The Guest House

by David Mark

  The warmth hits me as surely as if I’d opened an oven door. It’s almost tropically hot inside the snug. At the bar stands Joy, a bottle-blonde barmaid with all the customer service skills of a school dinner lady. She’s got a face on, all screwed up, as if she’s got a sour sweet in her mouth and isn’t allowed to spit it out. She’s serving Denis, one of the local fishermen. He’s a big guy with a bigger personality and he drinks his pints of IPA with such gusto that it sometimes seems he’s eating the glass. Both give me the traditional raised eyebrows and half-smile of greeting, then jerk their heads to point out Mr Roe.

  He’s sitting in a high-backed green chair in front of a fire that is only another log or two away from melting the horse brasses that hang from the mantelpiece. He’s got his head hanging over the back of the chair, mouth open, false teeth halfway out of his parted lips so that he gives off an air of alien. If it were a different time of year he would pass for a Halloween mannequin – a skeleton dressed in charity shop rags and laid out to scare the children. On the table in front of him, an empty glass, a smear of blood-red in the bottom.

  ‘Has he paid up?’ I ask, hurrying over to the bar. I don’t want to embarrass him. Nor do I want to wake him up and offer him a lift back to the house.

  ‘Oh he’s spent plenty,’ says Joy. ‘An impressive constitution, for an Englishman. He’s got another couple paid for, actually, if you want to give him a nudge.’

  I look at Denis in surprise. Judging by the state of him and the reports from Mr Paretsky, I’d have expected Joy to be about ready to sling him out on his ear.

  ‘Maybe he’s just allowing the equilibrium to settle a little,’ suggests Denis, looking at him. ‘Get his balance, then back on it.’

  ‘What’s he had?’

  ‘Everything,’ says Joy, with a touch of wonder. ‘Likes the red wines though. Bought a nice packet of slims off Budgie when he was in. Smokes them like cigarettes. Cloud coming off him like compost.’

  I give him a quick once-over. He’s dead to the world. No trouble to anybody. I’m here now. The kids are home and safe and I’ve got a small window of opportunity: a chance to just be me. Hell, this was where I was going to be meeting Bishop anyway, so I’m not taking more than my allotted amount of “me” time.

  Bishop, I think, and my heart sinks. I’ve messed it up – I know it. I haven’t even worked out how I feel about him and already I’ve managed to cause him emotional harm. Then again, was there any need for the drama? He’d been such a diva the way he spoke on the phone, as if he was holding on to a secret of international importance. I’ve got no time for that – not with three kids and not having spent a lifetime listening to the bullshit stories of a serial liar. I would like to know he’s okay, that’s all. We could be friends, maybe. Friends, or something like it…

  ‘Checking up, are you?’

  I swear I never heard him move. One moment he was across the wooden floor, half-dead in the leather chair: the next he was right by my ear, whispering – so close to me I could feel his lower lip brush the tiny, delicate peach-fuzz on my earlobe. Mr Roe.

  ‘Bloody hell, you scared the shite out of me!’ I say, unable to help it. I put my hand on my chest like an old lady having an attack of the vapours. He gives me that smile: the one that doesn’t make any attempt to reach the eyes. He smells of the log fire, of crushed fruit and damp clothes. I can see down the neck of his shirt and the tracery of purple veins on his chest makes me think of old maps.

  ‘I’ll have you down as a half-of-lager kind of girl,’ he says, without apology. ‘Maybe a splash of lime.’

  I can’t help but be impressed. ‘Party trick, is it?’

  ‘Some people can do star signs – I can guess alcoholic beverage of preference. Served me well. Nobody ever gets me right in return.’

  ‘Anybody guess methylated spirit and grapefruit juice?’ asks Denis, grinning. He’s big enough not to have to watch his mouth.

  ‘Eeh, you’re a funny fucker,’ says Mr Roe. ‘Soon as I saw you I started laughing.

  ‘Glass of the nice port for me please, Joy. Half of lager with a dash of lime for my hostess. Something with spit in for Denis here. And one for yourself.’

  Joy starts pulling drinks and I feel Mr Roe’s eyes on me. He’s not lecherous, not that. I don’t know if he’d respond with some romantic overture if I was stood there stark naked. But there’s such an intensity to him. Some people undress you with their eyes. Well he’s peeling my skin off. I’m almost grateful to look up and see Denis being predictably pervy, trying to see down my top and giving the pursed-lip nod of appreciation.

