Checking Out- The Complete Trilogy

by T W M Ashford

  The house was quiet, the way a house tends to feel both occupied yet empty whenever its family is out in the garden. There was a kitchen at the end of the corridor and, true enough, through its window I could see a little girl amongst the grass out back, kicking a purple football around, her pigtails trailing out behind her in ribboned bunches.

  ‘Honey, is that you?’ came a woman’s voice from around the corner. I saw a reflection between the tied-back pencil pleat curtains - just a shimmer as she crossed towards the door from which I backed away. She was drying her hands on a wash cloth and throwing it onto a counter.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,’ I said, walking back towards the front door. It was lunacy. What must it have looked like to a complete stranger? ‘I seem to have got the wrong house.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean, George? Is something the matter?’

  The words came soft and with a hint of a French accent. I turned around to see a blonde woman materialise in the kitchen doorway. Her hair was tied back into a bun; she wore a plain white apron over a yellow summer dress. She was wearing little makeup and needed none; her smile was crooked but sweet. Her eyes questioned.

  It took a couple of seconds for me to recognise her. It was Marie. The same Marie I’d first seen descending the steps of Le Petit Monde, second in the haunting spa baths, and lastly in the hotel room I’d been so sure the thief had escaped to.

  It had to be a trick, didn’t it? Why else would she be so calm when I’d appeared from out of nowhere? It made no sense. And if it wasn’t a trick, then how in God’s name did she know who I was?

  ‘Ah, erm, sorry, Marie,’ I said, turning back to the front door of her house with my keys in hand. They were shaking. There was something about her beauty that made me feel like a teenager again, all pimples and embarrassment. Back when women weren’t women but creatures to be feared, to bring boys out in sweats and stutters. ‘I need to get back to the hotel, I’m so sorry to have troubled you…’

  ‘What do you mean, get back to the hotel?’ said Marie, following me down the hall. ‘You’ve only just been, George, and look - you got the case from him. Come sit, dear. Relax with me for a while. You can do it all over again tomorrow.’

  Do it all over again tomorrow? What the hell is she talking about?

  My eye caught another of the pictures lining the wall. It was Marie, alright - the same Marie of glitz and glam I’d seen on the steps. She was walking a red carpet in a blossoming fur coat - so I had seen her somewhere before - and a hundred hungry cameras were having their fill.

  I was just about to put the key in the lock when she put her hand over my own. Her touch was gentle and consoling - a lover’s touch. It sent goosebumps all up my arm. In that moment, I wanted to stay. It felt… it felt like home.

  Then she looked up at me, and she recoiled. Her eyes grew as wide as a fawn’s when facing down a truck’s headlights. Her sweet smile turned into a scowl.

  ‘No, you’re not him… you’re not my George,’ she said, backing away in horror. She covered her mouth with one hand whilst the other guarded her chest. Her eyes kept scanning me from head to toe and back again. ‘You’re the other one, the lost one… What are you doing here? Where’s my George?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ I mumbled, turning to look away from her. Ice-cold guilt was trickling down from my neck to the base of my spine. In another world, this world… Were Marie and my other self together? How the hell did that come about? ‘I didn’t mean to cause a problem…’

  ‘Cause a problem?’ she screamed, grabbing me by the shoulder. ‘Cause a problem? He was doing you a favour, you ungrateful prick! What are you worth, huh? What are any of you worth? My husband doesn’t owe you anything. Oh God, I told him something bad would happen, I told him…’

  I tried desperately to think of Le Petit Monde, to ignore the woman growing more and more distraught beside me and focus on the thought of my room - its unmade bed, the second chocolate mint I’d left on the bedside table. The harder I tried, the less the picture came into focus. It was like looking at a treasured photograph through a flood of tears.

  Oh God, I thought, what if I never get back to the hotel? What if Pierre can never find me?

  Come to think of it, why does the hotel matter? Why not anywhere, so long as it’s April 25th?

  Because that’s where it began, and that’s where it will end. A loop, closed. Back home, back to normality, back to finish the day I started, to a day I’d started to finish.

