Jonathan Lee - High Dive

‘No one’s ever given me a tip.’

‘No?’

‘Well, a couple of times. And you feel … I mean …’

‘I feel right as rain,’ he said, and a mean desperation rose up in Freya. Please, she thought. Please do not go on to explain my mother’s investigations into that phrase. She was with another guy now, her mother. Back in London it seemed. Postcards sometimes came stamped from ‘Mount Pleasant’, which was almost funny given how mean she could be.

‘Well —’ might as well lie — ‘you’re looking much better than yesterday, anyway.’

‘Yeah?’ He nodded. ‘That’s good. Really good. Marina said I looked washed out. That I looked blank.’

‘ Blanco ,’ Freya said.

‘Ahhh,’ he replied, winding up into his mock-Mediterranean accent, ‘so you speak-a da Spanish?’

‘If you’re going to travel around somewhere you’ve to make an effort, haven’t you?’

He looked defeated by this, shoulders sagging around his breastbone like a tent around a pole. Duke of Edinburgh expedition. Hills, winds …

‘Had a few new guests arrive,’ she said.

His features lifted a little. ‘Who?’

‘A couple of people.’

‘Good. That’s very good.’

‘Someone on crutches. I put him in the old RAF guy’s room. He finally checked out.’

‘As in?’

‘As in he checked out. Paid his bill. Went to Worthing.’

‘“Went to Worthing” would make a pretty good metaphor, actually.’

‘For a lawn bowls competition, he said. Televised. Does that happen?’

‘Only on earth.’

‘Also a couple of honeymooners.’

‘Rose petals?’

‘Already arranged.’

‘The non-itchy ones. The fake whatsit ones.’

‘Yep.’

‘What about the little strawberries in chocolate tuxedos?’

She stared at him.

‘Thatcher won’t even turn up,’ she said. ‘That’s my bet. She’ll have booked the Metropole too, kept her options open.’

Moose gave her a stony look and she felt a prickle of guilt. Why the need to jab at him, even now? Why did she feel, at some level, annoyed that he was ill?

‘All I meant was, her plans must change all the time. So you shouldn’t get your hopes up, right? She could still end up in the Metropole again, so I’m just saying don’t rush your …’ What was the word? ‘Your recovery.’

Her dad’s stony look had become his Special Stare. It was the stare he used to give her when, after one of her nights out with Sarah or Susie, hearing a floorboard creak under her feet, he’d wake in his armchair and ask her into the living room for ‘a chat’. She’d walk through the door and sit down next to him, narrowing all her remaining energy, all her concentration, into making short sober sentences that corrected the boozy drag in her voice.

She got up and moved to the end of the bed, smoothing out a blanket. She remembered the grapes. ‘Here you go,’ she said. ‘This is, you know, supposed to be the sort of thing that helps.’

‘Thank you. That’s very … thank you, Frey.’

He plucked some grapes and held them cupped in his right hand. Reached for his water glass with his left. After a sip of water he began to wrinkle his nose. She leaned forward and scratched it for him.

‘They’re not bad, are they? Did you buy them with your own money?’

She shrugged. ‘They’re grapes.’ A woman walked by in excellent boots.

‘Any nuts?’

‘No way. Is there healthy stuff you need?’

‘I’d be interested in receiving some HP Sauce, Frey. Really interested. The food here could do, between you and me, with … something.’

‘Brown sauce is quite vinegary. You’d be better off eating the hospital food on its own, and then snacking on fruit or whatever.’

‘Vinegar is not the reason I’m in here,’ he said. ‘Vinegar is innocent.’ He plucked another grape and inspected it sadly, as if somewhere, engraved on its thin shiny skin, were the secrets to a healthy life. ‘Make sure you don’t take on any extra shifts. Really, you don’t even need to do your own shifts. Everyone would understand.’

‘Act normal, you said.’

‘I’ve been telling Marina to run the show. And maybe our esteemed General Manager will also show his face. Is he still on the jam-tasting trip to Yorkshire? He really is winding down. Happens when people are on their way out.’

‘I think he’s doing that training series at the other hotels. Then New York to make links with the high-end travel agents there, is what John said.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

‘New York.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Maybe we should move back there, Frey.’

‘Maybe you should stop smoking,’ she said.

He chewed. ‘I’ll be out of here in a few days. This Thatcher visit’s going to —’

‘The promotion, yeah.’

‘Soon enough you’ll be in Spain, eating tapas and swigging sangria, busily not-talking to boys. I might join you. I might have my pick of hotel offers in a year or two. Manage a famous one, maybe, in … I think I fancy Madrid. Marina can suggest places. I think one of her sisters lives in Madrid. If you do Spanish at uni, they probably offer a year abroad. Food for thought.’ After this speech his body slipped downward in stages and his eyelids began to droop.

Beyond a wall someone retched. Down the corridor a woman wailed. This place was a department store for sadness.

‘I’ll come back tonight.’

‘Tonight? Maybe spare pyjamas.’

‘OK.’

‘OK then.’

‘Cool, bye.’

She kissed his cheek. Cool was a word she never, ever used.

Outside, a clarifying knowledge came over Freya: I am well, I am young, I am fine. Her relief for a moment overpowered her concern. The air was fresh; she was free. A cat walking along a wall. Pausing and diving down. You could hear in the distance tiny wavelets rushing in.

Only when she reached the corner shop and bought a drink did tears come again. Stupid. He was fine. She twisted the ringpull off the can.

She passed the White IIart pub, the arm of the capital ‘H’ crushed by last year’s snows. She remembered her first ever kiss, the fake ID she’d had in her hand, Tom Williams’s tongue in her mouth, the convivial saltiness of it, the unwelcome touching of her bum, and the unexpected moment a month ago, at a posh dinner to which all hotel staff had been invited, when she’d tried an oyster for the very first time and found that she fleetingly missed him.

On the pavement outside Amadeo’s Susie was standing with two girls and a guy. Freya slowed and tried to find a way to — No, too late to cross the road.

‘Well,’ Susie said. ‘Look who it isn’t.’ As a greeting it didn’t even make sense.

‘Hi, Sooz.’

‘This is her,’ Susie said, turning to her friends. ‘I was just telling them. Saying that I knew someone who could give us access, but she didn’t have any convictions, so.’

‘That’s nice of you, Sooz. Thanks a lot.’

‘Nice shoes,’ Susie said, and the sneeriness in her voice was truly world class. One girl sniggered and the other shook her head. The boy was chubby and had a flop of blond hair, green braces over his shirt, and he held out his right hand and said, in the poshest voice she’d ever heard from a person under thirty: ‘Very pleased to meet your acquaintance.’

‘She won’t be pleased to meet you,’ Susie said. ‘She doesn’t care one bit about the cause.’

‘Shh,’ the blond boy said. ‘Now, Freya, what’s this I hear? You won’t help us with a little stink bomb? It’s just, you know, it gets us in the news. Stupid pranks, not much upset caused — inconvenience, right? — but when it gets into the news we get a few column inches to elaborate on, well —’