Strange Hotel

by Eimear McBride

  Hmmm.

  Whenever she’s previously had to decide between thinking of the near or distant past, the near has generally been her first port of call. However, in this instance, it may be meet to dwell upon longer ago. Perhaps this even suggests clues being pieced together by her unconscious? She can’t deny she’d be happier with an incontestable conclusion about why tonight went so rapidly downhill. These things don’t tend to, usually, for her. Not anymore. And not to suggest that they are events which she meticulously orchestrates. Indeed, impulsivity is most often the guiding tool. But there is a rhythm to how these things go and tonight was not an exception – as far as she can tell. Until suddenly it was and there was no chance of a face-saving extrication for her. There was only what she said. To be fair, it was in response to what he had. She isn’t embarrassed. She did not overreact. She will stand by this, which does little to unpick the mysterious, deeper discomfort she seems to be experiencing now. Really though, she’s becoming impatient with how much time she is wasting on this.

  She should get to bed.

  She should get to sleep.

  She should get in out of this cold before she catches her death.

  She doesn’t move.

  She lights another cigarette and snatches another peer over the edge, in spite of her mock vertigo.

  Down with the rain to the sloping streets and further on to down the hills. Down to a river streaked with antique bridges and on from there down to the sea – perhaps via many other countries but this pan out of the journey is essentially the same. Trickling from a source to the rolling end. To far, far out and the no going back. She sees nothing down there but the sodden night. No one she knows crosses the cobbles the puddles hide. She wonders if the rain is turning to sleet? By herself, she still modestly pulls up her sheet. A sudden new light from behind casts her shadow out. His dreamt-of departure from the bathroom perhaps coming to pass – which is welcome news – but casts her outline monstrous onto the deserted streets of Prague. Does she jump or is she pushed? Neither. She knows this, as well as not to follow such an unhelpful line of thought. She shrinks back instead and the shadow shrinks too, until she is again more woman than ghoul. It was appropriate enough for this place though, she thinks; with its defenestrations and golems and pulverised Springs. And other occurrences, other visits, by others in other times. Less momentous in the world but it is the little things which make each life up in the end.

  What does she mean by that?

  It’s hard to explain even to the other half of her brain, which this half feels somewhat bound to fill in.

  So, have a think.

  Have a go at it like this:

  Sometimes she forgets all the places she’s been until someone asks and she’ll remember then. Then remember that what she’s been regarding as bedrock has, in fact, acquired sediment. No, she hadn’t been there once but now she has. The time for not knowing about it has passed, and often considerably, on. She likes to think this happens only about countries, allowing her to enjoy recalling that she has indeed travelled and is no longer the girl who’s never been anywhere. When this happens it’s a real, and valuable, pleasure but is also not the only occasion it happens to her. She keeps so little of her past bonded close that she frequently has cause for surprise. Here lies a whole slab of your life you’ve completely left out in the cold. Not on purpose, out of cowardice or shame. Not, in fact, for any good reason she can name. Except there was youth and then there was later but only youth got to dig its claws in.

  She’s sure there are many wise explanations for this. She has been offered them and explored them and she finds them lacking, to be frank.

  She’s heard it’s to do with ‘getting older’ or lines on the face, or greyer, or the hideous ‘thickening around the waist’. It’s about finding it harder to get pregnant – which she does not even want. It’s having too many children or not enough. Being with someone too long or too long without. It’s disparities in the workplace. Professional failure, or success. It is that despite everything, all that’s been accomplished and all that’s been missed and all the accretions of the life that’s been lived, for a woman in her early forties, unhappiness is what’s assumed to be in store. That, and the mandatory belief in a younger face behind her face which is the only place where the possibility of any happiness resides. She really admires the effort and co-ordination it surely required to make this belief as rottenly insidious as it is now. But she does not believe it and objects to the assumption she ever would.

  Then she hears him move into the room behind but thinks of the rain instead.

