Goodmans Hotel - 13. Chapter 13

Lizetta rang me at the hotel to confirm Vincent’s tentative invitation. He had a project meeting at Dunblane arranged for a Thursday in mid-February, and despite the likelihood of colder weather in the North had hired a cottage near Perth. She planned to fly up to Edinburgh Airport where he was to collect her in a hired car. They hoped to have the rare luxury of four nights and three whole days together, returning to London on Monday morning.

She dismissed my concern about being a nuisance. ‘The cottage has three bedrooms and two rooms downstairs, so we won’t be sitting on each other’s laps. If you come up it will be the first time Vincent and I will have been staying together somewhere and been able to have guests. You can bring your own transport, or hire a car up there, you won’t have to spend more time with us than you want to. Why don’t you ask Darren to come? Vincent likes him. He’s so sweet. You can’t possibly be bored if he’s around.’

‘Who’s going to look after the hotel?’

‘Close it for the weekend.’

That was out of the question. Half the rooms were already booked, and except for dire emergencies closing was something that had to be planned months in advance. If we were to go, staff would have to be brought in from Housmans Hotel or the garden centre to provide cover. However my last real holiday had been over a year ago, and Darren had not left London since the summer when he had a day’s outing to Brighton with Cheung; a weekend away would hardly be an extravagance.

We set off before daylight on Friday morning in the newest of the Ferns and Foliage vans, the garden centre manager having filled the fuel tank for us the previous day. By the time we arrived Lizetta and Vincent would have had the cottage to themselves for twenty-four hours. We were comfortable and warm in the front of the van, and early enough to avoid the rush hour traffic on our way out of London. As the early morning light strengthened, seeing the motorway stretching into the Chiltern hills ahead of us, with Darren sitting beside me listening to music on his personal stereo, my hopes of an enjoyable trip were good. Even if the weather prevented us from going out much we would surely find enough to do for a few days in the cottage or in Perth. The escape from the constant demands of the hotel would alone make the expedition worthwhile.

We stopped for lunch at a motorway service station, two men, one nineteen and the other in his mid-thirties, descending from a white van with Ferns and Foliage painted on the sides. Darren looked good in his yellow padded coat and white jeans. He mattered to me now. The qualities Andrew had seen in him straight away, his independent nature, his fresh inquisitive mind, his loyalty and honesty, had become precious to me. Even watching him eat, seeing his bony jaw move rhythmically as he chewed his food, now gave me pleasure. He was a slow eater. During meals I would pause now and again and wait to avoid him having to rush to catch up at the end. He always stirred the sugar in his tea or coffee with excessive thoroughness, the spoon tinkling against the side of the cup for nearly a minute, an oddity of behaviour that made me smile.

Three more hours of driving took us into Scotland and we paused once more, relieved to step out of the van, straighten our backs and exercise our legs. We bought hot drinks in the café, where a noisy group of half a dozen boys and girls of his age who loitered around a couple of tables looked across at Darren a number of times. He used the toilets before we left and one of the girls stopped him with some query or other on his way back.

‘An admirer?’ I asked as he climbed back into the van.

‘After something you wouldn’t approve of. What kind of place have you brought me to, women accosting me for drugs outside the toilets?’ They were probably bored local kids who had driven up to the café in some battered old car or cadged a lift and were hanging around in the hope that something exciting would happen.

Wanting to talk I said, ‘She might have been after something else. How do we know you’re not bisexual?’

‘How do we know you’re not?’ He had become good at turning questions back on people.

‘No, tried it. Women don’t do it for me. The attraction isn’t there.’ He grinned and put his earpieces in again and went back to his music.

We drove on for another couple of hours, crossed the Forth Bridge, and followed the motorway all the way to Perth, arriving in darkness at the cottage. Vincent was ready for us with a humorous greeting at the door. He raised a hand and said, ‘One minute,’ then turning his head called inside: ‘Were you expecting two gay boys this evening, Zetta?’

‘Are they nice looking?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Well let them in then.’

