The Lighthouse

by Alison Moore

  She centres the vase of plastic flowers on the dressing table and puts a sachet of instant coffee, an individual portion of UHT milk and a packet of two plain biscuits by the kettle and a mint on one of the pillows.

  She pushes her cleaning trolley out into the corridor and down to the far end, fetching clean bedding from her linen cupboard. She opens the door to room ten and finds the messy bed vacated, the bathroom empty.

  Downstairs, the question mark steps through the door leading from the guest rooms into the bar. Thinking about having another drink but deciding against it, he crosses the room and exits into the street, into the midday heat, walking away in the shade. Bernard, standing behind the bar, watches him go.

  Ester is expecting a Mr Futh to arrive in time for lunch, and a honeymoon couple around four. The rooms are ready and she has asked the kitchen to prepare a plate of cold meats for Mr Futh. Fetching herself a measure of gin and a fresh bottle of tonic from behind the bar, she sits down on her stool and waits for her guests to arrive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Beef and Onion

  ‘Do you ever get a bad feeling about something?’ says Carl. ‘A bad feeling about something that’s going to happen?’

  ‘Sure,’ says Futh. ‘I used to get panic attacks on aeroplanes.’

  ‘I’m not keen on flying,’ says Carl. ‘I was once on a plane and had a really uneasy feeling and had to get off again. I don’t like being underground either. I avoid the tube and the Channel Tunnel.’

  ‘One time,’ says Futh, ‘I was flying to New York and while the plane was taking off I couldn’t stop imagining there being a fire or a terrorist on board and not being able to escape.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. It was fine, you know. I used a relaxation technique.’

  Carl frowns and says, ‘But I mean, do you ever sense that something’s going to happen and then it does?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Futh. ‘Last Christmas, I visited my dad and his girlfriend, and I just knew he was going to be in a bad mood, and he was.’

  Futh drives forward, off the ferry, following the car in front. They are waved on by officials in orange waterproofs. They sail through customs, passing others whose cars are being emptied, and through passport control. Then they are off, away.

  Futh says, ‘And I know I’ll spend next Christmas with them too, and it will be just as bad.’

  Carl nods, but he is still frowning. ‘Why don’t you spend the week in Utrecht with me and my mother?’

  ‘A whole week?’ asks Futh. ‘At Christmas?’

  ‘I mean this week,’ says Carl. ‘I’m attending this conference midweek but my mother would look after you.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Futh, and he is thoughtful for a moment before saying, ‘That’s very kind of you, but I have all my accommodation booked.’

  ‘My mother would love to have you stay and I’ll only be gone for a few days, I’ll be back on Friday evening. We could travel together on the Saturday. Are you on the late ferry?’

  Futh says that he is and again he muses for a while before saying that he would like to but cannot.

  Carl is quiet. He seems troubled and Futh wonders whether Carl is offended.

  ‘I’ll see you on the ferry though?’ says Futh.

  Carl gives the slightest nod.

  Futh hopes that his driving is not bothering Carl. In explanation, as they get onto the motorway, Futh mentions to Carl that he has not been driving very long and has not done much motorway driving. ‘And I’ve never driven abroad,’ he says. He accelerates, moving out to overtake the thundering lorries, his small car trembling in the middle lane.

  Prior to taking a driving test in his forties, Futh had relied mainly on public transport and hitchhiking. When Futh left home, his father sold the family house and moved in with his sister, Futh’s Aunt Frieda. Futh, visiting, would hitchhike there and back and Frieda, who did not approve of hitchhiking, warned him to watch out for strange men.

  ‘And strange women,’ added his father.

  ‘Just be careful,’ said Frieda.

  Futh thought that she worried about him unduly. When he was little, when he climbed on rocks, when he was reckless, trying to be like the other boys, she would say, ‘You’ll fall. You’ll hurt yourself.’ And then he would indeed fall and hurt himself and she would tell him, ‘You’re an accident waiting to happen.’