  Harder now. Pounding almost. Comfort in that, she thinks as she is often inclined. In childhood it was safety and being inside while the world went wild out there. These days it’s the washing off of histories past. The feet that have walked these streets. What weights they carried and, whatever they may have been, how those lives have vanished. Some from sight. Some from mind. So many even from the genetic sludge of mankind and yet once they were as she now is. Looking where she looks. Waiting for events. And were disappointed or were impressed or just became distracted by something else and failed to see any of it at all. She could, if she wanted, imagine so much. She could remember who exactly she’s thinking of, who came to this city long ago. She could put herself in his place and draw a good guess at his impressions of it back then. She could pluck them right out of thin air. She has so much information stored within her. So many apertures in memory through which to see. Uselessly now, she supposes, except for fantasies like this, which serve no good purpose beyond causing upset. Being younger would be no remedy for this. Being older might.

  But who does she think she kids with this stuff? She should know better. She is old enough.

  And she does.

  So, she turns aside from this noxious recreating of the past. And, to cut the air supply off, refuses to specifically locate that thought in the when or who. She’ll simply say instead that she could. She could conjure those things up – as anyone with imagination and willing might. However, she has neither the desire nor impetus for it. She prefers to move forward, on to the next and the next thing is: is that the wind getting up? Howling a bit, like it knows to distract? Remember how he used to stoop against it? This extra rumination she stops dead in its tracks.

  Is it possible you have somehow not heard myself speak?

  To be clear then, enough of this.

  Uncooperative though, it continues to maraud and assert its vague right to be heard. Think of. Think of. No I will not. And, unwilling for her own brain to leave her outfoxed, she peers into the weather again. It is stormy and effectively diverting.

  Then more activity-indicative sounds issue from within. The uncooperative portion of her night is surely done. She will not turn, in order to avoid further exchange but she is grateful to now be thinking about this which, although awkward in the extreme, is greatly preferable.

  So then, evaluation, stake your claim.

  It takes a moment to formulate its question but gets there in the end.

  What is there to be learned from tonight’s miscarriage of fun? Well, Doctor, it is a thorny one. She thinks she was as explicit as she could’ve been from the earliest on so she cannot attribute it to a lack of communication. He’d seemed bright enough not to arrive with any inexplicable assumptions and, initially, gave no indication he had. As far as she’s concerned, the first stage was fine. Both bodies performed exactly as planned. In fact, in every way as well as she’d hoped. He had also seemed happy enough. It was only afterwards things took a turn for the worse. She hadn’t intended to hurt his feelings. To be honest, she’s not even sure if she has. Well, obvious interpretations of knitted brows and the snatching-up of discarded clothing aside, how could she be? She is also without inclination to press. She has absolutely no interest in violating what is private, his feelings are his business alone. She just wishes he hadn’t presumed she possessed quite so many of her own. She has some, naturally, but spread
thinly around – with few kept available for these kinds of encounters. She is even having some now. She will admit to feeling bad for implying his sole purpose was to be conducive to sleep. Of course! She understands no one likes to think themselves a sedative and she certainly hadn’t found the physical exchange soporific but … in the shadowy longer term … why else did he think he was there? That this was the start of a beautiful friendship? Actually, she’s annoyed he hadn’t read the situation with more care. There was no need for this peculiar turn of events. She could now be in her warm bed, half fallen asleep instead of freezing outside on this balcony, smoking like a chimney, damp from the rain, looking over the edge. No.

  She is not doing that again.

  She is thinking about what he said.

  The madness of it. I mean, who starts all that with a one-night stand – and she will not accept he hadn’t grasped the nature of their exchange. Realistically how else did he think she would respond? Answer yes then spill her guts? To him? The man she was already looking forward to making himself scarce? She never would. She is not that woman. Are you mad? And even if he had been right? But how on earth could he be? An hour spent rolling in the hay hardly opens a gateway to the realms of another’s soul. Yes, now that she thinks of it ‘I think you’d better go. I’m pretty tired, so you can consider your job well done’ really was the only option. Not her most eloquent moment but there it is. It’s not like she’d been preparing for it. He said what he said. She replied as she had. He had taken it badly – the aforementioned knit brows and shirt grabbed. Exit stage left – pursued by his huff – into the bathroom. She took a moment and then came out here. Perhaps he’d thought empathy was what she was after? Or sympathy? She can’t imagine anything more unappealing. Who cares if she’d cried unexpectedly? People do. It was unconnected to him and all that had taken place in that room. It was nothing. Definitely nothing to him. An inane reaction to something she had no business thinking. She wishes he’d go so she could get in the bath.

