Hotel World (17 page)

Yeah, the woman said. It’s good. That way, you’re probably not still going to get it.

Get what? Penny said.

Lost, the woman said.

Oh
right
, Penny said. Lost. I see.

If you know you are, the woman said. Then you’re not about to be it, lost.

Penny memorized that. If you know you’re lost then you’re probably not just about to get lost. Was that it? She wasn’t sure. Clever, she said out loud.

The woman nodded.

Then she said, See that old woman on Morgan Road? Did she tell you she’d lost her cat?

Poor thing, Penny said. I hope she found it.

No, the woman said. She’s always out looking for a cat.
There isn’t one. If there was ever a cat, it went months ago.

Oh, Penny said. Do you often do the walk we did tonight, then? Do you stay up here often?

I don’t think there is a cat, the woman said.

Penny knew that some people like to live in hotels rather than have a house or rent a place. Do you live over in the hotel? she asked.

Silence.

Penny stubbed out her cigarette on the stone arm of the bench. She thought she’d try, just once more, one more time.

You’re not from here originally, are you? she said.

The woman shook her head.

Where did you grow up, then? Penny said.

The woman breathed, saying nothing.

It’s funny, Penny said, as though talking to herself. When people ask me that kind of thing, I usually tell whoever asked me a lie. You know, a white lie. I tell them that my childhood was miserable, and that I’m an orphan. Can you still be an orphan in your thirties? I used to tell people who asked me, at parties or wherever. I’d say,
actually I’m an orphan
, and watch their faces, it was kind of fun, seeing such immediate discomfort. In the long run I think it makes people imagine I’ve come through something extraordinary, something which at some point they have to experience for themselves, both parents dead. And at the same time it makes them see me as vulnerable, needing special care. Perfect combination. But to be
honest for once in my life, Penny said. Which I rarely am.

Penny checked. The woman seemed to be listening. Penny went on.

My mother and father are actually both still quite happily alive. Well, to tell the truth, quite gloomily and miserably alive. They live in different cities now, which makes Christmas a little tricky for my brother and I. They’re both well-off. We were brought up in reasonable comfort. My childhood was averagely happy, averagely tortured. And since I’m being honest with you, this is how it went. My father had affairs with women who weren’t my mother. Most fathers do. So when I was a teenager, and I realized this was what he was doing, I started what you might call taking things. You know, from shops. From other people’s houses too but mainly from shops.

The woman still seemed to be listening.

I took everything I could, from everywhere I could. It’s remarkably easy to do. I kept all the things under my bed; I think they’re all still there in my teenage bedroom at my father’s house. I was particularly good at hair accessories; they’re easy to slip up your sleeve, easy, a whole handful of them in their packets off a rack and into a bag or up a sleeve. They’re all still there under the bed, hordes of them, little plastic balls and elasticated things, all still in their packaging. Make-up, little computer games. Occasionally I get something out from under there and have a look at it, when I’m staying at my father’s house. Clothes too. Skirts, jumpers, tops. It’s like a dated treasure trove under there. Everything is pink, grey, light
blue, pastel-coloured, woefully old-fashioned now when I look at it again. I took cups out of people’s kitchens, or spoons, whatever. I used to dare myself to leave whatever house we visited with whatever I could take.

It hadn’t worked yet. Now the mother, Penny thought.

My mother, she said, always preferred my brother to me. I know that, I knew it. I don’t mind now. There was a time when I did mind, and I took it out on her without her knowing by, well, sex really, I started sleeping with an old friend of hers and my father’s. I saw him at a station one day on the outskirts of London. He used to come to our house, I knew him. He was a kind of father figure, you know how it is.

The woman nodded at last. Hooked, Penny thought and felt the thrill of it, slight chill on the back of her neck.

I thought, that’s what I’ll do. And I did it, we had very rushed sex in the empty station waiting room. My first time. It was all quite exciting. All quite seedy. Terrible. You know?