  ‘You still seeing that gobshite?’ asks Denis, draining one pint and tapping the glass to show it’s ready for replenishment. ‘Gold teeth. Living down by the ferry port…’

  I don’t know how to answer so I try to say nothing that can be misconstrued. ‘Taking it slowly. We’re both busy people.’

  ‘That fella of yours,’ says Joy, putting the drinks down on the bar and shaking her head at the madness of it all. ‘Prize prat if you ask me. Doesn’t matter what he’s got now, he’ll regret it. The blow jobs and breakfasts-in-bed don’t last forever. Something wrong with men, isn’t there? Just dogs, really. A blast of pheromone or a flash of lifted tail and they’re off. I swear, the only difference between a thirteen-year-old boy and a fifty-year-old man is that the lad doesn’t need Viagra to be a wanker.’

  I sip from my glass, cheeks turning crimson. I press them to the cold surface of the glass and have to resist giving a great orgasmic sigh of pleasure.

  ‘That the chap who barged your daughter?’ asks Mr Roe. He wrinkles his nose, thoroughly unimpressed. ‘Looks like somebody from the fair? You been seeing him, have you?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I say, and suddenly wonder what I’m doing here, drinking with a relative stranger and having my private life dissected.

  ‘You could do better,’ he says, and downs his port in one go.

  ‘That’s sweet,’ I say, hoping that’s the end of it, and that there won’t be some sort of elaborate come-on routine to follow.

  ‘No it’s not. It’s the truth. You’re a seven, he’s a five, at best.’

  I look at him wondering whether to be pleased or offended. My instinct is offence, but I can’t help thinking that a seven is way above average. ‘What are you then?’ I ask.

  ‘Me? I’m in minus numbers, love. I didn’t always look quite so chewed but if you’re judging me on how I look at this juncture in my life, then put it this way – I wouldn’t even win any beauty contests on Leper Island.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh on yourself,’ says Denis, looking a bit taken aback by the level of self-loathing. ‘You’re all right. A bit knackered-looking but you’re no spring chicken and you might have been ill.’

  ‘Barrel of laughs this one,’ says Roe, nodding at Denis. He taps his glass. Waits for Joy to refill it. ‘Come back, has he? Your Bishop?’

  ‘No,’ I say, and the realisation makes me unexpectedly sombre in tone. ‘I think it’s probably over with. He wanted to talk to me and I kept cutting him off, but we were a bit of a non-starter to begin with. I mean, I don’t know if I’m ready, and the kids are confused enough without having to work out what to call this strange man who could be sleeping in Mummy’s bed, and then there’s Lilly…’

  ‘Can I stop you there?’ asks Roe, putting his hand up. I stop talking, waiting for him to interject with some valuable point. Instead, he starts scrutinising the grime pressed into the welts and whirls across the back of his hand.

  ‘Yes?’ I ask, impatiently.

  He looks confused. ‘Oh right,’ he says, as something hits him. ‘No, no, I just wanted to stop you. It’s very dull.’

  Beside him, Denis sniggers, in a rather immature but largely harmless way. Joy elongates a vowel that implies Roe is a very cheeky monkey. And I find myself smiling and giving him a shove in the arm. He doesn’t go over as easily as I would have thought. For all that he doesn’t weigh very much, the fra
mework he’s built around is hard as iron. He’s made of hammers and wire: a skin of disintegrating flesh stretched taut over the scaffold.

  ‘Can I take it that you’ve knocked the wildlife photography on the head?’ I ask, and notice with some sadness that I’m almost at the bottom of my glass.

  ‘Found a much more fitting pastime,’ he says, and I can see him scanning the spirits behind the bar. He selects a local whisky and requests a double, with one piece of ice. He pays for it with a Scottish note, which serves as a currency in more way than one. Any Englishman willing to go to the trouble of filling their wallet with Scottish notes is guaranteed a warmer welcome at the till than those who don’t.

  ‘So will you be heading home soon?’ I ask, and I rather hope he won’t be. There’s something vital about Mr Roe, an air of anxiety and controlled aggression, as if every molecule in his body were a single angry wasp. I find myself keen to know more about him.

  ‘You can give him a bell, if you like,’ says Roe, nonchalantly, sliding his phone across the bar-top to where I’m standing, trying to make my last sip of lager-and-lime last.

