The L-Shaped Room

by Lynne Reid Banks

  I picked up the phone and gave the switchboard the Fulham number. Just to talk to him for a few minutes … I could say some of the things I hadn’t been able to say when I left him, because I hadn’t shared his feelings then. But I remembered I’d told him to go to bed; he’d be asleep by now. Well, it served me right. He’d had to go through that wrench of premature separation alone; now I had to. It was only fair.

  I clicked the receiver-rest. ‘Don’t bother,’ I said to the girl.

  I went into the Juliet Room, where the reception was being held. The coffee cups were all laid out on long white-napped tables, and waiters hovered over the silver urn, dispensing coffee to a few early arrivals. I went round commiserating with the ones I knew, pointing out that if the lady with the bosom was as late as she normally was, the reception would undoubtedly extend into licensing hours. More people came. They were nearly all men, show-business or gossip columnists, old hands at the game and professional cynics, which well they might be on an occasion like this. Promptly at 11.30 the little comic arrived. He was a very nice man and popular with the journalists, who gave him a ragged but friendly cheer for turning up on time. Then we all settled down to wait for Madam.

  Quarter to twelve came – twelve o’clock. I caught a waiter’s eye and before long the drinks arrived; they were greeted with anything-but-ragged cheers, in which the comic wholeheartedly joined. I got a drink for him and he grinned gratefully at me.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry about the delay,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t you be sorry, lass,’ he said. ‘She’s always “all behind”, in more senses than one.’ He winked good-naturedly over the rim of his glass.

  I went from group to group apologizing, and then telephoned up to the lady’s room. Her PRO answered the phone. He sounded as if he were distracted, but having to control it. ‘We’re not quite ready yet,’ he cooed, if one can coo while grinding one’s teeth. ‘We want to look our very best – which shouldn’t be a real problem as we’re so gorgeous – but we’ve just had to change our clothes a couple of times. How are you getting on, Angel?’ he called sweetly to Madam, and then hissed into the phone in a totally altered voice, ‘She’s in the loo, top-heavy cow that she is, I hope she falls in. What am I saying? – Could I pull the chain on my bread-and-butter?’ He raised his voice and shouted, through the loo door, presumably, ‘YES DARLING, OF COURSE I’M WAITING!’ – and then to me, in a tormented undertone: ‘And so are the Press, I know, I know – they must be ready to eat me for lunch. Stall them another five minutes, Janie, please, I’m trying to hurry her up – it’s like pushing a ten-ton truck with its brakes on – YES MY PET, THAT LOOKS DIVINE – (dear kind God, wait till you see this) – well!’ – brightly – ‘Looks like we’re on our way. ’Bye for now, Janie!’

  He hung up and I went back to the salon. The crowd had just started to thin out, and there was a disgruntled note in the talk of those who were sticking it out. ‘One more minute,’ I told them. There was another onslaught on the drinks trays.

  She came at last, swathed in mink, ushered in by the perspiring PRO. The photographers reluctantly put their glasses down and picked up their cameras as the PRO, his hands daintily plucking at the collar of the mink, prepared to unveil the famous figure. When every camera was in place, he whisked the coat away.

  It really was the most extraordinary outfit I’ve ever seen. The red hair flowed over bare white shoulders. The celebrated bust, looking like two dunces’ caps applied to her chest, was encased in a puce halter-necked sweater which left all but essentials bare. Her sizeable bottom and not-too-marvellous legs were thinly coated with bright yellow silk jeans ending just below the knee; her bare feet were thrust into pink mules with diamond spike-heels. She also wore a diamond brooch at her waist, the size of a buckler.

  For a second there was an unbelieving silence – then a chorus of whistles and concerted pops and tinkles as every flashbulb in the room went off.

  ‘Eeh, booger me,’ murmured the little comic, who was standing near me. ‘Have I got to ’ave me picture taken alongside of that? I’ll feel like a seaside postcard.’