The woman looked at Penny, sympathetic. Penny looked dolefully back. Sex, she thought behind the doleful face. If the stealing doesn’t do it, and the my-parents-didn’t-understand-me, then the sex, the sex always does.

She carried on talking.

I used to wear very short skirts for him, he liked it. I used to steal short skirts especially. I was seventeen. He ran a newspaper. In fact he gave me my first job on a paper. So I suppose that experience marked my life for good, in more ways than one.

The woman moved suddenly beside Penny. A paper? she said. Like a newspaper?

The
World
, Penny said. It’s full of grey space. Since I’m being truthful. We have to fill it up as fast as we can. That’s what I do. That’s my job, filling up the grey space every week for people like you and me.

She nudged the woman, like they were friends. The woman shook her head. Do you not work on a paper, then? she said.

I work on the
World
, Penny said. The
World
. You know. The
World on Sunday
.

Is that a paper? the woman said.

The
World
, Penny said again.

Is it a, I forget the word for it, the woman said. She put her arms out, as if holding something too big for her.

Penny laughed. I can’t believe you don’t know the
World
, she said. But the woman’s eyes had widened and her head had come right out of her coat.

Are you a journalist? she said. You interview people and stuff?

Well, mostly just people, Penny said. Stuff isn’t usually very forthcoming.

Was it your paper who did that page? the woman was saying. She was waving her hands about. Penny sat back.

Probably, she said. Which?

The page, the one about what was in the pockets of homeless people, what people kept in their pockets?

Um, Penny said.

There would have been a photograph in it of the things
in the person’s pockets. It would have been all laid out for a photograph. And then there would have been a written thing about the person too, the woman said. Their name, where the picture was taken, things like that.

No, I don’t think I remember a piece like that, Penny said. Not while I’ve been with the
World
.

Is it long that you’ve been with the
World
? the woman said.

Well, three years there now, Penny said.

The woman’s eyes clouded. Oh, she said, and turned away. Then she turned back again. But do you remember a page like that, from any other paper, did you ever see it? she asked.

Nope, Penny said shaking her head. Certainly not in our
World
. Other people still do that kind of story. It was probably somewhere else, we aren’t doing many just now. To be frank with you they don’t make good copy; with the last government it was always a good injustice story or a good humane story. With this government it just looks like whining. Nobody’s really doing them any more. Unless there’s a drug element. Drug stories are still okay.

There
is
a drug element, the woman said. Everyone takes them. Everyone on the street takes stuff, we all do.

You all do, Penny said.

You have to, the woman said. Fucks with your brain, I mean really really fucks it. Sorry about the swearing, she said, as a kind of afterthought.

That’s
what you do, Penny said.

And also, the woman said. It really changes people.

On the street, Penny said again.

Yeah, wherever, the woman said. It can really make people into ugly fuckers.

The woman stopped. She sat, said nothing. She shook her head. She held her hands up, open, empty. Then she said, Sorry again. Language.

I’m an idiot, Penny was thinking. I’m such an idiot. Look. The coat. The money. The bad skin, the smell, the listless readiness. The wandering about. The breathing. I’m such a fool. The penny had dropped. Penny Drops. A good heading. It made her want to laugh again. Then it made her think of the public phone, and a taxi, and a warm room, with curtains, shut.

The woman was talking. I’m sorry? Penny said.

Things, the woman said. If you touch them, like. Ruined.

You know, Penny said. Earlier when we met, I thought you had a room in the hotel.

Yeah, the homeless woman said. I did.

Oh, Penny said. She stood up now, was stamping her feet. Her boots were ruined and her feet were frozen. She wondered if she’d ever feel her feet again.

Is it news and historic things like that air war there was that you report on? the homeless woman said.

Mm? Penny said. Oh no, I do the style pages, she said. Though once, for one article, I had to jump out of a plane. That was fun.

Wow, right, the woman said politely.

Penny walked into the middle of the road. Cars went
past, but none were taxis. Do taxis ever come out here? she called. She stamped her ruined boots.

Can I maybe ask you a favour? the woman said.

