Mrs Kimmel made the move in her late sixties and was surprised to live for another twenty-five years. She took out her disappointment at still being alive on whomever she could, insisted that the cleaning staff was stealing from her and called Luis ‘Taco’ until he told her that was Mexican, then did her research and called him ‘Ajiaco’ instead. One of my first jobs at the hotel was cleaning out her suite after she died. There were just a few items of over-laundered clothing and some old room-service plates — no books, no photos of anyone. But it wasn’t the modesty or even the loneliness of her life that made an impression on me; it was how, throughout those years as her mind gave up, her body had persisted, kept moving air and blood.
I think of Mrs Kimmel as I sneak in through the staff entrance and take the stairs to the banqueting floor; as I peek into the restaurant and find it dark, cross the room and lie down behind the polished warming stations. I used to think that if my body had even half her kind of resilience, I would be okay. But as I lay my head on a folded tablecloth and curl beneath another one, I’m not so sure.
All night, the floorboards creak, branches scratch the windowpanes and the elevator cables whir. From time to time, the night porter comes and sits at the table by the big bay window to pick over stolen French fries. I hold my breath, stay perfectly still, and when he is gone I take out my phone to watch a short video I recorded a little over a year ago before everything went to hell. In it, Ashley stands in our kitchen swamped in one of my sweatshirts. She is cooking to the Supremes, her small knees bouncing. She spoons something red and steaming from a pot and offers it to the camera.
I wake before the breakfast service and sneak back out the staff entrance. Overnight, the snow has come on heavy and now it lies in deep drifts over the parking lot. I wade downtown and back for coffee and sit with it in the locker room until Luis comes in looking rumpled. He takes his coffee without a word and leads us to the lobby to await the new armoires’ arrival. Outside, city ploughs struggle to clear and salt the way.
The truck rounds the corner and skids to a halt at the forecourt. Its tyres crunch and its lights blink as Luis backs it in to the goods entrance. The deliverymen, Baptiste and Kenny, have an invoice for Agnes to sign.
‘This is a nice hotel,’ says Baptiste, whose sinewy arms are bare even in this weather.
‘Real nice,’ Kenny says and whistles through a gap in his teeth.
The new armoires are built of marbled walnut and intricately carved, with brass inlays and smooth-running drawers and recessed rails for hangers. They are heavier than the old ones and their joints are more secure. Baptiste and Kenny take half and Luis and I take half. Randy joins us midway through the morning and rolls up his greasy sleeves.
Once the new armoires have all been put in place, Agnes gives Baptiste and Kenny her best directions back to the highway; and Randy, Luis and I take the elevator to the roof to think over how we’ll dispose of the old ones tomorrow. As we rise, I hope that the canopy legs have snapped overnight from the weight of snow. I picture half a foot’s accumulation hugging the shapes of the broken and the whole alike. But when the doors open, I see that all is as we left it. The canopy sags, its legs buckle and bend — but it holds strong yet. And beneath it the armoires wait, clean and cold to the touch. Randy takes a broom from the stairwell and jabs it into the canopy’s belly. Hunks of snow fly skyward and break apart and float in dust to the street below.
There will be no fresh starts for me, I realize. But there will be starts.
How to Go Home
Open your eyes. Unclench your teeth. Relax your grip on the armrest. Take your iPod and your bad novel from the seat pocket in front of you. Queue in the aisle. Smile at the air hostess. Make eye contact. Say thanks.
Feel the damp air test your lungs as you step out on to the jetway. Resist the urge to punch the Yorkshireman with the meaty neck who dawdles in your path and is complaining already to his tiny wife about mobile phone reception. Take the stairs, traipse the corridors, follow the signs. Be patient.
Hurry through baggage collection and out into Arrivals, past the crowd of faces all disappointed at the sight of you. Head outside for the taxi rank. It’s cold but brilliantly bright and for a moment you’re blinded but then your vision clears and you can see that the place is just as you left it.
Direct the taxi driver past the cricket club and under the railway bridge, this way around the roundabout, that way at the crossroads. Watch the old man who laid your mother’s patio limp along in step with his dog, and two women — friends of your mother’s — stoop to admire the Council flower beds.
Arrive at your estate. Pay the taxi driver and stand for a moment to savour two rows of identical white houses. Walk the driveway. Use your key in the lock. Call out to your mother and hear her bustle in from the back garden where she has been hanging washing. Her sweatshirt sleeves are baggy with used tissues. Her open sandals reveal long toenails painted red.
‘Let me look at you,’ she says as she holds you by the shoulders and frowns. ‘You’ve not been eating well.’
Hug your mother. Feel her softness and her new frailty but tell her that she looks good.
‘Dad’s just gone out for the messages,’ she says as she leads you to the kitchen and starts taking condiments from the fridge. ‘But he’ll be back soon.’
Look out the window at the washing line your mother has abandoned: her flannel shirts, your father’s colourless Y-fronts, their bed sheets filling with the wind like sails.
Clean your plate into the bin. Feel pudding on toast and four cups of milky tea drop like a stone into your stomach. Thank your mother. Go with her to the back garden and help her hang the rest of the washing. Ask while you work if there is anything else she needs doing while you’re home. Tell her the garden looks nice.
‘Ah, go on,’ she mutters around the clothes peg held between her teeth. ‘It’s a state,’ she shrugs, ‘but I’ve never the time.’ She nods towards the kitchen window and your father’s silhouette, ‘And no help.’
Sweep the leaves from the side lane. Drill holes for a hanging-basket hook. Dead-head the acanthus. Cut the grass.
‘Don’t belabour yourself on my account,’ your mother says as she stands over you where you are weeding, holding a strimmer ready in her hand.
Tell her, ‘It’s no problem at all.’
‘Well then, suit yourself.’
In the driveway next door, your neighbour Theresa is climbing out of her car. ‘Ah, you’re not putting him to work already, are you?’ she says, her tongue curling over her upper lip as she winks at you in conspiracy.
Your mother measures a laugh. ‘Might as well get some use out of him. Do you want some help there with your shopping, while the going’s good?’
‘Nah, you’re all right,’ Theresa says, ‘I wouldn’t do that to him on his birthday.’ She hauls a bag of groceries from the boot and the new baby from the back seat. ‘Do you want to have a look at him?’ she asks and, without waiting for an answer, stands in her flower bed to dangle the baby over the wall. ‘David,’ she tells you.
Say, ‘Hi, David.’
Take the baby in your arms. He is warm and smells of milk. His eyes are clear as glass and his hands grope in the air for things you cannot see.
‘Aw,’ Theresa says, ‘he’s a natural, so he is.’ She rearranges her shopping and takes back the baby, bracing his weight against her hip and steadying him with a muscled arm. ‘Won’t be long now till he’s back with one of his own, and a little English accent on it.’