  I turned the key, felt the lock give.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ Marie asked once more, starting to beat her fists against my back. Hollywood looks she might have had, but these weren’t the flimsy punches thrown by the starlets of the ‘50s. These were solid thumps that shook the bones and left bruises of the most purple kind. ‘What did you do to him?’

  I backed up into her blows, giving myself space to open the front door. She caught me once behind the ear, and then in the shoulder. Before us the light of another world shimmered and swirled.

  ‘If you’ve hurt him I swear to God I’ll kill you,’ she shouted, still walloping me on the back as I made for the doorway. Tears ran down her cheeks, and as I crossed the threshold her voice became distant and tinny. ‘I’ll follow you back to that goddamn hotel and pull the trigger myself.’

  Tinkly ivories ran up and down their scales, a heavenly rise and fall of beauty in the background. Expensive yellow light illuminated all, leaving nothing for shadow to consume. And then a smell like the night before’s regretted curry rose up into my nostrils, and I realised I was standing in a toilet.

  A toilet cubicle, that is. I hadn’t been that unfortunate.

  I burst through its door and into the main hall of the bathroom. And yes, hall is the correct noun for such a spacious and glamourous room as that bathroom could boast; the distance between the urinals and sinks alone was greater than the length of my living room back home. And those taps; ornate crystals that sparkled and shot out water with real gusto - none of that lazy dribbling nonsense. I was alone in there, and it was impossible to avoid catching my reflection’s eye in the wall of polished mirrors. I truly looked a state, from my scruffy jacket to my clumsy stubble to the way my bandaged ankle made me hobble as I walked.

  I cupped water from the tap and splashed it over my face, trying to wash away some of the dried blood and dirt. Tired eyes looked back at me, judging me; old with flecks of grey. But at least a face in the mirror was all it was. It couldn’t reach out. It couldn’t chase me.

  I dipped my hands into the automatic dryer, leaving my briefcase on the counter next to the sinks. It felt wrong to let it out of my throttling grip, even for a second. I snatched it up as soon as I could and pulled open the bathroom door.

  My chest felt hollow all of a sudden, as if somebody had split me open and let all my sand run out. Before me was the lobby of Le Petit Monde, complete with boring old men with white moustaches and racist newspapers, waiters as silent as the ghosts of monks, parents persuading tiny nuisances to stop jumping on the expensive sofas and, of course, bellboys wearing their odd little hats, chasing after new luggage like puppies craving a treat. And above it all hung that resplendent, ridiculous chandelier, still dazzling like a thousand floating diamond candles.

  Could it really be that I’d found my way back to the only world I’d ever known before that night? That out of an infinite number of worlds all but identical to even the most astute observer, their only difference the tying of a shoe-lace, the wiping of a mouth, the stitching on a dinner jacket, I’d thrown a dart in the dark only for it to land a bullseye?

  I recognised some of the other guests; I was sure of it. There went the aesthetically perfect couple who had walked past me from out of the restaurant without a second glance. At least, I thought it was them. They were almost too perfect to be memorable in any way that mattered and after all, isn’t it the imperfections we remember? But wasn’t that the grizzled bartender, his face weathered fr
om too many customers’ storms in teacups, making his way back to the bar from a conversation behind the reception desk?

  When I saw Mr. Boyle cross the bartender’s path and make his way towards the elevators, I could have almost cried. Never has an old drunk been a sweeter sight.

  ‘Mr. Boyle, hold up,’ I said, jogging across the lobby to meet him. He was still wearing his big musky coat and that terrible red and yellow scarf. He still walked, and looked, like a vulture searching for a corpse. I erred on the side of caution. ‘You remember me?’ I added.

  Mr. Boyle regarded me with an amused confusion.

  ‘Remember you? Of course I remember you, George,’ he said, laughing. ‘Why, it was only a couple of hours ago we sat down for dinner. Has the wine gone to your head?’

  I caught myself chuckling quite without meaning to. ‘A couple of hours? Wow. Somehow it feels a hell of a lot longer.’

