"Gerry!"
Stevie called. He jogged into the kitchen and took up his usual position
by the side of the sink. "They’re here."
I
hung the tea towel back on its hook, adjusted my tie, and rolled down my
shirt sleeves as I walked out of the kitchen and through the hall. The
frame that contained my Hoteliers Association Bronze award certificate
was crooked, so I straightened it. I eased back the front door latch and
stepped out on to the Hessian welcome mat, feeling the bristles through
the soles of my slippers.
There
were three of them walking up the driveway.
Philippa
was the only one carrying a suitcase, and her shoulders were hunched
with the effort. I didn’t recognize the other two ladies. They were
all limping. That was probably due to their inappropriate footwear.
The
car park was empty.
"Welcome,"
I said when they reached the porch. "I thought you had a car. Last year
you had a Fiesta."
"I
left it in London," Philippa said. "Problems."
The
other ladies said nothing. Perhaps they were tired. It’s an hour long
walk from the bus station along a small coastal track – it’s a walk
I do myself infrequently, when Stevie says he needs a break from the
country. I wave him off and take in the scenery on the way home. One has
to make the most of every opportunity to admire the swoop of the dunes
and the curves of the waves.
"My
manners," I said, opening the door wide. "Come on in. Philippa, you know
where the parlor is. Go on through and make your friends comfortable."
I
stepped back as they brushed past me. Philippa had gooseflesh on her
upper arms as it wasn’t the warmest autumn day, and really she should
have thought to bring a coat, but the other two gave no sign of feeling
the cold. They were both pale with long brown hair, both wearing hoop
earrings and red lipstick. Perhaps they were sisters.
All
three stood still, looking out of the window at the view of the sea,
until I had taken my usual armchair seat and given a cough. Then they
moved to the long sofa. Philippa sat closest to me.
“Shall
we discuss terms?" I said.
"Yeah…same
as last year," she said. "You get fifty a week for our room and board
and ten percent of the takings."
"Lovely.
Lovely. But I think I’m right in saying that it was seventy-five a
week for room and board last year."
"We
only need two rooms this time. These two want to share, and they don’t
eat much."
"Oh,
I see," I said. "Perhaps sixty should be considered a fair amount, then."
The
other two ladies didn’t take their eyes from the view as Philippa
swore violently. It was a good thing I had been expecting just such behavior
from her, and I controlled my expression. She tapped her fingers on her
knees and bit her lip. Eventually she said, "Sixty’s fine. But I
can’t pay the first month up front this time. As I said, problems."
"Problems.
How unfortunate for you all. But you’re here now. And Stevie has some
appointments lined up for you already. Word gets around locally, you
know." I smiled at them all. Nobody smiled back.
"They
don’t speak English," Philippa said, nodding towards the other ladies
as she examined one of her shoes, splashed with mud, the high heel worn
to a slant.
"Foreigners.
Well. I hope they enjoy this part of the world. Time for tea, I think,"
I said, and reached up to ring the small brass bell I keep on the
mantelpiece for just such occasions. Stevie entered the parlor
immediately, carrying the tea things. He must have been listening at the
door.
"Stevo!"
Philippa said. She stood up, waited for him to put down the tray and
then punched his arm. It looked like a strong punch, but Stevie has big
muscles which he is proud of. He likes to wear those tight tee shirts
one sees in the surfing shops.
He
glanced at me before he replied. "Hey Phil, my favorite girl, how’s
tricks?"
"Don’t
get me started," she said, and then swore again. I tried to keep my
expression pleasant as I poured the tea. "I’ll tell you later. This is
Irina and Dacha." She turned to the ladies. "Stevo," she said slowly,
hitting him in the chest with a finger. Then she said two words that
sounded like khara sho.
"What’s
that?" Stevie said.
"I
just told them you’re a good bloke."
Stevie’s
back was towards me, and I could only see the foreigners" faces. They
were both smiling at him, looking up from the sofa and fiddling with
their hooped earrings. One leaned over to the other and murmured
something that sounded like kra see vee.
Philippa
snorted. I held out a cup of tea for her. "What did she say?" I asked.
She
took the tea, spilling a little into the saucer. "Dunno," she said, her
lips pressed together.
* * *
That night,
Stevie came in with my hot chocolate and sat on the end of the bed as
usual.
"Sounds
like the ladies had an arduous journey," I said. "Did they get settled
into their rooms?"
He
nodded. He was bare-chested, wearing only his jeans, glancing up at me
through the blonde fringe of his curly hair.
"What’s
wrong?" I said. "Is there a problem?"
"They’re
just a bit…you know," he said. "Just a bit out of it, with the trip
down."