  Then speak of the devil.

  There it is.

  Click!

  The door behind.

  Unmistakeably it.

  Ficus, farewell!

  Not a moment too soon.

  And she is …

  Alone again.

  And she thinks

  Thank God.

  Edinburgh x

  Portarlington

  Dublin

  Aldeburgh

  Ubud x

  Cheltenham

  Calgary

  Vancouver x

  San Francisco x

  Seattle

  Austin x

  Washington DC

  Boston

  Toronto

  New York

  Sizewell

  Swansea

  Belfast

  Pulford

  Delhi

  Jaipur

  Agra

  Birmingham

  Wolverhampton

  Amsterdam

  Antwerp

  Oslo x

  Is it any light or the quality of light? she thinks, as though she is alone. As though she has hours free to contemplate this: dawn shards lengthily puncturing an ill-fitting pelmet, striating almost all the way down. Birds like beams descend the velveteen fawn? She’s already regretting the prose this is bringing to mind so why further delay herself over the inadvertent aesthetic when she ought to have already gone? Could she not, and with considerably more ease, ponder similar refractions to these every bit as well in her room? While it’s true that in former times she would have laid a plan – a step-by-step to up and going – in those old times, she’d have needed the prompting. In these times, she does not. She has practised to perfect, or so she’d thought. Has she now somehow developed a lag in her multi-disciplinary approach? Perhaps. A little. Nothing of any great significance, she thinks. After all, her resolve to leave is genuine enough, it’s merely the utter necessity which remains in doubt … which, perhaps, it always had? No, she does not accept that. She hooks the eye at her throat, smooths her collar flat, then makes within herself the usual argument of custom and expectation, and these remain airtight. Nevertheless, disquiet proliferates, unexpectedly. Also needlessly, she’s still inclined to suspect. She’s not so fool as to misinterpret her impulse to vanish as an obligation to life and limb. However anomalous this situation has become, her long-pragmatised intuition suggests nothing untoward would happen were she to remain exactly where she is. Indeed, should she prefer to, she thinks she could – and under no particular duress to even appear circumspect – take all the time she needs. Leisure is ever, and entirely, preferable to rush. But it does beg the question, of course: for what is she taking the time? Therefore, given the incontestable fact that she already is, she decides she may as well stay put and, albeit briefly, unravel it now.

  So.

  Theory One: she indulges in procrastination in order to take time to dress.

  This is plausible, yes, except she already is. She’s even had the time to assess the degree of wrinkling to her skirt. And, although not particularly agitated by such things, she’s gauged the height of the run in her stocking sufficient to evade even the most inquisitive eye. There was no fast and loose of knickers strewn, brassieres strung from the lampshade or concealed within the night’s miasma of ‘we got naked quick’. They hadn’t, so not at all. Each item was straightforwardly to hand – for instance, both of her shoes – and slipped on. Despite the dark, and lack of mirror, her hair has received a reasonably comprehensive comb. The tiny buttons on the front of her shirt are all fastened – the aforementioned, fiddly eye as well. She can see her bag lying within reach by the door. Her coat, it is to be expected, hangs somewhere in that general vicinity too. She’d forgotten her gloves back in her room which, at any rate, had proved to be the instigator of the events of the evening and are, therefore, of no concern. So, it would seem the inventory for her proposed exodus is complete. Her worldly possessions have been accounted for. Also, her appearance – as much as possible given the circumstance – and yet, despite the complete absence of any quantifiable hindrance, she is still here. Therefore, she must apparently concede she’s not dawdling in order to groom or dress. This hardly comes as a shock. She knew already it was a long shot upon which she’ll now have to improve.

  So, if you’re sitting comfortably – and why ever might that be? – she perseveres.

  Theory Two: she is taking this long to leave in order to give herself time to think.