  While all the posed pictures were being taken I was edging round among the columnists saying, ‘Please, give us a break, don’t put in that it happened at Drummonds. This is supposed to be a respectable hotel.’ This was what I knew James would have done; the boys laughed wryly. ‘Don’t blame you. Don’t worry. Thanks for the drinks, Janie.’

  It was nearly over. I had a small breather in which to feel pleased that there was this part of me that could take over, like an automatic pilot, and carry on as usual. I knew that not one person had guessed there was anything wrong.

  At this moment, Madam, who knew me, shrieked to me over the heads of the crowd: ‘You – there – please! I’m simply dying of thirst. Could you do you think possibly find me a small drink?’ The waiters were all busy at that moment so I picked up a full glass from the table and fought my way to where she was holding court in the middle of the mass – standing up, of course. She couldn’t sit down; the yellow pants were too tight. I handed her the drink and she smiled at me with all her splendid teeth and said, ‘Thank you. The men are all being so unkind, they’re making fun of my relaxing clothes. Don’t you think they’re divinely chic?’

  At this moment, at this precise moment, a feeling came over me that I hadn’t had for nearly a month. My face went deathly cold and saliva rushed into my mouth. There’d been no warning. I clutched my throat and gasped. Madam’s smile froze on her lips. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked someone. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ I replied hollowly. A passage was cleared through the crowd like magic, and although they were all kindly men, a great shout of irrepressible laughter went up as I fled. As I left the room I heard the little comic bellow, ‘That’s what she thinks o’ thy relaxing clothes, ducks, and I must say I see what she means!’

  It should have been just one of those stories one dines out on afterwards, only the wretched woman thought I was being deliberately insulting and complained to the Management. And this time James wasn’t around to cushion the blow.

  I was sitting in my office smoking one of James’s cigarettes – not the best thing, perhaps, for the queasiness I was still feeling, but I hoped it might calm my juddering nerves – when a pop-eyed page-boy knocked on my door and said the Old Man wanted to see me in his suite. I guessed what had happened, and despite a clear conscience began shaking in my boots. I lit another cigarette from the stub of the first (unheard-of for me) – not because I wanted it but because I felt it might give an illusion of poise to walk into the Presence with a cigarette dangling carelessly from my lips.

  The Management was waiting for me in the lounge of his magnificent suite. He wore a Paisley dressing-gown which was a reminder of his good taste – not that one was necessary; the whole room, in fact the whole hotel, was a monument to it. I admired this man, though it was unfashionable to say so in conversation with the rest of the staff. He’d built the hotel himself, on a bombsite, and developed goodwill from scratch in competition with the best and oldest hotels in London by applying a maxim which, according to him, has fallen into disrepute – namely that quality pays. Every article and member of the staff, from the fire-buckets to the boot-blacks, had to be the best available. Compromises with his few but firmly held prejudices were only made when to hold out meant risking something irreplaceable. James, for all his vagaries, was the best PRO in the hotel business, which explained why I, a non-Jew and a woman, had obtained my present job. I knew he’d fought James on it tooth and nail, and though in all honesty I felt I’d won him round to some extent since, the prejudices remained beneath the surface of benignity, waiting only for some unwary blunder on my part to crack the surface and let them burst through.

  Such a blunder I’d now committed. As I entered the room I wished I’d thought of phoning a desperate SOS to James. I wasn’t sure what he could have done from Purley, where he lived, but I had very great confidence in his championship. Standing sm
all and shaky before that vast desk, surrounded by all the trappings of success and power, I felt very helpless and the cigarette seemed about as much of a morale-builder as a pocket-handkerchief is a protection against a firing-squad.

  He sat at his desk writing, and I almost groaned aloud as I thought: Oh God, no, not another one! The junctures of my life seemed to be marked off monotonously by men at desks, as if Fate had adopted this as a regulation traffic-signal meaning ‘Sharp turning’.