"I
heard there was trouble," I ventured. I knew Philippa and Stevie were
close, being the oldest of friends. Last winter, when money had been
really difficult to come by, he had suggested offering a venue for
Philippa and a few of her associates as a sideline. He promised me I
would not have to get involved with any of the unpleasant side: he took
the bookings and arranged local advertising. It may not have been
entirely to my liking, but the truth is, Stevie’s plan saved my
business.
"Gerry?
You know when we met?" he said, breaking the companionable silence. I
put down my hot chocolate and gave him my full attention. It was the
first time I could recall him mentioning the event.
"Mmm,"
I said. "I was walking along the beach. And you were sitting with your
back to the sea wall. You asked me if I had any spare change because
you’d got a lift down with some friends who’d left without you and
you needed money to get back to London."
"You
said why would anyone want to go back to a dirty city like London once
they’d seen Penzance," Stevie said with a half-smile. I patted his
hand on the bedspread.
"And
you said you didn’t want to go back, but you had nowhere else to go,
do you remember? Then I told you I needed someone to do a little cooking
and cleaning in exchange for room and board –"
"–
And I said yeah."
"You
said, “Yeah, okay,” I recalled. In fact, before that, he had leaned
forward and asked me what I wanted in return and that would cost more. I
had turned away, looked down to the sea without replying. The question
had offended me somewhat, and I was glad to come to the conclusion that
desperation alone had prompted Stevie to make that disgusting offer. The
subject has never been raised since.
"Are
you still okay about everything?" he said, a shadow of a crease between
his eyebrows.
"Am
I still happy with our arrangement? Of course. Of course. Don’t worry."
"Only
I never did learn to cook."
"That’s
true." I winked at him. "But you do make an excellent cup of hot
chocolate."
At
last that familiar smile crept across his lips, and things were back to
normal. He gave me the usual goodnight hug, his soft chest hair sliding
into the spaces between my pajama jacket buttons to brush against my
own. Then he jumped up from the bed and jogged to the door. With one
hand on the handle, he turned back to me. "If I ever hurt you,’ he
said. "I’m sorry. Really sorry."
"Stevie,"
I said. "You never have."
His
mouth opened and shut. Then he left. I felt that he’d been somehow
confused by my response. It was only as I switched out the bedside light
that it occurred to me he hadn’t been referring to any time when he
might have injured my feelings in the past. He had meant in the future.
If he hurt me in the future.
* * *
Of course, I
had picked up on an atmosphere lingering around the first floor corridor
before Philippa walked into the kitchen that day. It was a clear
December morning, and Stevie was having a lie-in while I organized
breakfast for the ladies.
Philippa’s
presence was, in itself, unusual behavior. All meals were served in the
dining area, and cups of tea were always made by Stevie. I hadn’t
known that she was even aware of the location of the kitchen.
I
was chopping mushrooms and assumed that the swish of the swing door was
due to Stevie’s arrival. "Would you pass me the medium saucepan?" I
said.
"Where
is it?"
I
put the knife down and wiped my hands on the corner of my apron before
turning around. "Oh, hello Philippa, what a lovely surprise," I said. "Did
you want something in particular?"
She
leaned against the welsh dresser. She was wearing a black dress with
thin straps that had fallen from her shoulders, and the same spiky shoes
she had arrived in. "I need to make an alteration to our arrangement."
I
nodded. "Maybe we should go through to the parlor?"
"It
won’t take long," she said without moving. "We need another room."
I
inclined my head. "Is there a problem?"
"Nah.
Bitchiness. These foreign girls can be a bit…"
"…temperamental?"
I finished for her. "There’s no difficulty with the room. I’ll get
Stevie to make up the bed in number four. That’ll keep you all on the
same floor. Or is the falling out serious enough to warrant putting a
larger distance between them, do you think?"
Philippa
shrugged. "Who knows? I’ll go and tell them."
"Of
course, there’ll be an extra charge."
She
had already left the room by the time I finished my sentence, and
consequently it came out a little louder than I intended. The clack of
her heels on the parquet ceased. She reappeared, her head bent, her arms
crossed, and resumed her position against the Welsh dresser. "What?"
"An
extra fifteen pounds. To make it up to the original seventy-five."
She
sighed. "Okay. Look. I didn’t want to get into this, but if you wanna
be paid for the room, then I’m gonna have to have some payment too.
This is a business, after all."
"Payment
for what?"
She
smiled at me. "Stevo."
It
took me a moment to follow her meaning. "Are you saying that you and…"
"God,
not with me! She swore as she laughed. "Me and Stevo – nah. I’ve
known him too long and seen him through too much for that. It’s Dacha
he’s got a bit of a thing for, and she doesn’t mind giving him
freebies, but I’d be letting her down if I didn’t look out for her
what with expenses going up."
