Strange Hotel

by Eimear McBride

  Listowel

  Borris

  Cork

  Dublin

  Galway

  Prague

  There are more cobbles down there than you could ever wish for, she thinks, no wonder defenestration was a thing. She has no doubt, if each could speak, their mouths would yawn fantastic with history. But, in truth, hers is a beggared interest. Missives from antiquity are not why she’s here and, if more rigorous motives yet remain unclear, she is at peace with that. She can be, and can choose to be, in any given place. Furthermore, she’s a grown woman and no body exists to which she must report back on every instant. Too much already of that though. Far too much, she thinks, her scorn rising at the redundant aegis of her instincts. All she really wants is the dark behind her eyes and perhaps for the rain to relent.

  Unfortunately, with neither appearing imminent, in the short term she must take solace in her cigarette. In with pleasure, out with smoke – if not exactly how the saying goes, illustrative, certainly. In the medium term she may contemplate those cobblestones unfurling across the ways and alleys for as far as she can see. And, from the well-placed height she is, she can see quite far. She plans to remain in the short and medium term as long as she can because if there is a longer term it would be news to her. That said, she’d welcome any indication of its presence, intimating – as it surely would – some part of her knows something of what she does. But unedified by this insight, she attempts to shake it off – while still maintaining some appreciation that it is most likely true.

  True too however, and equally so, is that the tiny balcony she finds herself outside on now is almost open to the elements. She hadn’t bargained on that before stepping out. Glass panels, she’d assumed, secured all within from without. They form window walls on either side, pressed into the concrete and, to be sure, ivied but seemingly sturdy enough. Only a lip at the front edge though where panes must have been. Where have they dis appeared off to then? Might they have fallen out, causing chaos on the streets and making the city dream again of Hussites or Catholics? More prosaically, they’ve probably been taken in for repair. Negligent, she thinks, allowing guests access out here when, between the inner sliding door and eternity, there’s little more than a thin brass rail. Had she known this was the state of play, she’d have certainly stayed in. Careless of her not to check, especially with the heavens already disgorging themselves all over everywhere. On reflection, that solitary, canker-black ficus should have given her pause. But then who in this climate tries to grow one of those outdoors? Realistically, if she’d noticed, she’d probably have blamed the fag ends in its pot. The verdigrised rail should have also prompted some thoughts but … No matter now, any of this, as her bare back shivers in the starched solid sheet which her fingers entangle as rope. She should really go in and get a few clothes on or, at least, step back from the looming inundation pattering down, a hair’s breadth from her nose. That is all quite right and she should do that. Take either option, or both, if she feels like it.

  She hesitates instead.

  She would rather be by herself and inside there’s still render in the air so it won’t feel like it yet. And also, she’s not. Although, maybe she is? Perhaps he’s gone? She doesn’t really think he has and knows even pretending it casts an unflattering light on her ability to assess. Only the most delusional hope imagines it could go either way. Still, pursuing it she recreates the sound of him coming out of her bathroom and then of her door clicking closed somewhere behind. Realistically of course, this could be sourced from anywhere, any time. She possesses no ear for the variation of such mechanisms, of either the domestic or international kind. This becomes doubly vexatious once she factors in Time – which she always must because it keeps her at its whim whenever she is not taking charge. So, click! She hears it. But now or then? Far back or of late? Real? Or a manifestation of some demeaning need, transposing itself, having a laugh at her expense? She knows Time delights in wasting her portion of it, but also that she doesn’t have to concede. This is a lesson she has already learned, well.

  Well, well.

  But how to get from here to making it happen, getting him gone?

  Might it help to simply put her foot down?

  It might, but she suspects it won’t.