  He didn’t keep me waiting, however; he was not the sort of man who needed gimmicks to make his effects. Smiling at me politely he said, in his still slightly-accented voice, ‘Sit down, Miss Graham. Cigarette? Oh, you have one. Well now, I had a complaint about you this morning. You know who from?’

  I sighed to combat the hollowness of nerves. ‘I can guess.’

  ‘Would you like to tell me your version?’

  I told him simply that I had felt ill at a very unfortunate moment.

  ‘No offence meant, eh?’ I shook my head wearily. ‘Now Miss Graham, as you know, I think, I am not a fool, and I am always on the side of my staff – if it is possible to be so without alienating a client. I know that she is a silly woman, a vain woman – I speak now in confidence, of course. I knew that what she told me couldn’t be the whole story. I defended you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘In such a way that she felt I was in sympathy with her, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What caused you to be ill?’

  ‘I don’t really know. It could have been a number of things.’

  ‘Something you ate, perhaps? Only not in my hotel.’ He smiled, and I smiled back rather pallidly.

  ‘Have you been to see a doctor?’

  I was confused by all these solicitous questions, and found myself telling more lies than I had to. ‘No, I haven’t bothered.’

  ‘But this is not the first time you have been unwell, is it?’

  I was startled. It was true what was said of him – he knew everything, but everything that happened in the hotel, even, it seemed, what took place in the ladies’ lavatories.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll pass off.’

  ‘One hopes so. In the meantime …’ The lines of his face tilted downwards and he shrugged. ‘Episodes like this morning are very unfortunate. They create such a bad impression, cause so much needless ill-feeling. A hotel such as this, with a reputation for perfection, cannot afford such incidents. You understand?’

  I sat there silent for a moment while he went on looking at me sympathetically as if I’d been telling him a hard-luck story. I shifted in my seat and said, ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t quite. Are you sacking me because I was taken ill?’

  He smiled a little, without altering the sad expression. ‘No, Miss Graham, that would not be fair. I am only suggesting that you take a little time off, shall we say, until you are quite well again?’ He had his chin resting on his hand, and one finger was against his long nose in a curious gesture that suggested that he was saying one thing and meaning another. Something in his eyes, too, gave the impression of a deeper meaning underlying the conversation. He had a formidable reputation as a hard, cryptic, ruthless man whose god was perfection and whose greatest intolerance was for any weakness or sentiment which undermined it; but there was something in his face as he looked at me which was very like kindness. I thought I must be wrong, because kindness didn’t go with what he was doing.

  The moment ended, and he grew sharp and brisk again. ‘I shall speak to Paige about it,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, you go off home.’ His tone was dismissive, and I got up to go. At the door he stopped me. ‘You like Paige, don’t you?’ he asked unexpectedly.

  ‘Yes, very much.’

  ‘He’s a good fellow, and a good friend of yours. Perhaps you wish he were here now, eh?’ If I hadn’t detected the kindness before, I’d have thought he was sneering; now I wasn’t sure. I wanted to hate him for doing this to me, so much earlier than I had thought it would be done, but it was difficult to hate a man I had such respect for.

  I smiled, rather ruefully.

  ‘Good, you are smiling. I hope you do not feel bitterly towards me. You understand, my hotel comes before everything.’ I nodded. ‘But about Paige. It would have made no difference, had he been here. And to be quite truthful with you, this morning did not make much difference either. I had heard you were not well; I was going to speak to you anyway. My staff must be, as you say, one hundred per cent.’ He looked at me with his head cocked on one side like a bright-eyed bird. ‘Thank you for the very good work you have done here,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve enjoyed working for you very much.’

  ‘Good. You know you would not have been engaged if Paige had not insisted. I cannot approve of women in key positions. But Paige is a man of very good judgement, like most Jews.’

  He knew, and he knew that I knew, that James was no more Jewish than I was. But it hurt him in some way to admit that one of his key men came from the wrong end of the Bible, so to speak.

