I went back into the Bramble Suite without disturbing them; they hadn’t seen me, being very much otherwise engaged. This was an all too familiar social scenario for me: standing alone, staring into the middle distance. It was absolutely fine. It was absolutely normal. After the fire, at each new school, I’d tried so hard, but something about me just didn’t fit. There was, it seemed, no Eleanor-shaped social hole for me to slot into.
I wasn’t good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I’d fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.
The buffet had been laid out—yes, there were sausage rolls, but also sandwiches. Staff were dispensing indistinguishable tea and coffee from bitter-smelling urns into industrial white crockery. This wouldn’t do at all. I was decidedly not in the mood for hot brown liquid, oh no. I was in the mood for cool, clear vodka.
All hotels had bars, didn’t they? I wasn’t a great frequenter of hostelries, but I knew that bedrooms and bars were their raison d’être. I spoke to the dentally challenged lady in reception again, who directed me down another long corridor, at the end of which lay the imaginatively named Hawthorn Lounge. I stood on the threshold and looked around. The place was deserted, the fruit machines flashing purely for their own amusement. I walked in. Just me. Eleanor, alone.
A barman was watching TV and absentmindedly polishing glasses.
“Homes Under the Hammer,” he said, turning toward me. I remember thinking, surprised, that he was passably attractive, and then chastising myself for the thought. My prejudice was that beautiful, glamorous people would not be at work in the Hawthorn House Hotel on a Friday lunchtime. Granted, the receptionist had confirmed my initial thoughts, but really, it was shameful of me to have these preconceptions—where on earth did they come from? (A little voice whispered the answer in my head: Mummy.)
The barman smiled, revealing a lovely set of teeth and clear blue eyes.
“It’s a load of old shite,” he said, in a voice that could strip paint from walls, after giving them a good sanding down first. See—told you! Mummy whispered.
“Is it?” I said. “Unfortunately I’m not generally at home during the day to see it.”
“Watch it here, if you like,” the man said, shrugging.
“Could I?”
“Why not?” he said. “It’s not like there’s much else going on, is there?” He gestured around the empty bar.
I perched on a bar stool—something I have always wanted to try—and ordered a vodka and cola. He made it slowly, added ice and lemon without asking and pushed it toward me.
“Funeral, was it?” he said.
I wondered how he knew, and then I realized that I was dressed entirely in black, that my smoky eye makeup had run somewhat and that there was no other reason to be in this particular venue at this time of day. I nodded. No further exchanges were required, and we both settled back to see how Iain and Dorothy would fare with the 1970s terrace that they’d bought at auction for ￡95,000, intending to renovate the bathroom, install a new kitchen and “knock through” from the lounge to the dining room.
“The finishing touch,” the presenter said, “was to paint the front door . . . this fetching shade of green.”
“‘Green Door’,” the barman said, without missing a beat, and seconds later, lo and behold, that very song began to play. We both laughed, and he pushed another vodka toward me without my having to ask.
We had moved on to Loose Women, another program I was unfamiliar with. I was on my fourth vodka by now, and the funeral service was there in my mind, but it didn’t hurt—like noticing you had a stone in your shoe, but while you were sitting down rather than walking on it.
I thought that I probably ought to attempt a sausage roll at some point, or at least put a few in my bag for later, but then I remembered that I had brought my new, tiny bag, into which I could fit, at most, two savory pastries. I tutted, and shook my head.
“What’s up?” said the barman. We hadn’t asked each other’s names; it didn’t seem necessary, somehow. I slumped forward on my stool and stared, in clichéd fashion, into my glass.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said breezily. “I suppose I ought to have something to eat now, really.”
The barman, who had become less handsome as time had worn on, picked up my glass, filled it back up with vodka and a dash of cola and returned it to me.
“No rush, eh?” he said. “Why not stay here and keep me company for a while longer?”
I looked around—the bar was still deserted.
“You might need a little lie-down after this one, eh?” he said, tapping my glass and leaning very close to me. I could see the enlarged pores on the sides of his nose, some of them filled with microscopic black dots.
“Perhaps,” I said. “Sometimes I do need a lie-down after vodka and cola.”
He smiled wolfishly.
“Puts you in the mood, eh?”
I tried to lift my eyebrows into a question, but, strangely, could only make one of them rise. I’d had too much to drink because I’d had too much pain, and there was nowhere else it could go but down, drowned in the vodka. Simple, really.
“What do you mean?” I said, hearing that I was pronouncing the consonants somewhat indistinctly.
“Funerals,” he said, moving closer to me, so that his face was almost pressed against mine. He smelled of onions. “It’s nothing to feel bad about,” he said. “All that death . . . afterward, don’t you find it really makes you want to—”
“Eleanor!” I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned round on my stool, exceptionally slowly.
“Oh, hello, Raymond!” I said. “This is . . . actually, I don’t know. Excuse me, what’s your name, Mr. . . . ?”
The barman had moved at what must have been lightning speed to the other end of the counter, where he had resumed his glass polishing and TV watching. Raymond gave him a look that could best be described as unfriendly, and placed a twenty-pound note on the counter.
“Wait, Raymond,” I said, scrabbling for my new bag, “I’ve got some money in here . . .”
“Come on,” he said, pulling me down rather gracelessly from my stool. “We can sort it out later.”
I trotted after him in my kitten heels.
“Raymond,” I said, tugging at his sleeve. He looked down at me. “I’m not going to get a tattoo,” I said, “I’ve decided.”
He looked puzzled, and I realized that I’d forgotten to tell him that I’d been considering it, ever since I’d spoken to the barman at The Cuttings. He sat me down in a window seat off the corridor—not the same one he’d been in before—and left me there. I looked around, wondering what time it was, and whether they would have burned Sammy by now, or whether they kept all the bodies back till the end of the day to get a really good blaze going. Raymond returned, a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of savory pastries in the other.
“Get this down you,” he said, “and don’t move till I come back.”
I discovered that I was ravenous. Mourners kept wandering past, but no one noticed me in my hidey-hole. I rather liked it. The seat was comfortable and the corridor was warm, and I felt like a little dormouse in a cozy nest. Next thing I knew, Raymond was there again, shaking me gently but insistently.
“Wake up, Eleanor,” he said. “It’s half past four. Time to go.”