Ten Stories About Smoking (9 page)

Inside, the lobby smelled richly of tobacco, leather and freshly cut flowers. Men and women streamed through it and down the grand stairway. At its foot, the dark smoky bar area
was full; groups were talking and drinking, some sat at booths, others around round tables; others standing, cigarettes aloft in long holders. Once through the door, David paused, taking in the
sound of women’s heels on marble, of muffled conversations, of soft piped music. ‘Isn’t this just to die for?’ a woman wearing an emerald dress with silver brocade said to
her companion as she walked by. ‘Isn’t it just divine?’

Realizing he was blocking the door, David walked slowly in the couple’s wake, passing two payphone booths and the reception desk, thinking of just how much John would have loved this
place: its clubby gentility, its well-dressed women and effortless American chic. Ava Gardner would fit in here, he thought, Frank Sinatra, Dorothy Parker, but most of all John. He could imagine
him, drink in hand, talking his way around the room like he’d been born to do just that, a smile on his lips and women swooning at his accent.

David reached the stairs and was about to descend to the bustling bar when a man hailed him. He was slick-haired and wet-lipped, his face that of utmost concern.

‘Excuse me, sir, can I perhaps be of assistance?’

David looked at the man, then at the staircase. ‘I’d just like to have a drink, actually, if that’s okay.’

The man smiled and looked slightly relieved. ‘But of course, sir,’ he said. ‘You may also like to know that Miss Amelia will be on stage in’ – he took out his
pocket watch and looked at its face – ‘a little under fifteen minutes. She will be performing in the Oak Bar, which is through the double doors to the left of the bar area.’ With
that he bowed his head, clicked his heels and walked off towards reception.

David moved slowly, slightly confusedly. He heard snippets of conversation, the high giggling laughs of flirting women, the gruff chuckles of men. He could not keep his eyes from the tables. If
the men looked like movie stars, the women – their hairstyles curled and coiled, their waistlines obviously cinched by corsetry – seemed otherworldly. Their make-up was immaculate, and
when David’s glance fell on one of the women for too long, his was met with a look of withering contempt. Embarrassed, he kept his head down until he reached the bar.

‘Hello, sir, what can I get you?’ the bartender said. Like the earlier employee of the hotel, he was impeccably dressed with an oiled widow’s peak and a manicured pencil
moustache.

‘I thought a cocktail,’ David said. ‘It seems everyone else is drinking cocktails.’

‘A wise decision, sir. And is there a particular cocktail you would like . . . ?’

‘Well, I did think—’

‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I would recommend the Manhattan. I pride myself on making the finest Manhattan in the county.’

David lit a cigarette and nodded. ‘A Manhattan sounds great, thank you.’

In the nearest booth, three couples were discussing their Malibu beach homes, the problems of domestic staff and plans for a Parisian holiday. One of the men had recently bought
a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle and was talking about it in rapturous terms. The woman to his right said that, as far as she was concerned, it was absurd to be scared about the big things in the
world when you could die at any moment – especially on the back of a motorcycle.

‘Oh, Bunny, what a mind you have!’ her companion said. ‘Do you really see the same tragedy in a motorcycle accident as you do in global apocalypse?’ He was biting down on
a thin cigar and wore rimless spectacles. His gas-blue suit was snug on his shoulders.

‘Oh you do tease me so, Harry. You know perfectly well what I mean. How you die is immaterial. Whether alone or with the whole of the world: the effect is all very much the same,’
Bunny said. Her hair was braided, her dress a thin slip of black velvet.

‘This,’ an overweight yet not unattractive man said wagging his finger, ‘sounds dangerously close to politics. And we all know the rules where that’s
concerned.’

‘It’s more . . .’ Bunny said, drawing on her cigarette, ‘a philosophical issue, wouldn’t you say so, Harry?’

‘I wouldn’t know; I care little or nothing for either,’ Harry said. ‘What I
can
say is that no matter how much of a death trap it is, no matter if it could cause a
thermonuclear war, I wouldn’t give up that Thunderbird. Not ever.’

His wife, a bird-like woman with blonde bangs and a small scar on her chin, put her gloved hand on his jacket sleeve.

‘And I’m glad too. He’s such a dreamboat with that thing between his legs.’

They laughed, all of them, and David looked away hurriedly in case they caught him eavesdropping. He crushed out his cigarette and hunted in his pocket for the fold-up map of the strip and its
environs. Part of him felt vindicated for leaving the party; the other deeply disappointed that he hadn’t come across this place either online or in one of the many guidebooks he’d
bought. He opened out the map and took a sip of his cocktail. Then another more lengthy one. It was divine.

‘Is the drink to your satisfaction?’ the bartender said.

‘Yes,’ David said. ‘It is . . . delicious.’

‘Can I perhaps get you another, sir?’

‘That would be wonderful, thanks.’

But the bartender stopped his effortless drift to the bourbon and bitters and glanced down at the counter.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said with a bowed head. ‘But could you possibly refrain from reading at the bar? It is, I’m afraid, against the hotel rules.’

