Alison Moore: The Pre-War House and Other Stories

‘Hello, Mrs Porter,’ says the man.

She recognises him as the one from the queue, the thin man who watched her scratching furiously at her legs while Michael was checking in. She is sure now that she knows him quite well but can’t think where from. He watches her struggling to place him and chooses not to help her. He sits down, and as he is getting comfortable it dawns on her who he is and her stomach sinks.

‘Well, Monica,’ says Stanley, ‘Barbados here we come, eh?’ He smiles.

He looks different, bared without his long hair and his beard, but he always did smile a lot, although Monica could never decide whether he was friendly or hostile.

She shared a house with a friend of his and never knew if she would return from work to find Stanley on the sofa, drinking milk from the carton, resting it between his thighs after swigs, looking at her in her uniform and saying, ‘Hello nursey.’ Sometimes, she would feel agitated in anticipation of finding Stanley in the house with the milk between his legs, but then, arriving home, she would find the house empty, the milk untouched in the fridge.

Sometimes, she would come home after a night out to find that he had bolted the front door before falling asleep on the sofa, so that she could not let herself in with her key. She remembers hammering on the door with her fist, trying to wake him, furious that he should have the power to shut her out of her own home.

One time, Stanley wasn’t there when she went to sleep, but when she got up at dawn to make coffee, she found him stretched out on the sofa. Sitting up, scratching, he said hello to the man who was coming through the doorway behind her, who then declined coffee after all and left quickly. To the departing back of this man who was old enough to be Monica’s father, Stanley said loudly, ‘I suppose he has to get home to his wife and kids.’

Now Stanley, reclining, putting his shoes on the hotel’s sofa, says to Monica, ‘Does Michael know about you and his dad?’

Monica is taken aback. She had no idea Stanley knew the man he saw coming out of her room that morning. Stanley, clearly enjoying her discomfort, keeps her waiting before explaining, ‘I used to get private tuition from Mr Porter when I was a kid. I went to his house so I always saw his kids too — Michael and his brothers and sisters. There were always loads of kids there. I always imagined I could just sort of stay and no one would notice. But of course I was always sent home.’

‘His dad and me, that was years ago,’ says Monica. ‘I didn’t know Michael then.’

‘Did you get crabs?’

‘What?’

‘Did Mr Porter give you crabs?’

She stares at him.

‘He always had crabs,’ says Stanley.

She feels as if she is, at this very moment, crawling with lice.

‘I have to get back to Michael,’ she says, standing, returning her magazine to the table. Stanley reaches over and picks it up, settling down to read what she was reading, without saying goodbye.

She finds Michael asleep. She also finds that she has left the dental kit downstairs and has to get into bed without brushing her teeth. She sleeps badly and is already up when the wake-up call disturbs Michael. ‘How’s your mange?’ he says, which makes her scratch.

They walk down to breakfast and Michael says, ‘You’re on edge. Antihistamines can do that to you.’

Monica doesn’t have much of an appetite but Michael makes the most of the buffet, eating as if he might never eat again, as if he will not be facing an airline lunch in a few hours.

Afterwards, he goes to pay his mini-bar bill while Monica goes back to their room to collect their things.

She is straightening their bedding when she hears someone knocking on the door. Opening it, she finds Stanley outside. He is holding out the toothbrush she left behind last night. ‘I used your toothbrush,’ he says. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I’ve nothing catching.’ Peering past her, he says, ‘Nice room. It’s bigger than mine. But then mine’s a single.’

‘I was about to leave,’ says Monica.

‘I saw Michael at the front desk, settling his bill.’

Monica stiffens, although she is relieved to think that this must be how he knows her room number; that he has not been in an adjacent bedroom, on the other side of a thin wall.

‘He didn’t remember me,’ says Stanley.

His mouth, no longer hidden by facial hair, is quite unpleasant, thinks Monica. He never quite closes it.

He looks suddenly pained. He puts his hand on his crotch. ‘I have to piss,’ he says. Monica finds herself stepping aside so that Stanley can come in. He pushes open the bathroom door and then closes it behind him.

Monica shoulders her bag. She waits, hearing nothing through the bathroom door.

By the time he comes out, she has put the bag down again. It is heavy and the strap — a detachable leather one — digs into her shoulder. Preparing to leave, she picks her bag up again. Stanley, still zipping his fly, goes to the bed and sits down. ‘I’ve been made redundant,’ he says. ‘I’m blowing my severance pay on two weeks in the Caribbean.’

‘I want to go downstairs,’ she says.

‘Do you find yourself,’ he asks, ‘at our age, seeking out the people you knew when you were younger?’ Looking down between his legs, he says, ‘Your bedspread’s the same as mine, Monica.’

It occurs to her that she could just go, leaving him here. Taking one last look around the room, she says, ‘You can let yourself out.’

‘Don’t you want to know,’ says Stanley, as Monica is walking to the door, ‘what Michael and I talked about?’

Monica pauses with her back to him, frozen like someone with a gun pointed at her, the sight trained on the back of her head. ‘Not especially,’ she says.

‘I told him how I know you,’ he says, ‘told him some stories about the good old days.’ He lies down, putting his head on Monica’s pillow, the soles of his shoes on the bedspread. He closes his eyes. ‘I didn’t mention Mr Porter senior.’

‘I’m going,’ she says.

‘I need to piss again,’ moans Stanley. ‘Or I feel like I do. I’ve got some kind of infection. I keep wanting to piss but nothing comes out. It just hurts.’ He scampers to the bathroom and as he shuts himself in he says, ‘I suppose we’ll see one another on the plane. We should meet up in Barbados, go for a drink, tell Michael some more of our stories.’

Monica stands for a moment outside the closed door. Slowly, she slips the bag off her shoulder and unclips the wide leather strap. Quietly fastening one end around the bathroom door handle, she pulls the strap taut and loops it around the handle of an adjacent cupboard, wrapping it around both handles a couple more times before securing it, with difficulty because her hands are shaking.

Picking up her bag again, she leaves the room, hanging the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door handle. She looks at her watch. She should be on the plane by the time the maid discovers him.

She has to stop herself hurrying down the stairs, rushing into the lobby. She finds Michael sitting in the lounge area, on the sofa where Stanley sat the night before.

‘We should get going,’ says Monica, ‘if we don’t want to miss the plane.’

‘The bus won’t be here yet,’ says Michael, but Monica is already heading for the exit. Michael follows her. They have just got outside when he says, ‘Oh, I left my book in the bathroom. Did you pick it up?’ When Monica hesitates, he says, ‘I’ll nip up and get it. I’ll get the key back from reception.’

‘I’ve got your book,’ says Monica, peering down the empty road. ‘It’s in my bag.’

‘I can read the last chapter on the plane,’ says Michael. ‘Oh, I met someone called Stanley. He said he was a friend of yours. You shared a house or something.’