The ‘cottage’ was actually a gaunt three bedroom house at the end of a short terrace on the outskirts of the town. What happened next rather countered the effect of Vincent’s warm welcome. He took us upstairs while Lizetta prepared the evening meal. They had taken the largest bedroom at the front, and he showed us into the one at the back, a reasonable size, furnished with an old fashioned chest of drawers, a fitted wardrobe and a double bed. ‘Not up to your standards at the hotel, but will it do for a couple of nights?’

‘Bed looks comfortable. This do you, Darren?’

‘Yeah, it’s fine.’

Still carrying my bag I left Darren to settle into the room and paused near the top of the stairs, waiting for Vincent to show me the third bedroom. He followed, looked at me and smiled uncertainly, confused by my actions. He had evidently been expecting us to sleep together.

‘Is there another room? Lizetta did say there was plenty of space.’

He blushed and stumbling over his words said, ‘Yes, erm, wasn’t sure what you’d... should’ve asked Zetta, didn’t think, through here...’ He took me into the box room, as small as that little room in the attic of Goodmans Hotel where Darren had been living when we first found him.

‘This will be okay for me.’

‘Bit small, really ought to have...’ He coughed and went to fetch sheets and blankets from the airing cupboard before hurrying away downstairs.

Darren came in, saw me holding the bedding and tried to take it from me. ‘You should take the bigger room. You’ll feel claustrophobic in here.’

‘No. Claustrophobia is not one of my problems. For once you have the bridal suite. Really – it’s not worth arguing about. We’ve only been here five minutes and we’ve already embarrassed Vincent. Don’t say anything when we go downstairs.’

After unpacking we went down and found him sprawled on the sofa, arms stretched out and legs wide apart, watching rugby on the television. ‘Sit down,’ he said, nodding towards the one armchair. ‘Come and sit over here, Darren.’ He straightened himself up on the sofa to make room and handed him the TV remote control. ‘You’re probably not interested in this, find yourself something you like. I’m sure there’ll be at least one gardening programme on.’

Darren, instead of changing channels, muted the sound and asked, ‘How do people get to make gardening programmes? Do you have any idea? They may be all right as entertainment, but most of them tell you hardly anything, and what they do tell you is stuff you know already, like sprinkle some seeds on the soil and cover them up. Do they make a lot of money out of it, those presenters?’

Vincent at first tried to dodge the question by saying that careers advice was Lizetta’s field, but quickly recovered his credibility by suggesting Darren ask one of the lecturers at the college about contacting the BBC or one of the TV companies. The exercise might, he thought, be made into a project that could be marked as part of his course work.

Seeing that Lizetta had begun laying the table, I went to help. Our meal consisted of a traditional broth followed by sole bought from a fishmonger in Perth that day. Vincent repeatedly topped up everyone’s wine glass, opening a third bottle as we helped ourselves to pudding, with the result that when Darren stood up from the table he was slightly drunk and staggered backwards. He offered to help me clear away, but worried about breakages I persuaded him to sit and relax with Lizetta and Vincent.

When I went to join them in the lounge, Darren was perched on an arm of the sofa holding a glass of whisky.

‘You’ll have a hangover in the morning.’

‘No I won’t.’

Vincent said, ‘My fault, for encouraging him, a glass of malt whisky on his first ever night in Scotland... was it the wrong thing to do?’

‘No, of course not. I’m tired after the drive. Take no notice of me.’

Darren held the glass out towards me with a quarter of an inch of whisky remaining. ‘Do you want to finish it? It’s too much for me really.’

‘No, you deserve a glass... well, let me taste it.’ After I had taken a sip Vincent coaxed me into accepting a glass of my own, dribbling into it such a tiny quantity of malt whisky that to refuse would have been rude. We watched TV and saw a late weather forecast that threatened overnight snow, then went up to bed. Darren thumped up the stairs in front of me and crashed into his room.

