The Extremes

'That's mentioned.' She leaned over, and pointed out the sentence. 'They say they expect international cuisine.'

'That could be anything. Pity we don't have a chef'

'We can manage, Nick! Come on ... say you're pleased!'

'I'm pleased. I really am.' He twisted his hand round the back of her neck, and gently pulled down her face for a kiss. 'But do we have four rooms free with double beds? There are only ten rooms in the whole place, and six of those are singles or twinbedded. Mrs Simons is in one of the doubles, isn't she?'

'That's something 1 wanted to ask you about,' Amy said. 'I was wondering what you would think if we asked her to change rooms?'

'Have you mentioned it to her?'

'Not yet. The booking only came through today. 1 thought until the people in Taiwan made it definite we shouldn't do anything.'

'But this is a firm booking.'

'Yes.'

'I don't think she likes this place,' Nick said. 'She never complains, but I'm certain she finds it uncomfortable. just little things she lets slip.'

'That's what 1 think too. Maybe she would like to move out. This would give her an excuse.'

'Do you think she needs one?'

'I've no idea. She's so polite it's impossible to work out what she really means.'

Nick put the fax message on the counter, where the curl of its paper made it stand up like a shallow arch. Amy picked it up again.

'These don't sound like Chinese names to me,' she said. 'Kravitz, Mitchell, Wendell, Jensen.'

'GunHo Corporation,' Nick said. 'That doesn't sound Chinese either. A bit oriental, but who can tell any more, and does it matter anyway? If they pay, we let them in.'

'Did you notice? Two of these people are women?'

'Yes, 1 did notice,' Nick replied. 'What do you think, Amy? Can we manage on our own, or should we think about getting a couple of extra staff in?'

CHAPTER 11

Nick was in the bar, waiting for something or other to happen, with not much hope that it would. Dick Cooden and his girlfriend June were playing pool; three men who he knew worked in a garage in Bexhill were standing at the far end of the bar, putting away a lot of pints of bitter; one of the tables near the door had a group of five youngsters perilously close to the minimum legal age, but he didn't feel like checking. Other people had been in and out earlier, and there were always one or two who would straggle in shortly before closing time.

Sitting in the bar was what he did, what he liked to do. Amy had gone to bed. He would close the bar in half an hour, once the Bexhill men had given up and gone home.

Then Teresa Simons came in and ordered a bourbon and ice. He put in a single measure, and reached down the counter for the ice. When he turned back she had drained the glass in one gulp without waiting for the ice. He hadn't known Americans would drink anything without ice.

'You people serve small shots, she said. 'Let me have another.' He went to take the glass from her but she tightened her hold on it. 'Would you make me one the way 1 like it? Let me show you, and then after that whenever 1 ask for a bourbon, you can fix it that way.'

When he agreed she asked for a tall glass with several large chunks of ice, two shots of bourbon, and then some soda.

He wrote down the cost of this and the first drink on the account he was keeping beneath the counter.

'Are you finding what you want in the town?' he said, making barman's conversation.

'What makes you think I'm looking for something?'

'You're obviously not here on holiday, so 1 assumed you were on a business trip.'

'Kind of Do people come to Bulverton on vacation?'

'Some do. Not as many now as in the past. They like the way the town looks.'

'The town's pretty enough, but it's kind of depressing.'

'Most local people think there's a good reason for that. You must know what happened last year.'

'Yeah ... It's why I'm here, I guess.'

'Amy said she thought you might be a reporter.'

'What gave her that idea? My interest is ... 1 guess you could say it's more personal.'

' I'm sorry,' he said, surprised, because Amy's suggestion had sounded right. 'I didn't realize.

Did you have a relative here who was involved?'

'No, nothing like that.'

She turned away from him sharply, almost literally giving him the shoulder, and looked towards the window. The bottom halves of the bar windows were frosted; all that could be seen through them were the diffused and haloed lights of the passing traffic. The three men from Bexhill wanted another round of drinks, so Nick went to attend to them. When he returned, Teresa Simons was facing the counter again, resting her elbows on the top and cradling her now empty glass. She indicated she wanted a refill, which he poured her, using fresh ice and a clean glass.

'What about you, Nick? You don't mind me calling you Nick? Your parents were caught up in the shooting, weren't they?'

'They were both killed, yes.'

'Do you ever talk about it?'

'Not a lot. There isn't much to say, when you leave out all the obvious stuff.'

'This used to be their hotel, right?'

'Yes.

'You really don't want to discuss it, do you?'

'There's nothing to talk about any more. They left me the hotel, and here 1 am. What 1 went through was less traumatic than some of the people here.'

'Tell me.'

He thought for a moment, trying to articulate feelings that had always remained undefined.

He remembered how, when he had realized that he couldn't cope with the idea of what Gerry Grove had done, he had begun to think in cliches. Soon, he heard other people spouting the same empty phrases: reporters on television, vicars in pulpits, leaderwriters in newspapers, wellmeaning visitors. He knew that those phrases, so quickly becoming familiar, simultaneously missed the true point and captured the essence of it. He learned the benefits of nonthought, nonarticulation. Life went on and he Joined in, because that way he was spared the need to think or to talk about it.

'There were all those people dead,' he said carefully. 'I didn't know them personally any more, because 1'd been living away from the town, but I knew of them. Their names went on lists, their stones were told. All that grief, all those people being missed. The relatives, the parents, the children, the dead lovers, and a couple of strangers. At first nothing surprised me: of course the survivors were going to be shocked. That's what happens when other people get killed. But the more 1 thought about it, the more complicated it seemed. 1 couldn't understand anything. So 1 stopped trying to think.'

Teresa was looking away, twirling ice cubes as he spoke.

'But in a funny kind of way, you know, they were the

ones who escaped, the people who were killed. They didn't have to live with it afterwards. In some ways surviving is worse than being dead. People feel guilty that they survived, when a friend or a husband or wife didn't. And then there are all those who were injured. Some recovered quickly, but there were others who didn't, who never will. One of those is a teenage girl.'

' Shelly Mercer,' said Teresa.

'You know about her?'

'Yes, 1 heard. How's she doing now?'

'She came out of the coma and she's out of hospital, but her parents can't look after her at home. They've had to put her in a special nursing home, in Eastbourne.'

He had been to visit Shelly one day, while she was still in intensive care in the Conquest Hospital in Hastings. He went with a small group of people from the town, all drawn to her by whatever it was that seemed to unite them. The feeling of guilt, he supposed.

The excuse was the radio and CD player that the people in the town had bought for her. She had been saving up to buy one like it before she was shot, and a collection was set up for her.