  ‘Sounds like someone needs to hit the hay,’ said Mr. Boyle, making to leave. ‘Don’t burn the candle too low, George.’

  ‘Oh, before you go,’ I said, reaching into the pocket of my jacket. My fingers coiled around the mini-bottle of red wine Pierre had pilfered from Viola’s collection. It was still intact. ‘I found this and thought you might find some use in it.’

  Mr. Boyle looked at the bottle, his eyebrows furrowed and smile faltering. He did not take it.

  ‘I appreciate the offer, George; thank you. But I can’t imagine why I’d make better use of it than you.’

  ‘Oh, okay. I just thought you were looking for a better wine, that’s all. Something better than the red piss they seem to be serving around here, at least. It’s a great vintage, I promise.’

  ‘I have no doubt of that, son. But I’ve been sober for twenty-two years now, and I reckon the AA considers even a tiny bottle like that a serious no-no. You drink it for me, how about that? But best leave it for tomorrow, if I were you. Tonight seems to have taken enough of a toll on you already.’

  He patted me on the shoulder and then made for the elevators. I stood alone in the lobby, surrounded by guests heading this way and that, watching the doors close on a Mr. Boyle I’d never known.

  Mr. Boyle had been a lonely old drunk, hadn’t he? There was no mistaking that beak of a nose… but hadn’t his nose also been a little bulbous and red, too? Maybe… maybe I was going crazy. Maybe I’d fabricated a whole other world in my head, a whole other fabulous fiction, where Mr. Boyle loved to drink even more than he did ruin other people’s dinners by sticking his prominent and aforementioned snotlocker where it wasn’t welcome.

  Hell. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one, right? Let’s put it to the courts. What’s that - the jury has reached a verdict? They want me locked away in the nuthouse, made to give myself an endless white hug in my brand new jacket so strait? Well goddamn it, Broadmoor, open your doors, for Georgie Webber would like to make a reservation.

  No, that wasn’t it. I wasn’t mad. And even if I was, my madness was caused not through painting a picture for myself but rather through peeling back that painting to see what lay beneath.

  ‘Do you need some help with your luggage, sir?’

  A bellboy stood to my side, his face stuck in a glassy grin. His eyes stared at me, but seemed to see nothing. One arm was stuck out towards my briefcase, expectantly.

  ‘Some help, sir?’ he repeated.

  ‘No I’m good, thanks,’ I said, hugging my briefcase to my chest and making a quick escape. The bellboy continued to watch me as I approached the elevators, his expression not slipping an inch.

  I jabbed at the button by the lifts. They took their time.

  The same gentleman stood in the elevator as before, wearing the same white gloves and the same polite demeanour. He asked me which floor was mine - me? own a floor? I should be so lucky - and I said sixth. We travelled in an all-too familiar silence amongst a thousand reflections of ourselves, reflections that still looked back on one another as they stretched into infinity. The same two doors slid open on a corridor identical to the one I’d left a great many hours before… or a couple hours still to come.

  But it wasn’t the same, I could tell. It wasn’t all that unlike having a wallet bustling with coins, and having somebody come along and steal them all while you’re in the bathroom. The wallet still looks exactly the same when you return but you know something’s wrong the moment you pick it up. It’s all about the weight.

  Room 628. It wasn’t my 628. I suspected my room key would work, but what would I find inside? Myself, dead? Myself, stealing my other self’s briefcase? The mind boggles. Not that it mattered; it would always be a poor knock-off, the Chocolate-Covered Crispy-Rice Cereal Treats to my Coco Pops.

  I picked out the golden key and put my palm to the door, felt the echoes in its wood. It could only be a small step to the right world from there, couldn’t it? Just a little side-step. Like changing lane in a queue, or clicking a different tab on an internet browser.

  I turned the key and the world went tumbling.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was my hotel room, alright. I don’t know what gave it away, but I just knew it. This was the room I’d been destined to die in.

  I shut the door behind me and felt a wave of relief come crashing down, tugging at my tear ducts. After everything I’d been through, after so much chasing and desperate hope, it had all fallen back into place. I’d left a story right at its final chapter. Now I could finally witness its end.