In the morning he had a definite aura of wanting to be left to nurse his headache, but Lizetta helped him recover by giving him fruit juice and a cooked breakfast. He helped her clear up in the kitchen afterwards, whilst Vincent continued his policy of letting others do the housework. A couple of times Lizetta called on him to do something for her, to empty the kitchen waste bin and to lift a heavy bag of potatoes, and I realized that they were enjoying playing the traditional roles of man and wife. To an extent Darren and I found ourselves acting the roles of the children, two good boys who offered to help lay the table, clear away and wash up. They referred to us as boys, as in: ‘You boys go off on your own if you want to. You’re welcome to join us for a look around the town, but do whatever you boys feel like doing.’

Three or four inches of snow had fallen during the night. I was not particularly keen to take the van into Perth after so many hours at the wheel yesterday, and we all travelled into town in Vincent’s hired car. We stopped first at some gardens which Darren said were famous for rhododendrons and varieties of heather, but hardly anything of the plants could be seen under the snow. Vincent had one of those expensive cameras with all sorts of settings and attachments and took photographs of us beside an ornamental shelter, and asked Darren to photograph Lizetta and himself together.

Later we stopped the car near the sea so that Vincent could photograph a couple of men fishing from a pier in defiance of the icy wind. A little further down from where they sat waves crashed violently against the curved arm of the harbour. Vincent took ages finding a viewpoint which would enable him to picture the fishermen with a cascade of surf in the background; he showed Darren the camera’s features and let him take half a dozen or more shots, while Lizetta and I watched from the warmth of the car. Despite having children of his own, Vincent was clearly unable to resist Darren’s appeal; it was as though he gave off some kind of pheromone that made us all want to play at being a parent to him.

We wandered around the town looking at restaurants and going in and out of various shops. Lizetta bought a tartan scarf for herself and a doll in traditional Scottish dress for a niece, and I bought an attractive glass jar of wrapped sweets that would look nice on the hall table back at the hotel.

We went back to the cottage with our purchases, and in the evening returned to town for dinner in a restaurant where mounted heads of deer stared down at us from the walls. After the meal Lizetta and Vincent drove straight back to the cottage, probably intending to make full use of their double bed, and Darren and I walked around the frozen streets until we found a pub that looked comfortable and not overcrowded. Having brought the van down for the evening I had to restrict myself to soft drinks because of driving back. The other customers were regulars with pints of ale who watched football on the large screen TV and took little notice of us. After an hour we had had enough of the place and went back to the cottage, letting ourselves in quietly so as not to disturb Vincent and Lizetta. For the same reason we were reluctant to turn on the television or listen to music, but we made ourselves coffee and chatted in the kitchen.

‘Do you think they’re about the same age?’ Darren asked.

‘I don’t know exactly. Lizetta must be nearly forty. He’s probably a bit older.’

‘Do you think it matters, people being a similar age?’

‘Some women seem to be happy with men a lot older than themselves. The same doesn’t hold true for most gay men, unfortunately. Youth counts for so much; however well you take care of yourself you slip down the league table as you get older.’

‘That’s true for being picked up in a bar. But in a relationship, could it work between men of different ages?’

‘A long term relationship? Anything’s possible, but the bigger the age gap the harder it becomes. A man who looks good for forty-five will quite likely be losing his hair, have wrinkles and be putting on weight at fifty-five. What do you think his chances are of holding on to someone ten or twenty years younger?’

‘You don’t think it would work out, then?’

‘Everyone’s different. How would I know? Boyfriends let you down, one way or another. Casual sex after the nth time makes you feel like a sexual automaton. With your interest in plants a relationship with a tree might not be a bad idea. A big strong oak would never let you down.’

‘You can’t have sex with a tree.’

‘Don’t be too sure. Some people probably manage it. Things are different for “straights”. They produce children, the next generation, and that creates the need to stay together and excuses all their shortcomings.’

‘Gay men can have children, through an arrangement with a lesbian couple, say.’

‘Yes, but that’s much more difficult than being a “straight” at a party and falling into bed with someone of the opposite sex while drunk. How did we get onto this?’

‘We were talking about age differences. In a relationship.’

‘Oh yes. What about Andrew and you?’

‘You know he wasn’t interested in me in that way. Because he took me to all sorts of places some people might have thought he was, but he never expected sex as a pay-back. He wasn’t like that.’

