Cloud Atlas (23 page)

I scaled the ramp up to the imposing glass doors. The reception area glowed grail gold. I knocked, and a woman who could have been cast for the stage musical
of Florence Nightingale
smiled at me. I felt like someone had waved a magic wand and said, “Cavendish, all your troubles are over!”

Florence let me in. “Welcome to Aurora House, Mr. Cavendish!”

“Oh, thank you, thank you. Today has been too ruddy awful for words.”

An angel incarnate. “The main thing is you’ve arrived safely now.”

“Look, there is a slight fiscal embarrassment I should mention at this time. You see, on my way here—”

“All you need to worry about now is getting a good night’s sleep. Everything is taken care of. Just sign here and I can show you to your room. It’s a nice quiet one overlooking the garden. You’ll love it.”

Moist-eyed with gratitude, I followed her to my sanctuary. The hotel was modern, spotless, with very soft lighting in the sleepy corridors. I recognized aromas from my childhood but couldn’t quite identify them. Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. My room was simple, its sheets crisp and clean, with towels ready on the heated rail. “Will you be all right from now, Mr. Cavendish?”

“Bliss, my dear.”

“Sweet dreams, then.” I knew they would be. I took a quick shower, slipped into my jimjams, and cleaned my teeth. My bed was firm but comfy as beaches in Tahiti. The Hoggins Horrors were east of the Horn, I was scot-free, and Denny, dearest Denholme, was footing my bill. Brother in need, brother indeed. Sirens sang in my marshmallow pillows. In the morning life would begin afresh, afresh, afresh. This time round I would do everything right.

“In the morning.” Fate is fond of booby-trapping those three little words. I awoke to discover a not-so-young woman with a pageboy haircut rifling through my personal effects like a bargain hunter. “What the
ruddy hell
are you doing in my room, you pilfering warty sow?” I half-roared, half-wheezed.

The female put down my jacket without guilt. “Because you are new I will not have you eat soap powder. This time. Be warned. I do not stand for offensive language in Aurora House. Not from anyone. And I never make idle threats, Mr. Cavendish. Never.”

A robber reprimanding his victim for bad language! “I’ll ruddy well talk to you how I ruddy well like, you stinking ruddy thief! Make me eat soap powder? I’d like to see you try! Let’s call Hotel Security! Let’s call the police! You ask about offensive language, and I’ll ask about breaking, entry, and theft!”

She came over to my bed and slapped me hard across the chops.

I was so shocked I just fell back onto my pillow.

“A disappointing start. I am Mrs. Noakes. You do not wish to cross me.”

Was this some sort of a kinky S & M hotel? Had a madwoman broken into my room after learning my name from the hotel register?

“Smoking is discouraged here. I will have to confiscate these cigars. The lighter is far too dangerous for you to play with. And what, pray, are these?” She dangled my keys.

“Keys. What do you think they are?”

“Keys go walkies! Let’s give them to Mrs. Judd for safekeeping, shall we?”

“Let’s not give them to anyone, you crazy dragon! You
strike
me! You
rob
me! What kind of ruddy hotel hires
thieves
for chambermaids?”

The creature stuffed her booty into a little burglar’s bag. “No more valuables to be taken care of?”

“Put those items back! Now! Or I’ll have your job, I swear it!”

“I’ll take that as a no. Breakfast is eight
sharp
. Boiled eggs with toast soldiers today. None for the tardy.”

I got dressed the moment she was gone, and looked for the phone. There wasn’t one. After a very quick wash—my bathroom had been designed for disabled people, it was all rounded edges and fitted with handrails—I hurried to Reception, determined to have due justice. I had acquired a limp but was unsure how. I was lost. Baroque music lilted in identical chair-lined corridors. A leprous gnome gripped my wrist and showed me a jar of hazelnut butter. “If you want to take this home, I’ll jolly well tell you why I
don’t.”

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else.” I scraped the creature’s hand off mine and passed through a dining room area where the guests were seated in rows and waitresses were bringing bowls in from the kitchen.

What was so odd?

The youngest guests were in their seventies. The oldest guests were three hundred plus. Was it the week after the schools went back?

I had it. You probably spotted it pages ago, dear Reader.

Aurora House was a nursing home for the elderly.

That ruddy brother of mine! This was his idea of a joke!

