Alison Moore - Death and the Seaside

It was dusk, or dawn. She could see the sky through a curtainless window. She was in her room above the Hook, of course. She was in Susan’s room. How funny, she thought, that the window really did have no curtains.

The journey must have been more tiring than she had realised. She remembered being downstairs in the bar with Sylvia. Sylvia had been talking about chickens and how they could be hypnotised. ‘I put a finger just in front of the chicken’s beak,’ she had said, ‘not quite touching,’ and she had put her finger close to the end of Bonnie’s nose as if to demonstrate, ‘and then I draw my finger away a little,’ she said, as she did so, ‘and then I bring it back… And I do this until my chicken is hypnotised.’

Bonnie had no recollection of coming to bed. She did not even remember getting undressed, but she must have done so because she was wearing the nightie from her suitcase, which Sylvia must have brought in. Bonnie knew for certain that she had only been drinking diet lemonade. Or perhaps her drinks had got mixed up with Sylvia’s after all. Wasn’t it vodka, she thought, that you could not taste?

How strange, she considered, looking around, that she had got the room so right, or nearly right. Or perhaps it was not so strange, for it was only a room with a bed in it, and a wardrobe, and a desk with writing paper and a pen on it; you would find these things in any hotel room. As in her story, the wallpaper was floral, but only one of these walls was papered, while the other three were painted white, or off-white: it was a trick, she thought, to make the room look bigger than it really was. The wallpaper’s almost psychedelic design was not exactly what she had pictured, and the patterned carpet was busier than she had imagined. There were other differences too: there was a picture hanging on the partition wall opposite the window, just as there was in her Seatown story, and it was even a Cézanne, and one of the apple paintings as well, but it was not the right one, and it was a rather poor quality print in an ill-fitting frame. And there were three doors in the walls, like one of those riddles in which you have to make the right choice because one of the doors had something really terrible behind it.

One of the doors was in the corner diagonally across from the bed, and the other two were facing that one. She did not know which of them led to the outside world, and which just led into a cupboard.

Apart from these differences, though, it was astonishing the extent to which this room was like Susan’s, which had only ever existed in Bonnie’s mind, or so she had thought. It made her wonder if she had in fact been in this room before and had just forgotten, or half-forgotten.

The lack of curtains was rather strange, but it did not bother her too much. If the room was in the attic, it was not like anyone walking by could see in.

She wanted to sit up — she could see her cigarettes on the windowsill — but her limbs were sluggish. As she struggled up from the mattress, there was a knock at the door in the furthest corner of the room, and no pause before it opened and there was Sylvia, coming in with a breakfast tray.

‘Are you feeling any better?’ asked Sylvia.

‘Have I been ill?’ asked Bonnie. ‘Am I ill?’

‘You weren’t too good last night,’ said Sylvia, propping her up with pillows and setting the tray down on Bonnie’s lap: a glass of orange juice, a small plate of scrambled eggs, and a cup of tea. ‘You’ll want to stay in bed today. You’ll find your legs are weak, too weak to walk on just yet.’

Sylvia sat down next to Bonnie, and Bonnie ate. Her appetite was fine. ‘I don’t remember coming upstairs last night,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Sylvia. ‘But you seem much better now.’

‘It’s so strange being in this room,’ said Bonnie. ‘It’s a lot like the room in my story, weirdly so in some ways, although in other ways it’s different.’

‘In what ways is it different?’ asked Sylvia, frowning around at the room.

‘Well, there’s a clock on that wall,’ said Bonnie, ‘which isn’t there in my story.’ The clock, which had a big, round, white face, was on the same wall as the Cézanne.

‘You didn’t mention it in your story,’ said Sylvia. ‘That is true.’

‘And the Cézanne isn’t the right one,’ said Bonnie.

‘Isn’t it?’ said Sylvia.

‘And the room’s the wrong shape,’ said Bonnie.

‘Well I don’t see what anyone could do about that,’ said Sylvia.

‘It’s very strange though,’ said Bonnie, ‘that the room should be so similar, because as far as I know I’ve never been up here before.’

‘Well you obviously have ,’ said Sylvia. ‘You’ve just forgotten. The subconscious is a powerful thing.’

When Bonnie finished her scrambled eggs, she picked up her teacup. The saucer and her empty plate, side by side like a pair of staring eyes, shared a design of black and white concentric circles. She turned to look again at the pack of cigarettes on the windowsill. ‘Would you mind passing me my cigarettes?’ she asked.

‘You must not smoke,’ said Sylvia. ‘Let’s leave them there for now. Your room, by the way, is at the back of the building; I couldn’t get you a sea view, I’m afraid. But you’ll be able to hear the seagulls.’ And Bonnie could.

‘Do you think I could have some curtains?’ asked Bonnie.

‘We’ll see,’ said Sylvia, taking the tray from Bonnie’s lap and standing up.

‘Could you ask the landlady?’

Sylvia smiled. ‘You get some rest now,’ she said, moving the pillows that were propping Bonnie up. ‘You’ll be feeling sleepy.’ She helped Bonnie to lie down again, and pulled the yellow blanket over her, up to her neck. ‘You close your eyes and have a little nap.’

Sylvia stroked Bonnie’s hair, slowly, the rhythm of it closing Bonnie’s eyes.

When Bonnie woke again, she saw, in the weak daylight, on the carpet by the door, the edge of a piece of paper, like a note that had been pushed through the gap at the bottom of the door.

She made an effort to sit up, but one leg was lying lifeless beneath the other and she had to lift it with both hands, holding it under the thigh. She hung the numb limb over the side of her bed and sat waiting for it to fizz back to life.

After a while, she tried putting her weight on her feet, looking down at the carpet, whose geometric design was reminiscent of an optical illusion. When she stood up, she felt fine, not especially ill nor very dizzy, although as she stepped forward, moving towards the door, she felt like one of those newborn foals standing, trying to walk, for the very first time. She bent down carefully and picked the piece of paper up, looked at one side and then the other, but it was blank — although there was, when she turned the paper towards the light and inspected it closely, the faintest suggestion of words there, the shadow of something that had been photocopied almost to oblivion. She put her hand on the door handle. She half-felt that if she opened it and looked outside she would find nothing but desert, and that if she walked through the doorway she would never get back inside again. She opened the door, and it felt unexpectedly light in her hand. It was not solid wood; it was a cheap hardboard door, but newly painted. Outside, there was an empty landing, and the top of a flight of stairs, the sight of which made her head swim. She felt blurry. She had in mind to go and look for Sylvia, but her legs felt both weak and heavy and she wanted to go back to bed. ‘Sylvia?’ she called. ‘Sylvia?’ She heard a noise and a door further along the landing opened.

‘Bonnie!’ said Sylvia. ‘You’re out of bed!’

Sylvia came to the door of Bonnie’s room and took her by the elbow, and Bonnie said, ‘Did you put this under my door?’