‘He took you to Paris once. Most people would assume you were...’

‘They’d be wrong. We shared a twin-bedded room and he saw me coming out of the shower naked. He just smiled and looked away. He told me he liked treating me. I gave him a reason to see places he’d not visited for years and years and would never have gone to on his own. Getting away from business did him good.’

After finishing our coffee we went up to our separate rooms. Randiness made going off to sleep difficult. How easy it would have been to quietly slip across the landing, gently open Darren’s door and whisper the words ‘Are you awake?’ into the darkness. Could we not, this one night, so far away from our familiar surroundings, extend our friendship by giving one another a little sexual relief? In asking about age differences in relationships, had he been hinting that he would be receptive? Yet, if we did go to bed together, would we be content with one night only? What if he expected a new phase in our relationship to begin, while my feelings towards him remained unchanged, as they surely would. He did not arouse in me that overwhelming mix of intense emotion and physical desire that gives rise to a love affair. Cheung was probably a much better boyfriend for him than I could ever be. To have him sexually, feeling as I did, would be to take advantage of him; the bedroom door remained closed.

On Sunday morning, undeterred by more snow, Vincent was keen to head inland to a little town called Pitlochry, and if the road was clear enough to continue up to the mountain pass of Killiecrankie. Part of his reason for wanting to go there was to investigate the area as a potential stopping point for coach excursions from Dunblane, and we were all in favour of an outing of some kind. Snow lay on the roadside verges and surrounding fields, thickening as we drove on towards the mountains, Darren and I following Vincent’s hired car in the van. The sky was clear and the forecast promised a sunny day, but at the Killiecrankie Visitor Centre a keen wind made us shiver as we left the safety and warmth of the vehicles.

From the car park a footpath, lightly covered with snow, led uphill through some woods. Lizetta and Darren wanted to walk, but on the assumption we would not venture far on foot in such cold weather I had brought only my town shoes and would have to stay behind. In his usual helpful way Vincent offered to keep me company and suggested that he and I take the van to a pub we had passed on the edge of the town, leaving them the car to drive down later. ‘A lot of these country places won’t serve food after two, so we’ll be able to make sure of having a few sandwiches for you when you turn up,’ he suggested.

Feeling had already gone from my feet by the time we reached the van, and I jiggled them up and down on the floor to restore the circulation before setting off. As Vincent had foreseen the pub did not serve food after two, but the landlady willingly wrapped plates of sandwiches in cling-film for us to eat when we were ready. We settled at a table near the radiator. ‘It is cold,’ he commented. ‘You’re not the outdoor type really, are you?’

‘Something of a city boy, that’s true. I’m not that bad, my shoes were the problem, not an aversion to exercise.’

‘Walking is a hobby of mine, but I have to confess to an ulterior motive. It gives me an excuse to get away from the family for a few days. For years I’ve met up with a group of old school friends, six or seven of us, to go walking in the countryside. Several of us invent additional outings from time to time and provide each other with alibis so we can get away from home for other purposes. That’s how this weekend was possible. Not that I’m proud of the deception. Things at home have not been easy since my boy with Downs Syndrome was born. My wife has to do most of what’s necessary for him. Her outlook on life has changed; she lost interest in the physical side of our relationship after he was born.’

‘Must be very difficult.’

‘Zetta’s been marvellous. She never complains about the problem of finding time to be together. I’m sorry about the misunderstanding over the bedroom when you arrived. She left it to me to sort out the upstairs for you. Were you offended?’

‘You weren’t to know. You did the sensible thing really. If we were in the habit of sleeping together it would have been pointless to have made up both beds.’

‘Thanks. Seeing you and him together I can’t help being envious. My lad can be quite sweet in his own way, but the scientific names of plants will never come tripping off his tongue like they do off Darren’s. You must be very proud of him. He worships you, doesn’t he?’

‘He means a lot to me. At least you have children of your own. Thanks for letting him have a go with your camera yesterday. I hope he didn’t use up all the film.’

