A Dirty Weekend

My brain's gone mushy after a day of study, housework and working out. So, instead of putting any effort into today's blog post I think I'll just share one of the stories I wrote a while ago.

A Dirty Weekend

            ‘That’s the last of the vodka. And the gin. Only brandy left. And one can of lager.’ And all blood warm, she imagined, since the power had gone off.

            ‘We should stop drinking, Darryl. We need to think about what to do.’

            ‘No we don’t, Penny. We need to drink this wonderful hotel dry and blot all this fucked up stuff out. Sit tight and see what happens. How does that sound for a plan?’

            Darryl sank into the desk chair. He had picked her up two days ago at Charing Cross Station, where she had been heading for the train back to Dartford. She had been racing down the packed platform, shoving through dawdlers, heading for the guard waving the paddle when everything had stopped. She had awoken to see Darryl, a regular on her daily commute, shaking the shoulders of still people, looking for a response. He had found one in her. They had quickly decided to head for The Savoy, it being somewhere nearby that they were both familiar with, for one reason or another. The opulence of their surroundings should have made their stay comfortable.

            ‘See if you can find anything on the TV,’ she sighed.

            He raised an eyebrow at her, before turning back to the desk and tipping the amber liquid into his glass. Penny closed her eyes and heard the sounds of the barman preparing Manhattans in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, whilst a pianist played jazz somewhere nearby. She had barely registered the music at the time, so involved had she been in her happiness, yet the music was integral to her memory of the place.

            ‘This was a mistake,’ she said as she pulled the robe tightly around her shoulders. ‘Why are we sitting here like this?’

            ‘What do you want to do, Penny?’ Darryl asked, a note of agitation detectable in his voice. ‘Go shopping? Catch a show? I’d rather drink and fuck, if it’s all the same to you.’

            Penny felt the sandpaper soreness of her vagina; the sex had served it’s purpose, blotting out the futility of their situation for a few hours. Darryl liked it rough. She wondered if sex had been like that with his wife, but knew that she wouldn’t ask him. The situation was still too new, the emotions not yet pinned down. He had laughed when he had hit her, and she had enjoyed it. Then he had kissed her softly, his tongue filling her mouth with tenderness as well as passion. They had held each other afterwards, or they had held onto the present. To themselves. She wasn’t sure. But she was glad that she wouldn’t have to explain the red welts to her husband. Then she felt guilty for that relief.

            ‘I’d like to get something new to wear. Nothing flash, just comfortable and clean. I couldn’t face putting those things back on,’ she said, nodding towards her ripped skirt and stockings strewn across the patterned carpet.

            He watched her pulling both sides of the thick robe around her body, seeming to realise that there were practical aspects of their situation to be considered.

            ‘Selfridges isn’t far from here. You can have anything you like. On me. But get your sexy arse over here first.’ He looked at her tentatively. She thought he was wondering if she was going to tell him to fuck off.

            Afterwards, he pushed her off him and headed to the bathroom. Above the noise of his violent pissing she heard him ask, ‘What were you doing this time last week?’

            ‘Darryl, no. Talk about something else.’

            ‘Like what? Come on. Think. Last Sunday. Were you in church, praying that something like this wouldn’t happen?’

            She picked at the scab on her elbow, grateful that she hadn’t broken her arm when she’d hit the platform. That would have been a disaster.

            ‘I never go to church. Those places give me the creeps.’

            ‘OK, so what were you doing? Fucking your husband? What?’

            ‘Why do you want to know? Why does it matter?’

Darryl reappeared, slumping on the doorframe and stared at her with bloodshot eyes. Even hungover and with an untidy stubble he was an attractive man, with his heavy hair and strong eyebrows turning to grey. The unflushed toilet bothered her more than it should have done, though.

            ‘Do you want to go and raid the bar downstairs? We could check out what’s on tonight’s menu. I’m sick of mini bar snacks and fruit.’ He pulled two grapes from the wilting bunch and pushed them into his mouth.

            ‘God, I’d rather not. All those people …’ She dreaded the time, very soon, when she’d have to burst their bubble and face the rest of the world.

            ‘Is there any more of that brandy, Darryl?’

            Some time later Penny found herself sitting in the armchair, which she had pulled up to the bed so that she could stretch out her legs. She reached across to the silver fruit bowl on the side table and took an apple.

            ‘I’m glad we met, Darryl.’ She had been watching him walk in front of the mirrored inset wardrobe doors, back and forth, heel to toe, toe to heel. He was daydreaming, and she wondered whether his thoughts were on the past or the future.

            ‘Me too,’ he responded, without looking up. ‘We should stay together, no matter what.’ He continued his pacing as she ate the apple.