I
turned back to the chopping board and picked up the knife, but I
couldn’t quite find the wherewithal to start slicing the mushrooms
once more. I could feel Philippa’s gaze on the back of my neck as I
asked my next question. "How many times?"
"Seventeen.
At thirty a go – that’s giving him a discount – you owe me £510."
There was no pause for calculation. She must have had the sum ready in
advance.
"That’s
a lot of money," I said.
"Well,
he’s done a lot of…business."
"Maybe."
I put the knife down.
"You
wanna ask him yourself, ask him," Philippa said. "He’s upstairs with
her right now. So what do you wanna do? Drop the charge for the extra
room or take me to your office and open up that safe of yours?"
There
were only two ways she could have known about the safe. Either she had
entered my private office without my permission, or Stevie had told her
the whereabouts of my personal savings. It was a simple case of trust
– did I believe more in Philippa’s character, or in Stevie’s?
Stevie
had never lied to me. Philippa, to be blunt about it, was a prostitute.
It
had been a long time since I was involved a direct confrontation, but in
my Army days, before I bought the hotel, I had come across a fair amount
of bullies and had yet to be intimidated by one. I turned around and
looked her directly in the eyes.
"Right,
look here, madam. I know what you’re after, and you’re not about to
get your hands on my savings by simply swanning in here and naming your
price, so I suggest you think again. Now, I’m going upstairs to find
Stevie, and you may come with me if you wish, and then we’ll have this
business sorted out for once and for all."
She
didn’t blink. "Fine by me, Gerry."
"It’s
Gerald," I told her. "After you."
She
led the way out of the kitchen and down the hallway, walking quickly.
When she stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up, I noticed the
sudden change in the intensity of her gaze.
"Irina,"
she said.
I
approached and saw one of the foreign ladies waiting for us on the first
floor landing. One of her hands was on her hips, and one leg was thrust
forward so that her bare toes curled over the top step to dig into the
carpet. Her face was a more ruddy color than I had seen it before, and
as she stared back at me she lifted her chin and pursed her lips. I
don’t think I have seen such a mixture of contempt and fear in a face
before.
Philippa
said her name again, and this time it sounded more like a question.
Irina
shrugged, and I noticed the object she held in her other hand, hanging
by her side. It was a small electronic device; I think perhaps a mobile
phone.
She
said something in a clipped tone. It sounded like neechivo.
"Everything’s
fine, is it?" Philippa said. She pointed to the device, and Irina moved
it behind her back.
Kto,
kto, Philippa said, as she stepped on to the first stair.
Ya
khachoo pa yekhat damoy, Irina said.
"What
did that mean?" I asked.
Philippa
hissed through my question, and then launched a tirade of broken,
staccato syllables that seemed to confuse Irina as much as it did me,
judging by her expression. She responded in fluent phrases of her own, a
mellifluous sound that ebbed and flowed, and I was momentarily sorry
when she fell silent once again.
"Oh
God," Philippa said. She swore, and her voice trembled. "Oh Jesus." She
slipped backwards off the step and put one hand on the chest pocket of
my apron, from which I flinched away. "She called them. She told them
where we are."
"I
beg your –"
"Don’t
you get it? She called them. The blokes we were trying to get away from.
They’ll be coming for us and they’ll want their share of the money
we’ve made. If they don’t get it, they’ll take it out on us."
"Now,
I think you’re over-reacting…"
"They’ll
hurt us," Philippa said. "And that means Stevie. And it means you too."
A
woman laughed on one of the first floor bedrooms: it had to be Dacha.
That laugh was followed by another. I knew that laugh. It belonged to
Stevie.
* * *
"I’m sorry,"
he said. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and beginning to get
dark. "I am sorry."
I
focused on the framed photograph on the wall of my office, above
Stevie’s head. It had been taken during my last tour of duty, and
showed me standing in a jeep, an endless stretch of desert behind me,
four of my men looking up at me as I gave them instructions. They had
all been fine soldiers. Improprieties had never occurred.
"It’s
not just sex," he said. "I care about her." The words sounded awkward on
his lips, as if it was a new emotion to him.
"How
can you?" My voice was not as calm as I would have liked. "You don’t
know each other. You can’t even speak her language. It takes time to
get to – like someone. A long time. Months."
Stevie
didn’t reply. I risked a glance at him, and he looked back at me with
large wet eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was feeling sorry for himself or
me. "That doesn’t mean I don’t feel for you, yeah? We have a
connection, Gerry, yeah? I know you feel it too. And I’d do anything
for you. Just ask." He leaned forward and stretched his hands over the
desk towards me. He wore an open-necked shirt and I could see his pulse
beating in his throat, his Adams apple bobbing as he swallowed.