‘He’s welcome to use as much film as he wants. He knew all about shutter speeds and lens apertures already; he’s a bright lad. All of that roll of film has to be used this weekend, or it will have to go into the developer’s partly blank. My wife would start asking awkward questions if she saw any of the shots taken up here. I’m supposed to be in the Lake District.’

Ten minutes later a call on Vincent’s mobile ’phone interrupted our conversation. Despite his well prepared alibi, he was not to have an uninterrupted break from family responsibilities. His wife was calling to ask him to go back early because one of his daughters was feverish and had to be taken to hospital. He could not expect her to look after a sick daughter and their son on her own. He had to go back. His usual optimistic outlook on life momentarily faltered. He had wanted so much for Lizetta and himself to enjoy a weekend away like any ordinary couple, and felt guilty about letting her down. ‘How much more of this can Zetta be expected to stand? You won’t let this spoil things for you and Darren as well, will you?’

‘No, don’t say that. It’s been a good break for us. It has for you, you’ve only lost part of today, you’ve been with Lizetta for the best part of four days. You’re disappointed, naturally.’ We discussed whether she would want to return to London with him, but thought if she was willing it would be best for the three of us to stay on at the cottage for another night. When she and Darren joined us in the pub half an hour later, looking extremely cold, he did not mention the problem until after we had eaten. She was calm, betrayed no sign of jealousy, and said sincerely that she was sorry his little girl was ill and hoped she would be better soon.

As we drove back the traffic increased, the clear weather bringing people out for the afternoon. He rang the airport from the house to rearrange his flight, packed hurriedly, and left us after holding Lizetta in his arms for several minutes. She hid her disappointment, smiling and laughing as we whiled away the rest of the afternoon talking and playing Scrabble. Between games she asked Darren about how he was doing at West London Tertiary College, and if he had joined the Gay Soc.

‘The Gay Soc. is useless. The two people who run it hold a meeting once a month that nobody else goes to. Anyway, I have a boyfriend. Cheung.’

‘Oh yes, I remember. Are you in love?’ He blushed and hid his face behind his hands, laughing and embarrassed at the same time.

‘They’ve lasted about six months now, so there must be something to it. They see each other – what – a couple of times a week?’

She could not prise anything more out of him about Cheung, and the conversation drifted onto office politics at Lindler & Haliburton. She was becoming more and more unhappy there, and told me I had been lucky to get out when I did. A kind of civil war had broken out, with Peter and his supporters battling to break the old codgers’ grip on the firm. Staying aloof from the dispute was almost impossible. Antagonism was so deep that simply using the lift had become hazardous: at every stop there was a risk of someone from the opposing side getting in, and people who had known each other for years stood inches away from one another in hostile silence. Sick absences and resignations had more than doubled, putting yet more pressure on those still at work.

She was thinking of moving on, and had been discussing with Vincent the possibility of working for him. His company was not big enough to need a full-time personnel manager and she would have to take on other consultancy or administrative work as well. ‘At least I’d see a bit more of him. Do you think I’d make a consultant? You got on all right, didn’t you?’

‘Except for that incident with the homophobic Scot. No reason why you shouldn’t. I’ve found it a very worthwhile experience. I’m only there one day a week on the Dunblane project, which is probably bigger than most. I think a lot of the assignments are much smaller scale, a few weeks on projects in modest hotels. Full-time, the pace may be wearing, but a mix of consultancy and personnel work might be a good combination for you.’

For dinner we finished up the odds and ends of food that had accumulated in the fridge, and after watching TV for an hour and a half went upstairs, each of us to our own rooms, all of us probably wishing we did not have to sleep alone.

Cheerful as ever the next morning Lizetta sat between us in the front of the van on the drive to Edinburgh Airport. She hugged and kissed us both at the boarding gate when we said goodbye, and Darren and I returned to the van to begin our long drive down to London. ‘She really loves him, doesn’t she?’ he said, as we picked up speed to take our place amid the stream of vehicles on the motorway.

‘Hard to say. What is all this about being in love?’

‘Was the firm like that when you were there?’

