by Chris Binchy
27
Marcin had been told by Tommy that some of the porters wouldn’t collect the breakfast cards or do room-service orders. There was something about those corridors at night, the sameness of every floor, the muffled sounds of conversations and televisions left on. Whimpers and cries and shouts. Doors that opened and closed and lifts that went up and down of their own accord. If someone ran up behind you suddenly, should you punch them or offer to make them a sandwich? It was all too much, he said. It freaked them out.
‘You’re telling me this so I have to do it all,’ Marcin said to him.
‘On my children’s lives I’m not,’ Tommy said. ‘I swear to you. Ask George. He saw something on the fifth floor. Scared the fuck out of him. He’ll go up during the day or with somebody else, but you will not get him up there alone at night.’
He still wasn’t sure if they were messing with him. If Tommy had children he couldn’t have seen much of them. One way or another it was Marcin’s job to get the cards. He took the lift up to the penthouse and worked his way downwards. When he got to Reception he was ready for a cup of tea and a cigarette. It was half four now and the first alarm call wasn’t until six. He was hoping to sleep until then. He dropped the cards with the night manager at Reception. As he was walking across the lobby, the manager called after him: ‘Third floor.’
‘What about it?’
‘You didn’t do it.’
Marcin walked back to him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you didn’t collect the cards from the third floor. You must have missed it.’
‘But how? I came down the stairs each time and out on to each floor.’
‘I don’t know,’ the manager said. ‘You’re tired. We’re all tired. But there’s sixty people on that floor and not one card.’
‘I’ll go back,’ Marcin said.
‘You’ll have to.’
When he pushed the button for the lift he saw that one was on the seventh floor and the other on the sixth.
‘What’s happening with this?’ he called to the manager.
‘I don’t know. Ray’s doing papers.’
Marcin cursed to himself. He went through the doors into the kitchen and took the stairs. Between the second and third floors he turned the corner and a man was standing in front of him, absolutely still. Tall, good-looking, well-dressed, watching him in silence with a fixed expression on his face.
‘Christ,’ Marcin said.
The man said nothing, then put a hand to his chest in shock and sighed. ‘Woof,’ he said.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m fine,’ the man said. He started walking on, and as he passed Marcin he reached into his pocket and rummaged. Marcin stood, back pressed against the wall, trying to ready himself for whatever it would be. The man pulled out a fifty, looked at it, then gave it to Marcin. ‘For your trouble,’ he said, and before Marcin could say anything he kept on walking.
Marcin’s heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his temples. He stayed where he was for a second. Then looked over the banister to see if the man was still there. He saw nothing, cocked his head to listen but heard nothing. He shrugged to make himself feel normal and went on up to the third floor to get the cards. His hands shook as he walked the corridors and he checked over his shoulder every couple of paces. When he got back to the landing he pressed the button for the lift. When it came Ray was in it.
‘Ray,’ Marcin said.
‘What?’
‘Just now. There was a guy on the stairs. It was weird.’
‘What sort of guy?’
‘I don’t know. Forties. In a suit.’
‘What did you get?’ Ray said. ‘What did he give you?’
Marcin said nothing. The crumpled breakfast orders were clenched in his right hand and the fifty was in his left. Before he knew what was going on Ray plucked the note out of his hand.
‘Hey,’ Marcin said.
‘Now,’ Ray said, ‘don’t worry. You’ll get your cut. But I’m going to have to tell you something.’
‘What?’ Marcin asked, not at all sure that he was ready to hear it.
28
The bar Victor worked in was very different from Agnieszka’s place. They packed them in to the chart dance music of the day. The air was sweet with the smell of Fat Frogs, tequila shots, Sambucas and beer. Agnieszka watched men in short-sleeved shirts and blonde girls in not very much bouncing around each other. Not her thing, but the people seemed to be enjoying themselves more than they did in her place.
It came to her suddenly, a sense that something was happening and that she was the last person to know. The sound of the pause that happens as everyone tries to figure out what’s going on, heads rising like those of animals spooked at a waterhole. A crash of glasses breaking and then a couple of screams. Before she had time to think of him, Agnieszka saw Victor moving a guy towards the door. The man was older than most people in the place, late twenties maybe, and bigger than Victor. He was struggling as they moved, flapping ineffectually, trying to get hold of something that would stop their movement towards the door, the street, outside, where there would be nobody to see what happened next between him and this calm, set-faced block of a man who was removing him with the efficiency and emotion of a machine designed for the purpose.