"I
certainly feel very warmly…" I began, but nothing I could think of to
say seemed right in the circumstances. "I’ve made no secret of the
fact that I enjoy…"
"Do
you want me to stay?" He reached a little further forward. His finger
touched the back of one of my hands, clasped together on the desk.
I
was silent for a long time. My skin warmed to the temperature of his
finger, and then I couldn't feel the pressure any longer; just the
sensation, comfortable, soothing. I have never felt anything like it
before.
"This
is your home," I whispered.
He
bent his head. "I want to stay. But these men. They’ll be here soon,
really soon. They want money."
"They
want the ladies," I said.
"Phil
and Irina don’t mind. They’ll go back. But Dacha wants out."
"She
can’t stay here." I snatched back my hand.
"Nah,
of course not. But I meant it when I said I care about her. I couldn’t
live with myself if I didn’t get her out of this mess, get back her
freedom for her, yeah?" Stevie got up from the chair and rubbed his
palms against the outer seams of his jeans, over his thighs, as he
walked around the desk. He stopped next to my safe, its small dial
protruding from the smooth metal door set into the wall. He was close
enough to touch either it or me.
"How
much will it take?" I said.
"Phil
says maybe a thousand for Dacha. And another five hundred to keep it
peaceful."
"They
could be violent?"
"They’re
not nice, I mean, they’re scum. It would be wrong to send Dacha back
with them if she doesn’t want to go."
"I
suppose it would."
"You’re
a really good bloke, Gerry," he said. "Such a good, good bloke." He
stepped forward, sat the edge of my desk, leaned forward and kissed me
on the mouth.
I
must have been about to say something, because my mouth was open, and I
think his was too because I could feel his breath in my throat and then
his tongue, like a weight pushing against the inside of my cheek.
He
tilted my head and his tongue slid over my teeth until it found my own
tongue. I felt his stubble, soft bristles where his chin pressed against
mine, and his hand was in my hair, his fingers combing through my
thinning crown, and instead of embarrassment there was an unreal feeling
bubbling up in me.
It
became a wave – that’s the only way I can describe it – a wave, a
swamp, around me and in control of me. I wanted to take his head between
my palms, touch his throat and neck, rub myself on him, take him over, I
didn’t want him to exist any longer, not without me. I didn’t want
him to live. He was so good, so kind, so caring to that whore he had
kissed and touched just like he touched me, and I didn’t want him to
live.
Army
training is a funny thing. It has a habit of kicking in when I least
expect it. It chose that moment to reassert itself. Self-discipline
returned to me, and rational thought along with it. I gently pushed
Stevie away.
"You
mean the world to me," he said, "and I’m going to be so grateful for
this."
"Go
on," I said. "Go and make me a tea while I get this money organized."
I
waited until he had left the office before I opened the safe. I took out
all the money and laid it on the desk, taking the opportunity to count
it. I slid out my briefcase from under the desk, opened it, and laid the
money in it. Then I walked out of the office and across the hall to the parlor
with the briefcase in my right hand.
All
three ladies were standing in front of the window, arms crossed, not
speaking. I coughed and Philippa turned to face me.
"They’re
here," she said.
I
adjusted my tie with my left hand. I walked down the hall, and paused in
front of the frame that contained my Hoteliers of Penzance Bronze award
certificate to straighten it. Then I eased back the front door latch and
stepped out on to the Hessian welcome mat.
Two
men got out of a black BMW with mud-splashed tires and a blue tinted
windscreen. They were both young, pale-skinned, thin, both dressed in
jeans and tee shirts with sunglasses over their eyes. I had been
expecting older men in suits, but it made no difference. I left the
front door open and walked towards them.
We
met halfway across the car park. "Are you the owner?" the slightly
taller one asked. He had a strong accent, but his grasp of the English
language appeared to be adequate.
I
spoke slowly so I could be sure they understood me. "No. The owner is
inside. In the kitchen. It’s got nothing to do with me."
There
was a pause. I think they were looking at me through their sunglasses.
Then the shorter one nodded, and they walked past me and into the hotel.
I
started walking and I didn't look back.
I’ve
been walking for an hour now and the bus station is in view. My
briefcase contains twenty thousand pounds and the deeds to the hotel,
plus another property I own in mainland France. I should be able to get
a flight easily when I reach the city.
The
view of the sea is behind me. I shall miss it.
Copyright 2006 by
Aliya Whiteley
Aliya Whiteley’s first novel,
THREE THINGS ABOUT ME (July) is part of Macmillan New Writing’s launch
program. Her short stories have appeared in SHOTS, Pulp.net,
Shred of Evidence, and THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING DETECTIVE
(Carroll and Graf.) She lives in Germany with her family..