‘Not as bad. There were clashes – it was a competitive place – people don’t leave their bad habits and problems behind them at the reception desk when they come into work. In any organisation where hundreds of people are thrown together day after day you get little cliques forming, trying to outmanoeuvre each other. Some people seem to thrive on it. Perhaps I did. I’ve changed.’

Traffic reports on the radio told us that roads south of Edinburgh were clear of snow, and we escaped the motorway for a while by driving down on the A7 to Carlisle. On a quiet stretch I let Darren, who had yet to pass his driving test, take the wheel for about twenty minutes, but traffic built up and when light drizzle near Langholm made visibility difficult, I thought it best to take over from him again.

In the Midlands we were caught for miles in a long crawling tailback caused by a serious accident. We knew we were close to it when we saw cars in front being directed onto the hard shoulder to pass the blocked carriageways. We turned our heads, as everyone does, to see what we could of the crash. There were three mangled cars, one of them lying on its roof, and a van very similar to our own lying on its side near the central barrier. Fragments of glass, plastic and unrecognisable bits of vehicle littered the tarmac. Paramedics were putting a stretcher covered in a dark red blanket into the rear of an ambulance.

A few seconds later the carnage was behind us and the road ahead fairly clear. Darren twiddled the controls of the radio, switching from station to station until he found a news report, the announcer saying in a voice of practised concern that a man and a woman were thought to have been killed and a number of people seriously injured. We sped on south, keeping our place in the long lines of traffic stretching ahead and behind, glad to be with the fortunate majority whose journey had not been violently cut short. Darren put in the earpieces from his portable stereo and became absorbed in his music, leaving me to concentrate on the drive.

My absence from Goodmans Hotel for four days proved that it could operate perfectly well without me. The deputy manager of Housmans Hotel, except for a few hours off during the quiet periods of early afternoon and late evening, had lived in on duty the whole time. He brought me up to date with which rooms were occupied, and showed me a substantial amount of cash that had accumulated in the desk drawer. After we counted this together he said he had one last thing to report, that someone had called to see me, had not wanted to leave his name but said he would call back. He ended his long stint of being on duty with the words: ‘Not complaining, but it will be a relief to be able to go out with a few friends for a quiet drink tonight.’

On Tuesday morning, as I put out the rubbish for collection, a sweet scent from one of the winter flowering shrubs planted by Darren perfumed the air around the gate. Looking back at the hotel, the paintwork on the facade still fresh, the business again seemed to me to be all that I could have wished it to be.

This feeling of self-satisfaction lasted until Tom’s brother came up to me outside the newsagent’s a few hours later. He had had his hair cut shorter than ever and I was not sure who he was until he started to speak. ‘Oh good,’ he shouted, ‘lucky I saw you, I called in at the hotel the other day but you was out.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. What’s happened to Tom? What’s he doing down in Portsmouth?’

‘Working, so far as I know.’

‘There’s plenty of work for him round here. What’s he doing down there?’

‘Don’t know. We’re not seeing each other.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean, not seeing each other?’

‘If your brother hasn’t told you, why do you expect me to?’

He frowned and looked down. ‘You’ve always been a stuck-up bastard. I never had nothing against you, you know.’ He waited for me to speak, but wanting the encounter to end I remained silent.

‘What’s happened? Don’t you two like taking each other’s pants down no more?’ With that aggravating remark he turned and swaggered off down the street.

I paid the paper bill, but the amount of cash still in the desk drawer made a trip to the bank essential. All of the garden centre’s vans were in use that afternoon, and despite a light drizzle I set off hurriedly on foot, with just enough time to get there before the doors closed. The money was clutched under my arm in an old portfolio too tattered and scruffy to look as though it contained anything worth stealing. The quickest route, about twelve minutes’ walk, was to turn left out of the hotel, across the road and through a mews, then along a tree lined avenue leading to the High Street.

I was striding along beneath the trees when one of the two thugs who had been harassing the garden centre manager crossed over from the other side, moving rapidly towards me. His appearance in the road ahead might conceivably have been a coincidence, and I turned to cross to the other side in the hope he had not recognised me, but the second man was coming up from the opposite direction. Unless someone came out of one of the houses or the parked cars my situation was hopeless. Having reached the opposite pavement I walked close to the house railings and looked at the ground. They ran towards me, and the taller of them pushed me against the railings and grabbed the portfolio whilst the other kept look-out.