Mrs. Judd and her Oil of Olay smile were manning Reception. “Hello, Mr. Cavendish. Feeling super this morning?”

“Yes. No. An absurd misunderstanding has occurred.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It most certainly is a fact. I checked in last night believing Aurora House was a
hotel
. My brother made the booking, you see. But … oh, it’s his idea of a practical joke. Not in the least bit funny. His contemptible ruse only ‘worked’ because a Rastafarian gave me a puff of a sinister cigar in Adlestrop, and also, the ruddy stem-cell twins who sold me my ticket here, they wore me out so. But listen. You have a bigger problem closer to home—some demented bitch called Noakes is running about the place impersonating a chambermaid. She’s probably riddled with Alzheimer’s, but yowie, she’s got a slap on her. She stole my keys! Now, in a go-go bar in Phuket, that’d be par for the course, but in an old wrecks’ home in Hull? You’d get closed down if I was an inspector, you know.”

Mrs. Judd’s smile was now battery acid.

“I want my keys back,” she made me say. “Right away.”

“Aurora House is your home now, Mr. Cavendish. Your signature authorizes us to apply compliancy. And I’d get out of the habit of referring to my sister in those tones.”

“Compliancy? Signature?
Sister?”

“The custody document you signed last night. Your residency papers.”

“No, no, no. That was the hotel registry! Never mind, it’s all academic. I’ll be on my way after breakfast. Make that before breakfast, I smelt the slops! My, this will make a heck of a dinner-party story. Once I’ve strangled my brother. Bill him, by the way. Only I must insist on having my keys returned. And you’d better call me a cab.”

“Most of our guests get cold feet on their first mornings.”

“My feet are quite warm, but I haven’t made myself clear. If you don’t—”

“Mr. Cavendish, why don’t you eat your breakfast first and—”

“Keys!”

“We have your written permission to hold your valuables in the office safe.”

“Then I must speak with the management.”

“That would be my sister, Nurse Noakes.”

“Noakes? Management?”

“Nurse Noakes.”

“Then I must speak with the board of governors, or the owner.”

“They would be me.”

“Look.” Gulliver and Lilliputians. “You’re breaking the ruddy … Anti-Incarceration Act, or whatever it is.”

“You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you at Aurora House.”

“Your telephone, please. I wish to call the police.”

“Residents aren’t permitted to—”

“I am
not
a ruddy resident! And since you won’t give me back my keys, I’ll be back later this morning with one very pissed-off officer of the law.” I shoved the main door, but it shoved back harder. Some ruddy security lock. I tried the fire door across the porch. Locked. Over Mrs. Judd’s protests I smashed a release catch with a little hammer, the door opened, and I was a free man. Ruddy hell, the cold smacked my face with an iron spade! Now I knew why northerners go in for beards, woad, and body grease. I marched down the curving driveway through worm-blasted rhododendrons, resisting a strong temptation to break into a run. I haven’t run since the mid-seventies. I was level with a lawn mower contraption when a shaggy giant in groundsman’s overalls rose from the earth like Ye Greene Knycht. He was removing the remains of a hedgehog from its blades with his bloody hands. “Off somewhere?”

“You bet I am! To the land of the living.” I strode on. Leaves turned to soil beneath my feet. Thus it is, trees eat themselves. I was disorientated to discover how the drive wound back to the dining room annex. I had taken a bad turn. The Undead of Aurora House watched me through the wall of glass. “Soylent Green is people!” I mocked their hollow stares, “Soylent Green is made of people!” They looked puzzled—I am, alas, the Last of my Tribe. One of the wrinklies tapped on the window and pointed behind me. I turned, and the ogre slung me over his shoulder. My breath was squeezed out with his every stride. He
stank
of fertilizer. “I’ve better things to do than this …”

“Then go and do them!” I struggled in vain to get him in a neck-lock, but I don’t think he even noticed. So I used my superior powers of language to chain the villain: “You cruddy ruddy rugger-bugger yob! This is assault! This is illegal confinement!”

He bear-hugged me several degrees tighter to silence me, and I am afraid I bit his ear. A strategic mistake. In one powerful yank my trousers were pulled from my waist—was he going to bugger me? What he did was even less pleasant. He laid me on the body of his mowing machine, pinned me down with one hand, and caned me with a bamboo cane in the other. The pain cracked across my unfleshy shanks, once, twice, again-again, again-again, again-again!

Christ, such pain!