  When she took him to the swimming pool, she made him wear armbands even though he told her he could swim. Sometimes he went to the river with Kenny, and later he went on his own. Frieda warned him against swimming in the river, because of the current and the weeds and the rocks, and there were parasites and diseases and God knows what in that river, she said, and every now and again someone drowned. When he last saw Frieda, some weeks before coming to Germany, she asked him not to go, not to drive all that way, not to walk all that way, not to go on his own. She telephoned the day he left to warn him to look after his feet, to keep his passport safe, to be careful. ‘Stay away,’ she said, ‘from that river.’

  ‘This is it,’ says Carl, peering through the windscreen, pointing out the turn they need to take, their route off the motorway and into Utrecht.

  Futh follows Carl’s directions which take them to the far side of the city. They park by the kerb in front of an old three-storey house which has been divided into flats. Futh, out of the car, standing on the pavement, still feels the lurch of the ferry.

  The front door has an intercom with three buttons, one of which Carl presses. There is a crackle and then a woman’s voice speaking what Futh assumes to be Dutch.

  ‘Mummy,’ says Carl, speaking in English for Futh’s benefit, ‘it’s Carl, and I have a guest.’ When the door makes a clicking sound, Carl pushes it open and Futh follows him inside.

  They climb the stairs up to the third-floor flat, to a door which has been opened and left ajar for them. They enter and Carl closes the door behind them. Hanging up his coat and turning to take Futh’s, Carl calls, ‘Mummy?’ They walk through to the living room, Futh taking in the high ceilings, bare floorboards, wooden slatted blinds, sparse furniture, uncluttered surfaces, glass and leather and the smell of polish. Again Carl shouts, ‘Mummy!’ and the acoustics in the harshly furnished room are like those in an empty house or in a bathroom.

  In the far corner, a swinging door opens and a woman comes into the room. The smells of coffee and baking follow her. She greets Carl with little air kisses while Futh stands waiting to be introduced. When Carl turns to him and says, ‘Mummy, this is our guest, my friend,’ Futh steps forward and kisses Carl’s mother on one cheek and then the other, smelling soap and flowers beneath the coffee and the baking.

  ‘I’m so pleased to meet you,’ he says.

  ‘You are very welcome,’ says Carl’s mother, turning away. ‘Come and sit down.’

  The three of them walk over to an uncomfortable-looking sofa and Futh sits down in the middle. On a low table in front of the sofa stands a tray, from which Carl’s mother lifts a coffee pot. She fills three cups and passes the first one to Futh who takes it with a smile. She asks him about his journey and his holiday, and while he talks she listens and offers milk and sugar. Passing a plate of little pastries, she enquires about his wife, his children.

  ‘My wife and I have just separated,’ says Futh.

  Expressing sympathy, she puts the plate of pastries down in front of him.

  ‘And we didn’t have children.’ He shifts his buttocks on the thinly upholstered sofa.

  ‘Perhaps that’s just as well,’ says Carl’s mother.

  ‘I keep stick insects,’ he says. ‘I wanted a dog.’ Angela had said no to a dog. She did not want to end up being the one who had to walk it every day. So he got stick insects. He is rather fond of them but he supposes that they have no sense of him, that they do not remember him from one day to the next.

  Carl’s mother says to Carl, ‘You aren’t drinking your coffee. Has it gone cold?’

  Carl, w
ho has been taciturn all morning, ever since the conversation in the car, looks down at the untouched cup of coffee in his hand. He puts it down on the little table. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he says, ‘there is something I have to do.’ He crosses the living room again, going back out into the hallway, his mother following him with her eyes.

  After a moment, she turns back to Futh. ‘More coffee?’ she says, turning away to pour it, asking what he does for a living.

  ‘I work in the manufacture of synthetic smells,’ says Futh.

  ‘Oh yes?’ She looks glazed.

  He elaborates. ‘We artificially replicate the chemical compounds which make apples smell like apples and so on, mimicking natural smells. Have you heard of scratch and sniff? In scratch and sniff technology, the chemicals are captured in microscopic spheres, like tiny bottles of perfume. When a scratch and sniff panel is used, a few of the bottles are broken, but there are millions of them – after twenty years all the bottles will not be broken, the fragrance will not be gone.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s very interesting,’ she says. She glances at her watch. ‘And what does your father do?’