‘I’ll take that, you fucking queer.’

Clutching the bag to my side with my left arm I gripped it tightly with both hands. Twisting round with all my strength I succeeded in wrenching myself and the portfolio free, but the second man saw me break loose and ran over, grasped the collar of my coat and punched me in the face. My legs gave way and they dragged me back to the railings, but my grip on the money did not loosen. The first man put his hands around my neck and tightened his fingers until I could hardly breathe.

‘I’ve got the bag, there’s money in it, let’s fuck off out of it.’

‘He might have something else on him.’

‘He won’t have piss all. Smack him and dump him.’ A final blow to my face sent me reeling through a gate and down the steps to a sunken area in front of the house. An excruciating pain shot through my right leg when I tried to get up; my jaw hurt, and when I tried to call for help all that emerged was an incoherent bellow. Light rain continued to fall, wetting me and the unswept concrete on which I lay. After some minutes a red umbrella appeared high above me, and a woman’s face peered down over the railings. ‘Are you all right?’

Raising myself on one arm, I uttered a desperate groan. ‘Shall I come down?’ She made her way to the steps and was soon kneeling beside me, protecting me from the drizzle with her red umbrella. Dirt on the concrete where I lay was turning to a thin layer of mud. ‘Should I call an ambulance? Or I’ve got my car here, I could drive you to the hospital. What’s the best thing to do? I’ll take you, if you’re up to it.’

‘My leg hurts.’

‘Can you move your toes?’ She touched my ankle as I wiggled them inside my shoe. ‘Your leg’s not broken, you’ve probably sprained a muscle.’ Taking my arm at first gently, then pulling more firmly she helped me to my feet. She was quite strong, but my lack of co-ordination made it difficult for me to keep upright. ‘You can walk on that leg but keep your weight off it,’ she said, evidently not aware that walking involves shifting your weight from one leg to the other. I wiped my face with my free hand and saw fresh blood on my fingers. ‘Don’t do that,’ she ordered. ‘You’ll make yourself filthy.’

Somehow she hauled me up the twelve steps, pausing for a second or two on each of them. ‘That’s it. Keep your weight off that leg.’ We were both exhausted when we reached the top, where she propped me up against the railings. ‘Wait here, I’ll fetch the car over.’

She tried to hand me the umbrella, but somehow it slipped out of my fingers and she took it with her; the cold rain helped to clear my head and I breathed deeply several times. Parked vehicles prevented her from driving right up to the kerb, but she steered me between them to reach the passenger door. She had spread a sheet of polythene over the seat to protect the upholstery. ‘I’m a carer,’ she said as she released the handbrake. ‘Must have been a terrible fall you had, or were you mugged? Use some of those tissues to dab your face.’

’Mugged. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much for helping me. Need to get the police.’ Blood and dirt from my face soaked into two of her fancy lilac tissues.

‘Getting you fixed up is the most important thing. Best to get the hospital to ring the police. Afraid I didn’t see anything. Happened to hear you groaning as I walked by. I’ll leave you my telephone number all the same. Did they take much?’

‘Some cash. Quite a bit of cash.’

At the hospital a doctor, having satisfied himself that my pulse was strong and that nothing was burst or broken, a nurse cleaned and dressed my wounds, lent me a crutch and sent me to sit down to wait for the police. Keeping my pact with the garden centre manager, when they arrived I said nothing about Jamie and his gambling debts, and told them only that I had seen the two men hanging around in the neighbourhood and that they might have noticed me coming and going from the hotel. The two officers were obviously pressed for time, and after contacting Darren to arrange for him to collect me they left, promising someone would be in touch.

When he arrived Darren looked around the room at the dozen or more patients but did not immediately recognise me. Cautiously, discovering how to stand and move with the aid of the crutch, I made my way towards him. Twice he surveyed the room without spotting me, at last identifying me as I hobbled closer. Tactlessly he said, ‘God, you look terrible.’