Victor might have been getting a sheep ready for shearing, so relaxed and unthreatened did he seem. He didn’t look in her direction as they went by. He held the guy in front of him as they passed through the swinging doors held open for him by another doorman and threw him out into the street where he landed, stumbling. Five seconds later another bouncer threw out a second man, evidently a friend of the first. The two of them stood in the street at a distance from the bouncers. Agnieszka looked out through the window as they shouted abuse. They kept their distance. One of them was bleeding from his head and as the adrenalin faded away he became more aware of the pain, touching his forehead as he gesticulated at the bouncers. Victor just stood still, hands together in front of him, feet spread slightly, solid and immovable. There was nothing in his face to convey that his heart was beating harder, that he was nervous or even exhilarated by the result of his effort. Behind her the noise in the bar was back at full volume. A Chinese lounge girl was in the middle of the dance-floor with a dustpan and brush, clearing up the broken glass as the throng bounced around her.
Agnieszka watched Victor and his colleague coming back in now. They were joking with the guy on the door, all laughing together. She saw his wide, childish grin, which made him look fifteen. It got wider when he saw her. ‘I’ll be ten minutes, is that okay? Just got to clear the downstairs and then we can go.’
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I’m fine.’
‘What was that about?’
‘Just idiots. Drunk. It was nothing at all.’
‘But you’re okay?’
‘I’m perfect. Think about what you want to do later on. Where you want to go or whatever.’
‘I will.’
She stood and looked out of the window, the crowds of mostly tourists who passed up and down the street, staggering boys and singing girls and a family, maybe Italian, going home after a dinner that had obviously dragged on and got them involved now in a world that wasn’t hostile to them, but wasn’t where they should have been.
When Victor came back they said goodbye to the barman and to the guys on the door and went out on to the street.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what do you want to do?’
‘I’m tired,’ she said. She saw the look on his face and laughed at him. ‘I just had a busy weekend. Do you have the car?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could we maybe go back to your house? I want to go to bed.’ She watched him process this information.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You won’t have to ask me that twice.’ She kissed him as they walked.
29
A public meeting to discuss the planning application for the hotel, or
ganized by one of the local Labour councillors, was held in the community centre at eight o’clock on a Thursday evening. It was busy when they arrived, the car-park full. Hard white light spilled out from the hall into the low orange of the evening. Dessie parked at the side of the building across a painted yellow box that didn’t seem to mean anything. A small group of people were standing around outside the door smoking cigarettes, waiting for things to get started. They watched Sylvester and Dessie as they went by, a moment of recognition marked by silence as they passed.
‘Hello to you,’ Sylvester said, and a couple of them nodded before returning to their cigarettes.
It was loud inside the hall, a full room of people who were anticipating something, ready to talk or to argue. A wave of nausea hit Sylvester but he held the feeling in check and fought it back, staring into the middle distance as he walked. There were councillors from all the parties ahead. As he passed Sylvester said hello to some, nodded at others and smiled at a few old enemies, who pretended not to see him. He walked with confidence through to the front of the hall and sat with Dessie in the third row, directly in line with the podium.
After a few minutes the chairman introduced a Labour councillor, a humourless plodder with whom Sylvester had battled often over the years. He gave a dreary PowerPoint presentation, outlining the reasons why locals should object to the development. He spoke of traffic flow and the effect on it of poorly planned high-density projects like this one. Of the replacement of a public amenity by a private, possibly gated, complex. Of overlooked gardens and his concern for the changing character of the area. When he finished there was a round of applause and the chairman called the next speaker up. Sylvester looked out across the room as people spoke. He recognized a lot of faces. Most of the crowd were from the bottom end of the ward, nearest the hotel. Older people. And there were the usual headcases who came to everything. He sat there in the smell of new paint, under the white fluorescent light, an expression of patient interest on his face as a different councillor explained in more detail than anyone needed what impact the potential building would have on local waste management, talking of sludge and grey water.
Sylvester had come here as a child with his aunts to bingo. Ten years old. Warm bottles of minerals. Bags of clove sweets. Occasional cigarettes that one aunt would let him have surreptitiously as the atmosphere grew tighter and heavier, the droning slang of the caller, the titters and drawn breath that greeted each new number until somebody shouted, ‘Check!’ and heads would turn and the noise would rise in a blend of disappointment and release that he always thought strange. He’d been bored in this hall many times.
The councillor finished speaking in a shriek of feedback and some half-hearted clapping. The chairman opened the meeting to questions from the floor. An old sacristan from the church wandered the room with a microphone, following the chairman’s direction. The discussion went back and forth for fifteen minutes, at which point Sylvester raised his hand.
‘Mr Kelly,’ the chairman said, and when the microphone arrived Sylvester stood and began to speak.
‘Good evening to you all. I’d like to say a few quick words. I have the greatest of respect for Councillor McDonald, as he knows, and he’s done a good job of looking at this proposal and imagining the most negative possible scenario.
‘But I think it’s worth looking at the positive aspects that this development could bring to the area. Some of the things that have been said here tonight are just factually incorrect. There’s no suggestion that this development would be gated. How could it be? Shops and restaurants behind iron gates? Let’s keep things realistic.