  In her role of the least resistant, she has made herself strong. There can be scenes after all, or there can just be done. She has developed a marked preference for that. Also, logic decrees that whichever way she might act he can’t be too much longer now – and where there’s already awkwardness aplenty there’s never any call to prolong the agony. But, in case he proves sluggish she’ll linger here, killing time with the lie that it’s not to avoid him, it’s simply to double-check. As she has just said, there’s nothing to be gained by the gratuitous exacerbation of pressure. How glad she is to have also learned this lesson. For despite it being one she still on occasion forgets, she will not do so tonight. She is ahead of herself. Until she is alone, or certain she is, she will tolerate the Czech damp and listen out for his progress through the rain against the glass. Not pitter-patter now. More cats and dogs. And with a veritable howl beginning to get up, hammer and tongs before long, she expects. Most definitely audible everywhere. Most definitely audible to him.

  Really?

  Yes.

  This hotel is old and not particularly spacious. He can certainly hear the rain.

  She calmly envisages his reaction from inside that pokey bathroom. She hopes it will spur him to speedier action. How long can it take to put on pants anyway? She doesn’t seem to recall anything conspicuously complex about them. Of course, at the time they hadn’t exactly been the subject of her diligent examination. Why would they though or could they have been? Nonetheless, she dredges from the back of her mind … a button fly … and he did have a belt but, again, nothing complicated. So …

  She really wishes he would hurry up.

  In order to do that though, she must first admit the wishful thinking of which she has been guilty. There is absolutely no way she really heard that room door click. He is still in there, doing whatever it is he is. Therefore she, in her abject cowardice – speedily reframed as an all-absorbing female patience – is obliged to abide where she is. Waiting. Listening. She will, doubtless, soon arrive at the self-justifying. She possesses a genuine horror of her propensity for that but, having rebuffed its earlier attack, is somewhat more confident of turning its advances aside. She is pleased with this idea – and despite the reactiveness it suggests – encourages further mutations of it. Yes, perhaps she should face the situation head on? Go inside and draw his attention to the incipient torrent? Not to insist he hurry, merely to chivvy him along. Maybe suggest, if he’s quick, he might still get home before the very worst of it hits? This is based on the assumption, of course, that he lives in the vicinity. It’s also made without any underlying acquaintance with his situation re transport, accommodation or preferred exit etiquette. That said, isn’t this generally how assumptions work? A quick extrapolation made for the purposes of suiting yourself? See? See that? She can make them too. Him not actually being here to take receipt of them though makes it an empty sort-of triumphalism for her and its sole ricochet remains in her head.

  Anyway.

  Whenever he goes, and wherever he may live, she truly hopes he will manage it. Getting soaked would probably prove his back-breaking straw of the night and in the street, trees are shivering now with every indication he might.

  Unless, of course, he has actually gone.

  Her heart rises again to a hope which, in a moment, her good sense will destroy. But in this brief return to the friendly shores of self-deceit, she tells herself that if she looks over the balcony, she might see him come out down there. Even taking the hotel lift’s inefficiency into account, it would not be too much longer now – as long as the click she has clearly invented were real. And if he were not to stop, say, for a snack or light meal at the insalubrious restaurant below. Assuming too he is not
the kind of man for whom hotel bars prove irresistibly attractive, which he may well be. She doesn’t know him sufficiently to more than speculate. But as this night is generally inching her towards placing unsafe bets, she decides she will.

  So, she steps a little closer to the edge and searches for his familiar figure down there. As a stranger herself she does not expect to recognise any other than his. Windows. Coving. Cobbled streets. The awning gets in the way but the lighting helps. There’s not much to-ing and fro-ing either because of the deluge. So, for those inclined to look there are no real deterrents to sight. Provided he leaves via the front entrance he should be easy to spot. And why wouldn’t he? It’s the quickest way out. She’d use it if she were him – that she isn’t has already been established so is tiresome to reiterate. Could that be? Under the umbrella? No … it’s not. That’s some other man – probably the staunchly leaving sort. Hers wouldn’t ferry about a collapsible umbrella, she hypothesises but, again, how could she possibly know? He might be extremely practical, or meticulous about his clothes or delicately constituted. On repeat now: how would she know? His body was certainly very slim. Of the wiry variety however, she’d reckoned – rather than indicative of any lack of robustness, physically. But, even if you want to know, you can’t be sure – and she hadn’t wanted to know – because you can’t ever know what’s going on inside a body, even your own. What might be holding up well or going wrong. At least until after, and then you might think, ‘Actually that probably shouldn’t have been quite so unforeseen.’ But it’s rare for people to think those things, she thinks. She definitely hadn’t been thinking them about him. Plus, those kinds of thoughts have a tendency to become time-consuming especially, having always liked them tall, and tall men frequently suffering from What if she went over the railing right now, how long would it take her to fall? Would it even be high enough? Another thing about which it’s quite hard to be accurate, especially when unfamiliar with the necessary statistics Stop.