A taxi took us back to the hotel. My face was horrific. The flesh around my right eye was badly marked, blood had flooded the white of the cornea, my lower lip was swollen, and a dark grey bruise covered most of the left side of my face. A thin white dressing of some kind had been stuck over a cut under my chin. I would have to keep myself out of sight of the hotel guests as far as possible.

Anxiety was as much a problem as my physical condition. What if the two men returned? They had not been to the garden centre since that night when they tried to force their way in after it had closed. They might have come upon me in the avenue by coincidence, or they might have found out that I ran the hotel and been looking for me. They might be outside in the street at that moment watching and waiting. Suppose that, flushed with success after tackling me on my way to the bank, they were to come into the hotel demanding money?

When the second floor room had been vandalised, awful though the incident had seemed at the time, nobody was physically injured, and Tom had turned up after a few hours to sort out the mess. Now only Darren was around to help. What if the thugs attacked him?

Needing to rest I hobbled down to the basement where I made myself a hot drink and lay down, cautiously trying to avoid the most sensitive of my sore spots. My thoughts returned again and again to Tom. Had he been there, how much less desperate things would seem. Putting the receiver down on him like that when he rang from Portsmouth had been so final; it had been unfair after we had been together for so long. By nature he was completely different to the thugs who had attacked me. He might once have stolen cars, but he would never have deliberately hurt anyone. On the few occasions when he had been verbally aggressive, he had apologised freely afterwards. How hard the confinement of prison must have been for him, accustomed to moving from site to site for his work. Whatever he might have done in the past, what was the sense in our being apart now? Judging him so harshly had rebounded on me. The result was that I had made my own life a misery.

Yet to call him up because I was in a mess and needed his help would be humiliating. Later, after I had recovered, we would be able to talk on equal terms. Would he want to talk to me? He might have come to think of himself as the injured party in our relationship. He had had nothing to do with my parents’ death; he had never done me any harm. All I had against him was that he should have told me about his conviction, that was all. He had served a prison sentence for what he had done; what gave me the right to punish him a second time?

If we were to get together again, surely being honest with each other was the way, not for me to start out by concealing my vulnerability and weakness from him. The sooner he knew what had happened to me, the better my chance of getting him back. At last I did what I should have done that evening when Andrew had revealed their secret in the restaurant: I called Tom on his mobile ’phone. When the ringing tone stopped I heard his voice for the first time in months.

‘Hello Tom, it’s me.’

‘How are you doing?’

‘Something terrible’s happened.’

‘I heard. You’ve been mugged. Darren’s just been on the ’phone. Is there someone there to look after you? I’m sorry, Mark, this is all my fault.’

‘Of course it’s not your fault. Darren rang you?’

‘There wasn’t any harm in it, Mark. He’s rung me a couple of times to keep me in touch with things, that’s all. He wasn’t being disloyal to you or nothing. Thank god you’ve rung anyway. Shall I catch the train? Only take me a few hours to get back to London.’

‘No, you don’t have to do that, your work down there...’

‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll tell them it’s an emergency. If you’d like me to come.’

‘Yes, I really would like you to come, but you don’t have to rush, don’t cause yourself problems. I look ghastly. Horrific.’

‘You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that. I’ll go down to the station and call you from there. Won’t be long mate.’

Bringing him back was as easy as that. An hour later I struggled upstairs and sat in the office reading the newspaper, waiting for him to arrive. A dozen times I heard the front door open and looked up full of hope, only to be disappointed by the sound of one of the guests making his way upstairs. At last there was a loud knock and his voice called down the hall: ‘Darren, Mark, anyone about?’

Darren answered from the kitchen: ‘He’s in the office.’

Tom came and stood in the doorway. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘Waiting.’

‘Ooorph, look at you. You should be in bed.’

‘How have you been?’

‘Don’t worry about me.’ He helped me to my feet. ‘Can you walk all right?’

‘Hobble. I can hobble.’ We each put an arm around the other, and moved in a four-legged shuffle to the top of the basement stairs.

‘All right, you can hang on to me but stay behind me, we don’t want you falling down stairs.’