  ‘No, it’s fine – I’ve got my own phone anyway…’

  ‘No you haven’t,’ he says, flatly, and I instinctively pat the back pocket of my jeans. It’s there, safe and sound, and he allows himself a little smile as if he’s been very clever. He stretches, his shirt riding up to reveal a jaundiced, surgery-scarred gut, yellowed and bloated like a dead fish. ‘Put your eyes back in your head. I’m not a piece of meat,’ he says, and downs his whisky in one go. ‘There’s a length of intestine that used to live in there,’ he says, jabbing at his stomach. ‘Wasn’t pulling its weight. Had to go.’

  I give him the look I give the kids when they tell me they’ve been left out by the other kids in some playground game. I check his eyes for signs of sadness or self-pity. I see none. He doesn’t look like he’s been drinking all afternoon either. If anything, he looks more clear-eyed and focused now than he did when he was trying to snatch a picture of an otter basking on a rock.

  ‘What job is it that you’re retired from?’ I ask, trying to show an interest. In my experience, no man is capable of resisting the urge to talk about himself at length.

  ‘Copper, are you?’ he asks, closing one eye. ‘Very boring, me, love. Shipping clerk. Took redundancy when my health took a turn. Not a bad payout, and the insurance was better than I thought as well. Could live for years on it. Trouble is, I’ve got nowt to do with myself except for this.’ He waves his empty glass at the bakingly hot bar. ‘Maybe I’ll write my memoirs, eh?’

  ‘You should. I sense you’ve had an interesting life.’

  ‘Too kind,’ he says, and as I watch, something seems to change in the way he holds himself. The blood seems to fall out of him in one great rush. One moment he’s an unhealthy yellowish pallor, and the next he’s an ugly pearlescent grey, like the belly of a dead fish. I see him reach out for the bar, his knuckles turning white as they curl, claw-like, around the brass handrail. Beads of sweat break out on his face. He looks as though he’s using every ounce of emotion to not cry out in pain.

  ‘Pocket,’ he whispers, teeth locked: Popeye without his pipe. ‘Top pocket.’

  I rummage in the pocket of his shirt. There’s a cigar butt and a small twist of foil. I pull out both and he hisses at me to open the wrap. Inside are two small white pills. He nods, quickly, and I push them both over his fleshy, fishy lips. He swallows, drily, and in moments the colour comes back to his skin. It’s still the wrong colour for a human, but it’s better than the godawful grey. He gives a nod of thanks. Behind him, Denis and Joy don’t appear to have noticed.

  ‘What was that?’ I ask, leaning in.

  ‘Punishment from on High,’ he says, and there’s a little snarl to the way he holds his mouth, as if daring the Almighty to hit him again. ‘He likes to test out his ideas on me – see how far He can push me. He’s getting pissed off. I’m not bending.’ He looks up, winking at the ceiling. ‘That all you got?’

  I realise that I’ve been gone longer than I intended and that I left Theresa literally holding the baby. The new guests need to be properly welcomed and Mr Paretsky ordered an evening meal. Despite it all, I want to stay here, in the bar, with Mr Roe.

  ‘Where did you meet, then?’ he asks, tapping the lager pump and nodding at me. Joy does as asked before I have a chance to object. He orders a Talisker for himself. Two pieces of ice this time.

  I feign indignation. ‘“I’ll stop you there,” you said. Moments ago!’

  ‘I’m being polite now, because you fed me my pills,’ he says, and I notice that as he speaks, the hinge of his jawbone seems to click. I’ve seen such injuries before. He’s had the jaw dislocated and then improperly set.

  I shrug, wishing it was a better story. ‘Kids and me were at the beach. Ardtoe. Lovely little bay once you get past the mountain. He was new to the peninsula and was exploring. We got chatting. Just friendly, because Callum had only just gone…’

  His face wrinkles at that. ‘Sorry love,’ he says, and seems to mean it. ‘You don’t have to talk about it…’

  ‘No, I’m okay. Too angry about it all to be upset. Gone off with another woman, hasn’t he? Well, I say “woman”. She’s one of those bright-eyed, empty-headed girls with the sparkly eyes and false eyelashes that men of thirty-nine go weak at the knees over. Turns out the chance to bang her twice daily for the next year or so is a better lifestyle than staying with me and his children. It’ll hurt eventually, but for now I’m just going to seethe.’

  He doesn’t reply. Looks into his glass as if it has the answers. Drinks it, just to be doubly sure.