‘Councillor McDonald speaks of how a public amenity would be replaced. But what use is that hotel to anyone today? What amenity is it providing? What use will it be tomorrow or next year as it slides further into disrepair and ruin? What effect will that have on local property values? Surely restaurants and a supermarket and a café are useful public amenities. Surely the profile of the wider area would be improved by the building of these amenities and luxury apartments. Are house prices in the area realistically likely to rise or fall as a result of this development?
‘And no mention has been made here tonight of the potential effect on employment that this development would have. There would be jobs in construction, in security and in the shops and restaurants that are part of this plan. One hundred full-time jobs at the end of the project. One hundred extra people working. At a time like this, do we just dismiss that prospect out of hand?
‘I would appeal to people here tonight from the area -people actually from the area – to see for themselves what is in Mr O’Donnell’s proposal and make their judgement based on a proper assessment, not just what you’ve heard here tonight. Thanks very much.’
There was more applause than he had anticipated. One of the Labour councillors on the stage stood up and was waiting at the podium when the room fell silent again. ‘Mr Chairman, if I can just come back on that.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘For those of you who don’t remember him, Mr Kelly used to be a councillor for this area before retiring…’ he paused after the word ‘retiring’, smiled to himself ‘… a couple of years ago to concentrate on his work in the area of property development.’
‘No,’ Sylvester said, the microphone still in his hand. ‘That’s not true.’
‘A pretty clear case of gamekeeper turned poacher.’
‘Now hold on,’ Sylvester said to the chairman. ‘Are you going to allow this?’
‘Sorry,’ the councillor said. ‘I just don’t think your speech was completely honest. You didn’t mention that you work for the developer.’
‘I’m speaking purely as a local resident. Everything that I said is true. I genuinely believe this project would be good for everyone in the area.’
‘But you do work for David O’Donnell?’
‘I’m not an employee of his, no. I’ve done some work for him over the years…’ There were jeers from further back in the hall. Sylvester held the microphone a little closer to his mouth. ‘But let me repeat that I am speaking now solely as someone who lives in the area. And I would say again to people here tonight, look at what is actually being proposed, read what’s in the document and make your mind up on that basis. Don’t just take the word of a group of people for whom development is a dirty word, for whom property is theft and private enterprise a terrifying ideological notion. That’s all.’
There was laughter and another round of applause. It was drowned by the booing of party activists at the end, but the room felt more evenly divided.
‘We have your point,’ the chairman said. Sylvester handed the microphone back to the sacristan and sat down.
‘That’s just ridiculous,’ the councillor said from the stage. ‘I don’t know what to say to that.’
‘Thanks very much,’ Sylvester said, smiling up at him and holding his gaze.
30
There was too much to do. There was getting the bar set up for the evening, finding knives and lemons and limes in the kitchen, among the last of the chefs, sweaty and red-eyed, pissed off and looking at him as if he was a thief. There was organizing the glasses, bribing a kitchen porter to make sure a tray of highballs came out clean. There was tallying the bar, checking that the closing stock from last night matched the opening stock. Watching the day-shift boys and asking the right questions to make sure there weren’t any hidden nasties that would crop up during the night. Lost luggage. Overbookings. Broken promises.
They had to establish who was staying and who wasn’t. Differentiate between the non-residents who were not allowed to be there and those who spent enough or were regular enough or close enough to someone important to be allowed to hang around and drink. Everybody thought they were entitled to be there and claimed to be connected. Friends of the manager. The general manager. The manager’s wife. The former manager. The owners. Old Mr Kennedy who used to run this place. Mr Bell. Mr Doherty.
These wel
l-dressed, comfortable, middle-aged people would look Marcin in the face unblinking and lie to get themselves that last brandy and port to take the sting out of the trip home. When one of the other porters was around he could check and see if they were legitimate. Usually they weren’t and he could say goodnight and walk away. But sometimes they were and because of that it was never safe to assume.
He got it wrong sometimes. Gave drink to the people he shouldn’t and turned away entitled red-faced men who looked at this pup, the thin line between them and the last jar, and assumed that the way to deal with it was with outrage and threats. I’ll have your job. Mr Doyle will hear about this. I’m going to see to it personally that you apologize to me.
When he arrived one evening to the duty manager asking why he’d refused some VIP a drink the night before, he asked how he was meant to know the difference.
‘You could have asked one of the others.’
‘There was no one around.’
‘Well, you should have gone and got someone.’
‘But I didn’t know where they were. It’s a big place. They could have been anywhere. Do you know how many times a night people tell me they’re VIP? Every night there’s someone and most of the time they’re lying.’
‘I know all that. I’ve been here a lot longer than you. Just be careful.’
He was turning to leave when Marcin spoke. ‘Hold on.’
The manager stopped. Raised his eyebrows.