  But hadn’t the defenestrated regents survived?

  Oh yes.

  Still, stop.

  Really stop.

  She does.

  She fractures the thought.

  She reverses her step forward to back.

  It’s an act of wanton precaution. She knows that but decides on it anyway.

  Then she starts to collect her preferable thoughts and ensure the favoured part of her brain is in condition to commence their process. It seems to be. Therefore, she can begin.

  Looking down is never a good idea. She knows this to be an objective fact. If there had been glass in there it would have been fine and not that she suffers from a fear of heights but … Nevertheless, history suggests, in the interval between those cobbles and her balcony rail, she would more than likely see some abyss, some great maw, opening up. She has before so she will, or may, and this knowledge is so old as to be entirely unnote worthy now. It’s the reason why she lately states a ground-floor room to be her preference, wherever possible. And tonight, it not being so, should have placed her on her guard. She has been imprudent and that’s undeniable. Still, no harm done. Although she finds herself again in the disappointing midst of this, she need only set back the hands of her clock to a state of stringent anti-alarm.

  Besides, it’s no longer a matter of an impulse towards jumping. Nowadays it’s much more about falling, an awareness of how falling might be. Not aided, she notes, by how this particular balcony, lacking some windows, stands wide open floor to ceiling – the laughably surmountable rail aside. See? The devil is in the detail and, on noticing this, she cannot help but estimate there is enough space through which a body could be easily propelled, if a body wanted to go. Naturally, her body doesn’t want to do that. However, it apparently draws comfort from thinking about it. Which is a very bad habit. She thought she’d gotten rid of that ages ago. And, to bolster this notion, immediately decides that so indeed she has. This infelicitous relapse – if she will even term it as such – is of a different variety. This she would describe as if she has, inadvertently, permitted herself to think that just beyond as far as she can see, a darkness lies which is really a nothing and falling into it might become suddenly … viable.

  Well now.

  Alright then.

  That’s been said.

  She’s always been suspicious of her dramatic tendencies but surely this beats all.

  And if, in the unlikely event, the notion of this ‘darkness’ is true? Although how could it be? Even with her view impaired by the now lashing rain, her eyes persist in still seeing something for ‘as far as she can see’ – making Prague’s spires worth their weight in gold this evening. Furthermore, one may fall off an object but not off a city and … where is she finding all this? She should be scrubbing it off not pursuing. Not permitting it to unfold and feeding it oxygen. She knows all that but in the lower depths, she thinks, ‘Really, how would it really be?’ What? To fall off into nothing. To take, in full knowledge, the step. But her shallows, coming to her rescue, ride in with their traditional counter attack. They rebuke her for the melodrama she continues to generate – ridiculously. Yes, they say, ‘ridiculously’ is the only word. Falling off into nothing? Whoever has cause to ask a question like that? Falling off into nothing is most probably like absolutely nothing at all. You need know no more as there’s no more to know. We’ll say nothing else on the matter and neither will you. Recognising a good point when she hears one, yes, she stubs out her cigarette. Ha!

