The elderly couple finish their drinks, gather their things and leave. Ester watches them walking past the window holding hands and laughing about something. She drinks her gin and the hands of the huge clock on the wall move silently round.
The guest arrives at five. When he opens the door, the late afternoon sunshine streams in with him. He has come a long way with a heavy rucksack but he is fit and strong. He is young, younger than Ester but not as young as the new girl. As he approaches the bar he takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and offers it to the girl. ‘I have a room booked,’ he says. He speaks in English and the girl does not understand but she smiles at him.
‘It’s me you want,’ says Ester.
He looks at her doubtfully and then back at the girl, who smiles again and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
Ester climbs carefully down from her stool and walks over to her guest, her shocking-pink heels banging loudly against the bare floorboards in the quiet room. She stands close to him, and leans closer to read the paper which he still holds out to the girl. She can feel the warmth in his skin, and the hairs on his arm against her own. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Come and sit down. Have your meal and then I will show you to your room.’
She takes the boy to a table for two and sits him down, then she goes to the kitchen to fetch his plate of cold meats from the fridge. Returning to the bar, she removes the cling film, slides the plate onto the table in front of the boy and sits down opposite him. ‘Go ahead and eat,’ she says. When he hesitates, she reaches over, takes a piece of sausage from his plate and holds it up to his mouth, saying, ‘Try some of this.’ When he does not open his mouth for her, she brings her hand back and puts the morsel in her own mouth. ‘It’s very good,’ she says.
She has the girl bring drinks. When the girl puts them down on the table, Ester sees her glancing at the boy and catches a flicker of a smile before she goes back to the bar. Ester leans forward and picks a strip of ham off the boy’s plate. ‘Oh, the ham is good,’ she says, not offering it this time but putting it directly into the boy’s mouth, poking it between his lips. She feels his teeth against her fingertip.
The boy eats then, quickly and silently, before pushing back his chair, his meal only half-finished, saying, ‘I’d like to go to my room now.’
‘Yes,’ says Ester, sucking a greasy fingertip. ‘Come with me.’ She walks to her desk, puts a tick in her ledger and takes his key down from its hook. ‘You’re in number ten,’ she says, and then adds, ‘right next to my room.’ She takes the rucksack from between his feet and carries it to the lift. While he insists that there is really no need, she stands inside the lift with his bag, waiting until he joins her. When he does, she presses the button and the doors close.
Now it is just the two of them in the quietly rising lift. ‘If there’s anything you need,’ she says, ‘just let me know.’
She carries his rucksack down the corridor to the end room and waits while he fumbles the key into the lock and opens the door. She takes his rucksack inside and puts it down on the bed. Knocking on the wall just above his headboard, she says, ‘If you need anything at all.’
‘I won’t bother you,’ he says. He has not yet come into the room. He is standing by the door, holding it open.
‘You wouldn’t be bothering anyone,’ she says. ‘My husband’s away.’
He nods, and when still she remains with one hand on his rucksack, he says, ‘Oh, right,’ and puts his hand in his trouser pocket. Finding a note of the lowest denomination, he holds it out.
She moves away from the bed then and comes towards him. Passing him in the doorway, she says, ‘Goodnight,’ and leaves him with the money still in his hand.
Back downstairs, she eats the boy’s leftovers for her supper. She usually goes to bed before the bar closes. If there are no customers and Bernard is away she sometimes tells the new girl to call it a night and get off home. The place is empty tonight, but when the girl suggests closing early, Ester says no, they should stay open, someone might still come in. She stays perched on her bar stool, watching the girl, who has nothing to do. Not until the big clock says it is closing time does Ester say, ‘All right then. Go home.’ The girl lifts the stools up onto the tables and fetches her coat and bag, and Ester, on her way to bed now, says to the girl, ‘Lock the door on your way out.’
Ester has a quick bubble bath before getting into bed. She drops off quickly before being woken by a gentle tapping sound which builds to frenetic hammering against the partition wall.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Cigarette Smoke
It looks as if it is going to be a warm day. Futh is wearing his sandals again but without the socks, and his naked feet glow white between the straps. Even at nine o’clock in the morning the sun is quite strong. He feels it warming the back of his neck above his collar, and the backs of his knees beneath his shorts, as he walks to the outskirts of the town.
Passing a postbox, he drops in the cards he wrote the evening before. He will, he thinks, be seeing his father and Aunt Frieda and Angela before their postcards reach them, but still, this is the sort of thing one does on holiday. He has included Gloria on his father’s card but he has not written to Kenny.
Even after Futh’s father moved in with Gloria, Futh did not see much of Kenny, who generally avoided their family get-togethers, never attending his mother’s soirées or coming for the Sunday dinners Futh’s father cooked. But then Kenny, even in his twenties, had his own family, children, and Futh, as it was pointed out, did not.
But when Futh was visiting his father, he always found an excuse to get out of the house for an hour, and seeing as Gloria lived near Kenny, Futh did see him from time to time.
On one occasion, Futh was in the supermarket buying meat and potatoes and bottles of wine for his father’s Sunday lunch. Following the piped fresh bread smell to the bakery section, he came across Kenny selecting bread rolls, squeezing them and then putting them back.
‘How are you?’ asked Futh.
‘Hungry,’ said Kenny, picking up an iced bun with his oil-stained hand and replacing it with his thumbprint in the icing. ‘You?’
‘I’m seeing someone,’ said Futh. ‘In fact, you’ve met her. She was at that university open day — the girl I knew from school.’
Kenny investigated a cake, put his finger in the buttercream and licked it off. ‘The girl who didn’t remember you,’ he said. ‘You’re seeing her?’
‘I bumped into her again,’ said Futh.
While Kenny was picking through the gingerbread men, Futh asked after his wife and children and Kenny pointed out a woman in the biscuit aisle with twin boys who looked just like Kenny.
Futh, meanwhile, had put three iced buns in a bag and it was only as he was walking away that he realised he had got the one on which Kenny had left his thumbprint. He felt awkward about going back and swapping it in front of Kenny, so he just carried on to the checkout, knowing that he would have to eat that one.
He saw Kenny again on a nearby industrial estate where there was a store selling camping and outdoor equipment. Futh liked to browse in this sort of place and think about taking up climbing or kayaking, imagining trekking alone in the mountains or riding the rapids in a one-man canoe. This was before he was married to Angela. He looked at the tents, and sometimes he bought something small — gloves or a torch. He also bought all kinds of guidebooks and manuals. On this particular day, he had, amongst his purchases, a five hundred page hardback on ice climbing and a last-minute addition of a guide to self rescue, some big batteries and a spork. Walking away from the store, he passed a parked car and saw Kenny in the passenger seat. He went closer to the side window to catch Kenny’s attention but paused before knocking. There was a woman in the driver’s seat, but he couldn’t tell whether it was Kenny’s wife. She had her hands over her face and was partially obscured by Kenny who had his arm around her. She was upset but Kenny was saying something which seemed to help. The window was open a crack and Futh caught the smell of Kenny’s cigarettes. The woman dropped her hands, reaching into her bag for a tissue, and Futh, not wanting to disturb them, continued on his way, walking the mile back to the flat with the handles of his carrier bag cutting into the palms of his hands.