Mm? Penny called from the middle of the road, where she was wondering whether taxis up here would take credit cards or not.

A favour. Can I ask you a meaning?

How do you mean, a meaning? Penny said coming back on to the pavement.

There’s a word. I don’t know what it means, the woman said.

Uh-huh? Which word? Penny asked, stamping her heels, looking down the road for signs of other life.

Rebiggot, the woman said.

Penny stopped. Re-what? she said.

The woman spelt the word out. Penny shook her head.

I don’t know, she said. I don’t know what that word means. It’s not a word I’m familiar with at all.

It’s out of a poem, the woman said. I am rebiggot.

Penny opened her bag. She found her pen and looked for something to write on. The woman spelt the word again, and Penny wrote it letter by letter on the inside cover of her chequebook. She held it under what light there was from the shut library, shook her head.

Nope, Penny said. Never heard of it. It looks foreign. French? Sorry.

Penny surprised herself by actually feeling it, sorry. She looked at the woman again. She thought how the woman had been so wrong, how she’d even believed there was
gravity on the moon. Everyone knew there wasn’t. She smiled to herself. She carried on writing in her chequebook.

What’s your name? she asked the woman again. Tell me your name, please. I’ve had a lovely time tonight with you. It’s made a real difference to me, meeting you tonight.

The woman looked pleased.

Elspeth, she said.

Elspeth. Elspeth what? Penny said, still writing.

What do you want to know it for? the woman said.

I just want to know. So I remember, Penny said.

The woman thought for a moment. Then she said, Freeman. Elspeth Freeman.

Penny Warner, Penny said. Pleased to have met you. She pulled off her glove and held out her hand. The woman, surprised, pleased, took Penny’s warm hand in her own cold one.

Now, Elspeth, Penny said. If you ever need anything.

Penny slipped the folded cheque inside the woman’s coat pocket, tucked it in, patted it. She forgot about her ruined boots. Her heart rose, flew about; her heart was like a bird, ecstatic, high above her head.

And one last thing, she said. Do you need a lift back to the hotel?

The homeless woman shook her head.

Okay. So do you know where there’s a taxi rank round here? Penny said. Or could you, possibly, Elspeth, let me borrow, would it be possible for you to lend me, some
change for that phone over there, so I can call a taxi? I’ve got to get back. Work to do.

The woman had already put her hand deep inside the lining of her coat, she had brought out a twenty pence piece, she was holding it up.

Here you are, she said.

By the time she was back at the hotel Penny had become anxious about having written a cheque for so much. By the time the lift had reached her floor she had decided what to do about it.

The lift door opened. Penny peeked out.

The girl was gone. All the loose change was gone. The hall had been tidied up. But the gash in the wall was still there, horrible. Penny put her head at an angle so as not to see it. She unlocked her door. In her room, clear and plastic, was the smell of new computer.

Nice, she thought.

She drew the curtains shut, kicked off her stained, spoiled boots and flopped herself on to the bed. Tired, she thought.

There were no messages for her on either phone. She started the computer up. Its clock said 11:15 p.m. There were no e-mails waiting. For a moment she felt bereft. Then she typed her opening paragraph straight out. She read it over. It needed almost nothing else.

Good, she thought.

She reached for the phone and dialled 1.

Hello, Reception, a voice said.

Hello, Penny said, this is Room 34. I’d like a Club Sandwich.

Certainly madam, the voice said. I’ll connect you to Room Service.

And one other thing, Penny said. Can you tell me the combination for pay-per-view for this room? I can’t find the information anywhere in the room. I’ve been looking all evening.

Certainly madam, the voice said. As it says inside our Global Information Brochure under the heading Pay-Per-View, you just double your room number. So your pay-per-view combination, for instance, since you’re in Room 34, will be 3434.

Ah, Penny said.

Room Service? a voice said.

This is Room 34, Penny said. Can you send me up a Club Sandwich?

Certainly madam, the voice said. Would you like anything to drink with your order?