  The sliding door to my bathroom was still open from when the thief had burst out from behind it. I peeked my head around. It was dark, but it was also clear that there was no other version of myself waiting to jump out and set the merry-go-round spinning all over again. Nobody in the walk-in wardrobe, either.

  Given how long it had been since I’d slept within its sheets, I had expected housekeeping to make the bed. But of course it had been only a matter of minutes since I’d chased the thief from the room, and the maids wouldn’t be up for another twelve hours, give or take. So little time had passed, in fact, that my past self was probably out in the corridor that very moment, arguing with Pierre over how preposterous it was to claim that my briefcase had been stolen into the multiverse.

  It was tempting to steal a look at an element of my own history for the second time that evening, but not as tempting as what had been the catalyst for all the chaos and nonsense.

  I sat down in the bedroom chair, feeling a sense of deja vu. I checked the table to my left; my briefcase was on it. Phew. Imagine if I’d looked over and it had been missing, only for the bathroom door to go sliding across with a bang for a second time. A wheel goes around and around, repeating itself, and I just wanted the ride to stop.

  I traced the familiar leather in my hands, my heart beating a violent rhythm. This was it. A moment alone. A moment to mourn. A moment to say my goodbyes.

  I flicked the catches, which sprung open with a jump.

  I lifted the lid.

  A pile of photographs lay scattered across the bottom of the briefcase. A couple had been bent a little round their edge. There were a dozen, almost, and all of them could tell a greater story than any Chaucer or Dickens. I scooped them up in my hands and shuffled them against the table.

  If somebody had taken a rock and thrown it through a window into my past, the resulting shards would have been little different to the slideshow sitting in my palms. Each was a moment, frozen - a moment saved and savoured, but only to be consumed in meagre amounts. Too much at once and they were wont to lose their flavour.

  I stared long and hard at the first. The photograph was simple. It didn’t hide a weaving narrative; no laboured exposition was required. Chloe was sitting in the garden, crossed legged in a light blue dress. Sam was sat beside her. He must have celebrated his second birthday only two or three weeks before. We’d been out in the back garden and a white and red chequered blanket had been spread out across the grass. Even though we hadn’t left the house we’d really gone to town;
a wicker hamper harboured sandwiches cut into quarters, crisps in tubes, slices of ham, turkey and salami, chocolate fingers that melted in the mild sun. Orange juice to wash it down. My woman and my boy both stared up at the camera - up at me - with grins as big as their appetites.

  I drank it all in. I smiled. I turned to the next.

  Just Sam this time. He wasn’t smiling, but that photo always made me break out in a smirk of my own. He was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs - the naughty step - with his arms crossed and mood even more so. His frown could have crushed a nut. And yet he sat where he’d been told, without a word of complaint. He’d always been a good kid, even when he was being bad. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was he’d done, however. Maybe he had refused to eat his greens. Maybe he’d done a swear. Maybe he’d woken up in the night and deliberately pissed on his own bed. When it comes to children, who knows?

  I didn’t even realise there were tears rolling silently down my cheeks. I returned the photograph to the back of the pack and shifted in my chair. Failing to make myself comfortable, I migrated both myself and my briefcase to the edge of the bed.

  Chloe, sitting up in bed, covering herself with our bedcovers. Boy, was this one old now. It predated Sam by, what? Three years? Four? A morning’s sunlight caressed her skin, streaming through the slats in the blinds. On the bedside table was a book she’d stayed up reading the night before… What was it? The photograph betrayed its age; the cover was muted and blurred, a reddish-pink smudge cast into the background. Her reading glasses were balanced on top of it. Huh. I’d almost forgotten she ever wore them. I guess time has a habit of letting the little things fall through the cracks.

  A minute went by, maybe two, and all I did was stare at the picture. Nothing moved; nothing changed. I just sat there, mesmerised, trapping myself in a little pocket of time I could hold on to, that wouldn’t and couldn’t escape from me. I could look away, I could close my eyes, and that moment would still be there when I returned.