I shouted, then cried, then whimpered for him to stop. Whack! Whack! Whack! Nurse Noakes finally ordered the giant to desist. My buttocks were two giant wasp stings! The woman’s voice hissed in my ear: “The world outside has no place for you. Aurora House is where you live now. Is reality sinking in? Or shall I ask Mr. Withers here to go over things one more time?”

“Tell her to go to hell,” warned my spirit, “or you’ll regret it later.”

“Tell her what she wants to hear,” shrieked my nervous system, “or you’ll regret it
now.”

The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.

I was sent to my room without breakfast. I plotted vengeance, litigation, and torture. I inspected my cell. Door, locked from outside, no keyhole. Window that opened only six inches. Heavy-duty sheets made of egg-carton fibers with plastic undersheet. Armchair, washable seat cover. Moppable carpet. “Easy-wipe” wallpaper. “En suite” bathroom: soap, shampoo, flannel, ratty towel, no window. Picture of cottage captioned: “A House is Made by Hands, but a Home is Made by Hearts.” Prospects for breakout: piss-poor.

Still, I believed my confinement would not last until noon. One of several exits must open up. The management would realize its mistake, apologize profusely, sack the Offending Noakes, and beg me to take compensation in cash. Or, Denholme would learn his gag had backfired and command my release. Or, the accountant would realize nobody was paying my bills and boot me out. Or, Mrs. Latham would report me missing, my disappearance would feature on
Crimewatch UK
, and the police would trace my whereabouts.

Around eleven the door was unlocked. I readied myself to reject apologies and go for the jugular. A once stately woman sailed in. Seventy years old, eighty, eighty-five, who knows when they’re that old? A rickety greyhound in a blazer followed his mistress. “Good morning,” began the woman. I stood, and did not offer my visitors a seat.

“I beg to differ.”

“My name is Gwendolin Bendincks.”

“Don’t blame me.”

Nonplussed, she took the armchair. “This”—she indicated the greyhound—”is Gordon Warlock-Williams. Why don’t you take a seat? We head the Residents’ Committee.”

“Very nice for you, but since I am not a—”

“I had intended to introduce myself at breakfast, but the morning’s unpleasantness occurred before we could take you under our wing.”

“All water under the bridge, now, Cavendish,” gruffed Gordon Warlock-Williams. “No one’ll mention it again, boyo, rest assured.” Welsh, yes, he would have to be Welsh.

Mrs. Bendincks leant forward. “But understand this, Mr. Cavendish: boat rockers are not welcome here.”

“Then expel me! I beg you!”

“Aurora House does not expel,” said the sanctimonious moo, “but you will be medicated, if your behavior warrants it, for your own protection.”

Ominous, no? I had seen
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
with an extraordinarily talentless but wealthy and widowed poetess whose collected works,
Verses Wild & Wayward
, I was annotating but who was less widowed than initially claimed, alas. “Look, I’m sure you’re a reasonable woman.” The oxymoron passed without comment. “So read my lips. I am
not supposed to be here
. I checked into Aurora House believing it to be a hotel.”

“Ah, but we
do
understand, Mr. Cavendish!” Gwendolin Bendincks nodded.

“No you don’t!”

“Everyone’s visited by the Glum Family at first, but you’ll soon cheer up when you see how your loved ones have acted in your best interests.”

“All my ‘loved ones’ are dead or bonkers or at the BBC, except my prankster brother!” You can see it, can’t you, dear Reader? I was a man in a horror B-movie asylum. The more I ranted and raged, the more I proved that I was exactly where I should be.

“This
is the best hotel you’ll ever stay in, boyo!” His teeth were biscuit colored. Were he a horse, you couldn’t have given him away, “A five-star one, look you. Meals get provided, all your laundry is done. Activities laid on, from crochet to croquet. No confusing bills, no youngsters joyriding in your motor. Aurora House is a ball! Just obey the regulations and stop rubbing Nurse Noakes up the wrong way. She’s not a cruel woman.”

“ ‘Unlimited power in the hands of limited people
always
leads to cruelty.’ ” Warlock-Williams looked at me as if I had spoken in tongues. “Solzhenitsyn.”

“Betwys y Coed was always good enough for Marjorie and me. But look you here! I felt just the same in my first week. Barely spoke to a soul, eh, Mrs. Bendincks, a major sourpuss, eh?”