  ‘He was a chemistry teacher,’ says Futh. ‘He’s retired now.’ He finishes his coffee and Carl’s mother smiles and reaches out to take the cup from his hands. ‘Thank you,’ he says, glancing at the coffee pot.

  She begins to stand, with Futh’s empty cup in her hands, saying, ‘Well, I’m sure you want to go on your way.’

  ‘I’m not in any hurry,’ says Futh. She hesitates, and then settles back down again. Futh shifts towards her and continues, his breath heavy with coffee. ‘Everything you smell contains a volatile chemical, which evaporates and activates the nasal sensory cells. When you can smell something it’s because it’s releasing molecules into the air, which you inhale.’

  ‘I have so much to do,’ she says, and Futh begins to explain the rota system he and Angela used for housework.

  Carl’s mother seems distracted. From time to time, she glances towards the door through which Carl left. Suddenly, she stands up, saying, ‘I know what he’s doing.’ She strides across the room and into the hallway. Futh hears her give a single knock on a door before entering. She closes the door behind her and Futh can hear her speaking angrily to Carl, although he can’t make out what is being said.

  When she returns she says to Futh, who is reaching out to take another pastry, ‘Perhaps you should be going after that.’ Futh, trying to choose between the remaining pastries, is only vaguely aware of Carl reentering the room. Carl’s mother, already moving away from Futh towards the kitchen, says, ‘Shall I pack you a lunch to take with you?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he says. ‘I’m due to have lunch in Hellhaus.’

  ‘You won’t be there for lunch,’ she says.

  Futh, who has lost track of the time and who in any case does not really know how long this leg of his journey will take, looks at his watch and sees how late in the morning it is. ‘Well,’ he says, smiling gratefully at his host, ‘if that’s the case then that would be very kind of you.’

  She goes into the kitchen and Carl follows her.

  Futh, left behind, perched on the edge of the terrible sofa, looks towards the kitchen door. When it swings open, he sees Carl quietly admonishing his mother. It swings to and then swings open again and he sees Carl’s mother turning, making her hushed reply. They speak not only in low voices but in Dutch, and Futh does not understand a word. The swinging slows and stops. Futh is reminded of the scenes he tried not to hear as a child, his parents whispering furiously on the other side of closed doors.

  Carl is the first to come out of the kitchen. ‘Please,’ he says, ‘you don’t have to go. My mother did not mean to make you feel unwelcome.’

  ‘Well,’ says Futh, eyeing the cooling coffee pot, ‘I probably should get going.’

  Carl’s mother comes into the room holding a greaseproof-paper parcel. ‘For your journey,’ she says to Futh, presenting him with the package. He takes it, expecting it to be warm in his hands but finding it cold.

  Carl follows him out into the hallway. ‘You should stay,’ he says. ‘I really want you to stay.’ Futh, putting on his coat, smiles and offers his hand. Carl takes it, holding it a little too long.

  Futh calls back into the living room, ‘Many thanks for your hospitality.’ He waits for a reply but none comes. He leaves the apartment and climbs back down the stairs to the front door which closes heavily behind him as he steps out into the street carrying the cool parcel in both hands.

  At noon, Futh finally makes his way out of Utrecht and gets back onto the motorway, driving in the direction of Hellhaus, which is the name of both the town to which he is heading and the hotel in which he will be staying, where he will spend both this first night and his last night.

  As he drives south with his window down, his bare forearm, resting on the frame, burns.

  After a couple of hours, he stops at a rest area to eat the meat pie which Carl’s mother gave him, savouring it, the perfect pastry melting in his mouth, the meat juice running down his chin and onto the front of his short-sleeved shirt.