‘Oh,’ David said, ‘I’m sorry, I was just trying to —’

‘I understand of course, sir,’ the bartender said, deftly folding the map and handing it to David, ‘but this is a bar in which people should feel comfortable. And our patrons
tend not to feel comfortable with clientele who arrive alone and sit at the bar reading. I do hope you understand.’

David looked around the room and down at the space where his map had been. He put the folded-up map inside his coat pocket. The bartender placed a silver bowl filled with cashew nuts in front of
him.

‘Thank you, sir,’ the bartender said. ‘I’m glad you understand.’

By the second Manhattan, David wondered if he was drunk or simply hallucinating from the heat and the walking. To his right an amorous couple sat in a small two-person booth.
They were talking in low voices with a restrained, almost prudish vocabulary. Still it seemed to be doing the trick for them; the man’s hand was on her thigh and pressing for higher. His
partner
–
a woman who was not his wife
–
was only pretending to stop him. David felt hot under his suit and he undid the top button on his shirt. He tapped his hand
against his packet of cigarettes and wondered where the others were. In a limousine, more than likely, in a car taking them to the edge of the city.

The couple stopped their petting and stood, as did the three couples in the larger booth. David looked over his shoulder at them. They were like dolls, animated things swishing through large
double doors.

‘If you wish to catch Miss Amelia, sir,’ the bartender said, ‘it might be wise to make a move to the Oak Room. A waitress will serve you at your table.’

‘What kind of songs does she sing?’ David said. ‘I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t come here specifically to see her, so . . .’

‘She’s wonderful,’ he said. ‘She plays a mean version of “Summertime”. And “As Time Goes By” and “Moon River”. She has a voice like
smoke on velvet.’ He smiled wistfully and went to attend to another customer. He was a square-jawed, quarterback type and he leaned over to the bartender, slipping him a bill. The bartender
looked at his fingernails and another bill was produced. Then the man rejoined his group, placing his hand at the base of his wife’s spine.

David looked around at the room. There was barely a soul in there now, just a few couples too wrapped up in each other to care about the music. And there was no music. No background music at
all. There was the rush from the other room, the smattering of applause, the sound of low talk, but nothing else. No trills of mobile phones, no slot machine jingles, no noise bleed from
headphones, the air was untroubled: as relaxed as an old, soft shoe.

‘I need to go and run an errand. Can I make you another drink before I go,’ the bartender said.

‘Er, no I think. I think I should be getting back to the hotel now.’

‘Are you not staying with us, sir?’

‘No. I’m staying at the—’

‘I’m sure sir doesn’t need to tell me all of his business, now, does he? So can I get you one last drink for the road?’

David looked at his watch but he didn’t now know whether it was six in the morning, six in the evening or six o’clock British time.

‘Okay, yes I will. But can I ask you a question?’ David said. ‘Why is it that you’re not in any of the guidebooks, or on any of the maps?’

‘Oh that’s quite simple, sir,’ the bartender said, ‘the management believes that marketing is crass and unnecessary and only attracts the kind of clientele unsuited to
the Delphinium.’

He put the drink down on a paper napkin. ‘Enjoy, sir,’ he said. ‘I will be right back.’

When the bartender returned it was with the quarterback. An old Bakelite phone was passed from behind the bar and the man had a low urgent conversation with someone.

‘You’d think he was having an affair, wouldn’t you?’ a voice said. David turned round to see a wild-haired man, greying at the temples, a thin beard and dark glasses. He
was wearing a silver lamé lounge suit with a southern bow tie. The bartender made his excuses to David and hurriedly put a beer down next to the man.

‘But the thing is you never can tell, can you? You just never can tell.’ And with that he started to laugh; laugh like he couldn’t stop. He put his hands up as if to apologize
and hailed the bartender.

‘Hey, bud, get this guy a drink. My shout.’

The bartender went back to his bourbon and the man next to David offered his hand to shake, his mouth withholding his amusement.

‘Name’s Flagstaff.’ David drank the last from his glass and looked at the man. He had friendly, hound-dog features and a drinker’s nose. He shook his hand.

‘David. David Falmer.’

‘Well, David Falmer, you’re a long way from home, ain’t ya?’

‘I came here by mistake,’ David said. ‘I was out walking, and then, you know, suddenly I was just here.’

‘Sometimes that’s the best way to find what you’re looking for, man,’ Flagstaff said and went back to his drink. He started to laugh again and managed to choke on his
beer trying to hide it. Beer suds matted his beard and dripped onto his suit. He wiped away the foam and laughed out loud.

‘Oh man, you should see your face! What a picture. What a fucking photograph! I’ve been watching you for a time now and I still can’t believe it. Tell me this, I mean really,
tell me you don’t really think that this is all for
real
, do you?’

David thought of the perfect hairstyles, the cigarette cases, the vintage watches.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t—’

‘Horseshit, buddy boy! You thought’ – Flagstaff was rocking back and forth on his barstool now – ‘shit, what did you think? That this was some kind of Las Vegas
Brigadoon? That all these people were ghosts or some shit like that? Christ, you English are dumb. I’ve met a lot of English people and they’ve all been dumb, but you? You’re the
dumbest I ever met.’