  And even if she did say more – which she will not – it would merely be to observe that too late, too late then would be the cry of all that excess of emotion, just as now. What’s the purpose of reiterating this to herself anyhow? As though she’s not already, and evidently, outlived her use for feeling. Fun while it lasts, of course, like every permutation of sex – and why must she, with such frequent vulgarity, return to that? – but ultimately an overindulgence which she has strictly forbidden herself.

  Better that.

  Firmer ground.

  She likes herself callous.

  She pulls the sheet tight, finding pleasure in the discomfort of watching her fingertips turn white. She will not keep on till they’re blue. She won’t choke the life from them. They are useful. However, given the word ‘pleasure’ was there, feeling is once again implied. Purely of the physical sort though she would claim and physical feeling is completely fine. Apparently. How come? ‘That … that … that,’ she says, ‘is entirely different.’ Physical feeling is not just in her head. Is not just a given manner of processing experience. It is life itself and without which there is none. Which is, in fact, a simplistic invention but she is beginning to think the time for this digression is up. She should really be getting off this subject. In order to, she recalls that, after previous glitches of this type, she just went forward and that was the point. Eventually. No. Willingly. She was willing to go forward. She always is. Is that so? Again, she thinks: let’s change the subject. How did I ever manage to arrive at this? Dead pot plants, absent windows and rain and imagining that man going out into it and the shape of his body and the past and …

  Well, whatever trail of breadcrumbs led up this path, it was extremely stupid and without any purpose and either way doesn’t really matter now and she had just … better recall …

  No.

  No.

  Something else.

  She’s better off having no truck with these inverted chats. Why does she start into them anyway? Perhaps this is the self-justifying phase and she has fallen, accidentally, in?

  Very possibly.

  Well then.

  She had better get out.

  She is at the mercy of nothing, she reminds herself. Everything, everything lies where it lay. She can prob ably even work up a rational explanation for that one irrational thought, or was it two? Aren’t ‘How long would it take her to fall?’ and ‘Would it even be high enough?’ in fact separate? Really, they’re two sides of the same question. But, best leave
the pedants to argue the difference. There must be something more productive she can do? In a bid then to resurrect this to something from nil, she dredges up the wiles of vertigo. And she considers this is a completely reasonable place to go in a mind that’s just given itself a fright.

  But then.

  Even that …

  What?

  Vertigo has its own rules for debate.

  For instance: is vertigo the fear of heights or the fear of an irresistible desire to jump? Or both? Or neither? She should know. She certainly did. She explicitly remembers explaining it once to a child, for an essay, for school. So, she presumes she must have known. Perhaps she just absent-mindedly looked it up – which would explain its seeming irretrievability now. But she’s fairly sure she would not have told that child an untruth. A lie of omission is possible, of course, but that would have been at the worst.

  Ah.

  Do this or not?

  The worst may be unpalatable but must remain on the table because … well … when all’s said and done … it may not have been the best time for thinking about them; heights or falls. Even now, so much later, she should have known to show greater circumspection near that ledge. However, if the truth is – as she’s just insisted is the case – that everything still lies where it lay, that the past is immobile and can never be resuscitated, she’s at liberty to think about it as much as she likes. She doesn’t imagine she will but, were she so inclined, she might admit that the thought of a jump had occurred to her most days, for maybe a year and a half – the thought that she could, or that she even might. Not to mention randomly calculating the height of whatever building caught her eye. No, not to mention that. But, actually, now that it’s too late not to think about it, every day would be more accurate. And on some days, every hour. Some hours, every minute. And really, for two years or more.

  But that’s a long time away now. That’s a very long time in the past and, being a differently constituted ‘long’ to, say, that of distance, it possesses no automatic right to be seen. And yes, she is aware this has become a cumbersome theme – which does not sit well with her stern rejection of self-justifying tendencies. I suppose, she thinks, sometimes you just make a mistake and sometimes this branches into branches until you’re so far away that you have no idea how to get back. In this assessment she can agree with herself, apart from the part which she can’t. This is the part which knows, and knew, she always had to decide what was next.