn’t really look alike but maybe a little bit I must have looked a bit like her I must have looked a bit