  ‘Made mistakes myself,’ he says, quietly. ‘Got things wrong with a lot of lasses. Got things wrong with my kids. Just one long line of wrongness. Maybe that’s why I’m hard to kill, eh? Far more penance to do on Earth than there is waiting for me in Hell.’

  His words slip into me like ice water. I suddenly feel the waves of sadness and regret coming off him like malarial heat. I want to go home.

  ‘Maybe give that Bishop one more try, eh?’ he says, unexpectedly. ‘Men are pricks – you know that. Women are bitches, of course, but you’re prettier than us so it’s allowed. Maybe he let himself down today. If you like him, give it your all. I’ve only ever seen real love a couple of times but it seems worth striving for.’

  He stands up, quickly, almost knocking his chair over. Denis gives a little yelp of protest at having had his arm jostled, and Mr Roe turns on him, his whole being tensed to do violence. He’s all but vibrating with a wish to do harm. I don’t know if I want him to come back to the guest house. His words may have affected me but I think he might be genuinely unhinged.

  ‘No worries, boss,’ says Denis, smiling down into the deranged eyes of the small, much-older man. ‘Repay you for the drink, can I?’

  Mr Roe turns back to me, and the mania has entirely left his features. It’s eerie, as if he has taken off a mask. I feel a sudden urge to be with the people I love. Out of nowhere I find myself thinking of Callum. I see him curled up on the sofa in his little flat in Fort William, his arms around Kimmy, a bowl of popcorn on her lap, watching a black-and-white movie. I feel tears prick my eyes as I realise that what I miss most is the soft, unspoken intimacies of marriage. I miss having somebody to complain at; somebody I can tell about my curious aches and pains or who would listen, genuinely listen, as I outlined the pros and cons of the different colour choices for the downstairs bathroom. I suddenly miss him. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

  I do the sensible thing. Nod my thanks to Mr Roe, pull out my phone, and send a message.

  Bishop. I’m so sorry it all went to crap today. Been thinking about you. Please call me. I think I might be ready – if you are… xx

  I’ve barely had time to push open the door and step into the swirling rain when the reply pings through.

  I’m sorry too. Meet me tonight at nine - where we had our first kiss. I’ll bring
a blanket. I promise I’ll treat you right. xx

  6

  He’s twenty minutes late and I’m getting pissed off and cold and wishing I hadn’t gone to the bother of painting my toenails or shaving anything sensitive. It’s so dark outside that I can barely tell if I’ve got my eyes open or closed. I’ve dressed in a way that will be fine in company but which is bloody awkward when I’m sat shivering in the driving seat and tugging my skirt down far enough to try and at least keep the backs of my knees warm.

  I glance at the clock on the dashboard: 9.20pm; no, 9.21. I’m getting a bit miffed now. It’s a little scary too. I’m parked up in a little copse of woodland just off the main road, squished between the entrance to the big castle, and a little horseshoe bay. The mass of Glenborrodale is huddling in behind me; a big tidal wave of huge trunks and charcoal-coloured branches. If I switch the headlights on I can just about see the shimmering surface of the loch, but mostly I get to see my own reflection turned into a magic mirror by the wind and the rain. I can’t believe I booked a babysitter for this!

  Instantly I feel bad. What kind of mother am I? My “babysitter” is only just eighteen and her experience of looking after children involves keeping her own younger siblings from hurting themselves too badly while her mum and dad go for their biweekly night out. She’s heading off to university in the summer and is saving up. She’s getting thirty quid for tonight. All she has to do is keep an ear out for Lilly’s cries, and she isn’t likely to wake up after eating a massive plate of pasta bolognese for tea and then taking a double-dose of Junior Paracetamol. I don’t normally hold with drugging the children but apparently it’s still within recommended limits.

  And now I’m feeling like a fool. A silly girl. God how I hate that word. I’m thirty-seven and it still makes me feel like I’m about to get the backs of my legs slapped. It’s one of Callum’s favourites. He says it in a complimentary way a lot of the time: a rhapsody of “good girls” and “that’s my girls”: a certificate of achievement for every act that met with approval. I wonder if he says that to her. To Kimmy. I feel my mouth filling with spit at the very thought of her. I think back to the messages I saw on his phone. Scowl, in the darkness, as I remember the way he’d talked to her. I’d barely recognised him. He’d been bold; a proper take-charge guy, telling her what he wanted from her and how she had to act for him in return. You don’t argue with me, he’d said. You stay meek, or you’ll pay for it. You look at me like a dog looks at their master or it’s over, you understand…