  He remembers a picnic in Cornwall, a family summer holiday just before his mother left: beef and onion in pastry with a forkhole pattern, lukewarm in a greasy paper bag; sitting on a cliff in blazing sunshine, looking at a lighthouse and listening to his father going on about the old beacon built by a notorious wrecker, a plunderer of stranded ships.

  He returns to the motorway and drives until the end of the afternoon when he realises that he has missed his turning some way back. Unable – on the motorway, in between junctions – to turn around, he presses on, going in the wrong direction, accelerating.

  Futh recalls sitting in the passenger seat of Angela’s car with a UK road atlas in his hands, looking on the map for the place names he saw signposted at each motorway exit they sped past, and it dawning on him that he was taking them the wrong way round the M25. He grew anxious but kept quiet, wanting to be mistaken, to be going the right way after all despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. Angela said, ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ but still he said nothing, putting off the moment when he would have to admit his mistake, when they would have to come off the motorway and go all the way back, and meanwhile just making things worse.

  By the time he arrives at Hellhaus, it is dreadfully late. It is dark as he parks his car and walks up the street with his suitcase on wheels, heading towards the centre of the small town.

  He has wondered whether this Hellhaus has similar origins to a Hellhaus he knows of in Saxony – the ruin of a structure sited at the intersection of forest paths, used in its day to see and signal the whereabouts of escaping game. But when he turns a corner and sees the hotel, he understands why it has this name, which translates as ‘bright house’ or ‘light house’. Whitewashed and moonlit, it is incandescent.

  He feels again the tipping sensation he has experienced on and off since leaving the ferry. It feels like his soul is sliding out and then sliding back in again. His insides feel like the jelly in his father’s hot pork pies oozing through cracks in the crust.

  He trudges up the final incline, exhausted from driving and hungry again, the hotel a beacon before him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Perfume

  When the door opens, letting in the cool night air and some noise from the street, Ester turns towards it. A man walks in, a thin, pale man with thinning, mousy hair. He carries an anorak over one arm, and with the other he is pulling a suitcase on wheels. The door closes quietly behind him and the exterior sounds are shut out.

  She stays sitting on her stool, tidying pieces of orange peel into the saucer of her coffee cup. The man comes to the bar, approaching the new girl, the little wheels of his suitcase clackety-clacking over the floorboards. ‘Futh,’ he says to the girl, ‘I’m Futh.’ The girl looks at him, asks him in German what he wants. ‘Ich bin Futh,’ he says.

  When the girl continues to
look blankly at him, he turns and looks around the room. Ester, who has been waiting for him all afternoon and all evening, lets him come to her. Clackety-clack, clackety-clack, goes his suitcase over the wooden floor, clackety-clack like a train, trundling to a stop. He stands in front of her, and she regards him, this man with gravy on his chin and on his shirt and even on the crotch of his trousers. ‘I’m Futh,’ he says again in English. ‘Someone’s expecting me.’

  Ester climbs down off her seat and walks over to her desk. He follows her, chattering away. He says, ‘Are you Ester?’ She would prefer something more formal but lets it go.

  She ticks his name off in her ledger and takes his key from a row of small hooks on the wall. ‘Room six,’ she says, putting the key into his hand.

  He says, ‘Thank you, Ester.’

  She takes the handle of his suitcase, wheels it into the hallway and presses the button to bring down the lift.

  While Mr Futh is travelling up to the first floor, Ester goes to the kitchen to fetch the plate of cold cuts which was prepared for him at lunchtime and has been kept under clingfilm in the fridge since then.

  She takes Mr Futh’s supper plate up in the lift and knocks on his door. When there is no answer, she lets herself in with her master key.

  He is not in the bedroom. She can hear the shower running in the bathroom, can hear him singing in there. She would prefer not to have to talk to this man who keeps calling her Ester as if he knows her. She is still annoyed with him for being so late and not even apologising. She is obliged to feed the man – she wants to feed him, she always wants to feed men – but she would be pleased to get away without having to engage with him.

  She puts the plate of cold meats down on the bedside table and peels off the cling film. It looks a little dry, but that is his own fault. She turns to look at the suitcase which is open on the bed.