                       

            The scene beyond the heavy curtains would be unpleasant. Penny stroked the edge, feeling the concealed weights that kept them completely still. She wondered whether it had been as silent in the last hotel she had stayed in. Her world was on this patterned side of the curtains, reality on the other. They had entered the hotel under a dark sky, the shock of their meeting and their adrenaline-fuelled rush to the hotel eliminating the clear details of their arrival in her mind. They had removed the key for their room from the unattended reception desk and ran up the stairs to the third floor collection of suites. She was glad that they had chosen one of the smaller ones; Darryl’s constant nearness was comforting. She turned to see him applying himself to an article in the pink Financial Times. From upside down it appeared to be about Lehman Brothers, the infamous bankrupt American bank. ‘I used to deal with these bastards. Ruthless. I was glad to get out of the City, in the end. It nearly gave me a nervous breakdown. Look at this guy!’ He held it up for her to see. ‘A fifty million dollar bonus. For what?’

            ‘Hey, don’t sweat it, Darryl. What use is it to them now?’ He shrugged and turned the page. She noticed the line on his wedding finger, where the skin was smooth and pale.

            ‘Did you bring many women here then?’

            He closed the newspaper and dropped it onto the floor.

            ‘A few. I wasn’t always what you’d call a … loyal husband. But that’s in the past. You can trust me now.’

Trust was something that she was reevaluating at the age of twenty-eight. It had occurred naturally during her first relationship that had lasted through University. But his betrayal had made it difficult for her to trust other men, resulting in a string of asphyxiated relationships. Then Davey had proved to be her restorative. He had won her over with his obvious adoration of her. She hadn’t wanted to believe it was love; she was too afraid of being hurt. But the eventual pain was something she was trying hard not to deal with. She turned back to the hyacinth design on the Italian linen drapes.

            ‘Open them, Penny. Let some light in.’

            ‘I’d rather not. I’d like to stay in our little bubble for a bit longer.’

            She turned from the window and sat down on the bed, making a nest of the fat pillow collection. Her brow creased as she concentrated on the print of the Empire State Building above the headboard.

            ‘Davey and me went to New York for our honeymoon.’ Darryl was sitting on the floor, ankles crossed loosely. His hands were folded in his lap. He looked up at her.

            ‘We had a list. The Empire State, Times Square, The Statue of Liberty, Central Park. Ice skating at the Rockerfeller Centre. We ticked them all off one by one. On the last day, when we’d finished the list, we decided to stay in the hotel room. Just the two of us and two bottles of cheap champagne. It was perfect.’

            Darryl watched liquid pearls slide down her cheeks. She sank down and let herself fall sideways, pulling her knees into her chest and holding them tightly to her with her arms. She felt the mattress give as Darryl crawled towards her. He settled behind her and wrapped his palms around her fists.

            ‘Shhh, it’s OK. Everything will be OK. We’ll make things work. One day at a time.’

            Instinctively she turned around into his body and cried. He cried too. They lay like that until daylight.

            ‘Jesus, Penny, you only had peanuts and chocolate yesterday. What’s making you so bloody sick?’

            The heat from his palm eased her convulsions until she felt able to lift her head from the toilet bowl. She replaced the lid and wiped her mouth on a towel.

            ‘Maybe stress. I’m strung out,’ she mumbled.

            ‘I know, baby. We need to make our move today before we both go mad. We need to face the world, be brave. Do you think you can?’

            ‘No. Oh God, no. I don’t want to. I don’t.’ She gripped the edge of the bath, breathing deeply as fresh waves of nausea approached.

            ‘Come on, let’s get our stuff together. I’ll be brave for both of us.’ He positioned his shoulder under her armpit and hauled her to her feet for the second time since they’d met. He lay her on the bed and moved around the room, gathering up their possessions. He removed the computer from his laptop bag and left it by the waste paper bin beneath the desk, squashing their items inside instead.

            ‘I was part of the team that redeveloped this place, you know. I know the place intimately, yet I’ve never stayed here. We both prefer country breaks, working in the city all week. Or foreign city breaks. Madrid, Verona, Singapore, New York …’

            Darryl paused to look at her again, his face angled slightly.

            ‘What did you do? Here, I mean.’

            ‘Staircases and lifts. They all had to be resized or repositioned to meet modern building regulations. A lot’s changed since this place opened at the end of the nineteenth century.’

            ‘You can say that again,’ he sighed.

           

            Pushing through the revolving art deco doors and out onto The Strand, the bright sunshine reflected off crushed and upended cars and buses, some of which had burned out. People lay strewn on the pavements as if asleep, handbags and silent mobiles still clutched in their stiff fists. A chorus of burglar alarms replaced the usual melee of engine noise and the hum of chatter. Smoke whispered skywards from the direction of Covent Garden and she wondered whether it was a fire lit by people, or just a result of the chaos. With one hand Penny clutched her belly, and in the other she took Darryl’s fingers.

            ‘Let’s find somewhere to go, away from here.’

            They stepped into the road and began their journey.