  I went back to my office and shut myself into it for the last time. I tried to recapitulate all the rude names James had ever called the Management. I raged inwardly against his injustice and vindictiveness; I told myself he was a pro-Jewish fanatic, and anti-feminist to the point of misogynism; that he was a bigot, a bully and a nepotist (this last was more than unfair, as the extent of his nepotism was his sister’s husband’s niece who was a chambermaid).

  But in fact all I was doing was putting off the moment of reckoning. When I had stopped kicking against the pricks I began to ask myself how much longer I could have gone on without somebody noticing the change in my figure. Had I proposed to keep working until the hotel was a hotbed of gossip, and leave only when I’d made myself the centre of a tasty little scandal? Wouldn’t my dismissal, inevitable eventually, have been a whole lot more unpleasant at that stage? In a way, without knowing it of course, the Old Man had done me a favour.

  But all the same, leaving was hard. I sorted my few things out slowly, and splashed them with valedictory tears. It was James I wanted at this moment, more than Toby, who couldn’t have been expected to understand this.

  But as soon as I had left the building, James and the Old Man and all the ties and affections of my ex-job began to blur. My life lay away from them now, and the problems I had brought to work with me that morning reclaimed me with redoubled urgency. A great longing for Toby seized me. The thought of the complicated journey back by London Transport seemed unbearable. I called a taxi.

  Chapter 9

  OUTSIDE Toby’s door, I hesitated. People asleep are so vulnerable; I didn’t want to disturb him too suddenly. Holding the door handle, I savoured in advance the small luxury of waking him. I wondered if he would see at once that something had happened to make my need of him as great as his had been of me when he last saw me.

  I turned the handle gently and opened the door. There was no one in the room.

  The sense of disappointment was as sharp as a blow, painful out of all proportion, so much so that for a moment I was almost angry with him for not being there. I stood in the doorway, feeling quite dazed with loneliness, looking at the bed where he should have been lying.

  Then I realized how absurd I was being. Obviously he’d gone out for cigarettes, or lunch – or perhaps – it was a sudden exciting hope – he was upstairs in John’s room, waiting for me there.

  For the first time, a thought occurred to me. We had left John last night at the club, and I wondered with a quailing sensation when he had got home. It seemed incredible I hadn’t thought of that before – normally I was constantly aware of his proximity through the thin dividing wall.

  I went upstairs uneasily and knocked on his door. Instead of opening it, he called out after a moment: ‘Who there?’ and when I answered, there was a long silence which alarmed me.

  ‘Go away,’ he said at last. He seemed to be standing just inside the door.

  ‘What’s the ma
tter?’ I asked, sharply because of my nervous embarrassment. Then, as he didn’t answer, I said, ‘I want to ask you something.’

  After another pause the door opened. Any doubts I had had were dispelled by the look of contemptuous hostility on his face. I felt myself turning hot and cold.

  ‘What you want?’ he growled like a hurt child.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  He turned his back on me and walked into the room. I followed, tentatively. I’d never been in there before; it was dark and stuffy and full of bloody, primitive colours. John pulled a chair forward with a violent, angry gesture and sat down on it facing away from me with his arms along its back.

  I went up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder. I suppose I must have touched him many times before, but not consciously or deliberately. It seemed a rather difficult thing to do, somehow, which surprised me, as I hadn’t realized I still had some atavistic buried fear of him because he was black.

  John twitched his great shoulders as if a wasp had landed on them.

  ‘Why you don’t go away,’ he muttered without looking round. His voice was muffled and I thought he was trembling.

  Without touching him again, I said, ‘John, have I done something to offend you?’

  He put his face down on his arms and his voice was muffled. ‘Yes, you done somethin’ to offend me. You done somethin’ offend any decent person.’

  Well, there it was, you couldn’t ask for anything plainer than that. My armpits pricked with embarrassment. But I couldn’t leave it at that.

  ‘John, listen. What happens between two people only concerns them. If you hadn’t been next door here, you’d never have known.’