  This is obviously the next place to go but, in reality, requires a clarification further: give herself the time to think about what? Whether it was light and which type woke her up? True it catches the eye, like it can in the north, but she clearly remembers waking up in the dark with no thoughts on the style of the dawn. Besides, it’s only in these last few moments that the light’s begun to make itself known. So, while she’s quite prepared to admit its appeal and much as she could sit and admire, its lanceolar fingers only inspire trivialities she’s pondered before – musings on how the winters further up must be hard. Questions about what practicalities are required to endure in such cold. Thoughts on the psychological consequences of life without sun and its looming prospect in the preceding months. And, most obviously, uninformed assumptions about the Nordic interaction with alcohol. Nothing outlandish or especially prescient then; besides, it’s not even winter yet. Perhaps, with some latitude, it might be possible to link these unlively reflections on climatic conditions to a nostalgia for the rained skies of home? No, her instinct swiftly knows, no, it’s really not, no. Therefore, it does seem unlikely that these speculations on the annual Norwegian eclipse – however mundane or philosophic – could have provoked her to this idling here. Which, in turn, means it’s time to go another round.

  So.

  Theory Three: she is idling because of what transpired in here last night.

  A PhD in human interactivity isn’t required to identify the nature of what passed. A far more relevant question w
ould be, perhaps, why would she procrastinate over that? As a physical event it’s hardly a rank outlier on the continuum of cause and effect. The paths of people uninterested in mess occasionally, anonymously, intersect, then frequently painlessly, re-separate with neither party suffered to lick up any scraps or tend another’s wounds. She’s well aware it sounds odd to phrase it like that and that alternative interpretations abound. However, she’s as ambivalent about those as the activity itself, as well as popular convictions about that activity’s afterlife. Her living after has always been perfectly fine. And yet she remains. She remains in this room, as though immobilised by comfort. But this is an old bed. Laziness? Unlikely, as it’s now taking more effort to languish in vacillation than go. Fear? Certainly not that. A single pang originating from there she would instantly spot and know too much about to ignore. There must be another question then, even if her interrogative thoroughness has failed to establish it yet. Perhaps she has just succumbed to an exercise in pedantry and is allowing it to get in the way? Well, maybe … why not?

  So then, in pursuit of this.

  Theory Four: She somehow thinks that language will see her through.

  Not actual talk so much as a good old linguistic knot. Punctuation, sentence structure, etc. Like everyone else she was reared to rely on that empire upon which the sun, supposedly, never set. Send those good constructions out to war and then, from your lovely grammatical afar, watch them mown down by the whim of the world. From afar as possible being the emphasis – keeping words as far as possible from the scent of blood and guts. Building cathedrals around them to mask it. Sometimes digging moats. Plus, there’s more camaraderie in clever construction than chaos; that’s a road which must be always walked alone. She learned all of those lessons, of course she did, but ultimately could not help herself. All the words filled up with blood and moved around as though entitled to motion so she gave them the freedom of her brain. And they went running in loops and running out of arrangement or simply running until their running was done. Until they were so dissipated, or so tightly wound, that they ceased to mean anything more to her. The trick was knowing when to stop. The trick was knowing how much others could take. And then she got tired of the trick. And then she saw others using sub-standard versions of it. And then she realised that didn’t really count. And then she knew she’d have to find other configurations somehow. Why is the world always such work? It’s harder to let the words into her body now or, maybe, out. They used to form and re-form themselves in order to dole out whatever she had in mind, whatever the meanings her body inclined to make them make. Now, they barely carry meaning beyond the literal wattle and daub. This does, occasionally, make her wistful for the savagery of before when, beholden to no one, the words did whatever they pleased. She wouldn’t mind going back to that. But there is no going back and, she suspects, the price of regaining access is one she’d now be unwilling to pay. The sight, sound, taste and smell of it all grew too much. Originally, she’d thought this was just for a while but it had become, in the aftermath of turbulent times, her preferred manner in which to proceed. Thinking her way carefully around every instant. Grammatically and logically constructing it. Even now, she can hear herself doing it. Lining words up against words, then clause against clause until an agreeable distance has been reached from the initial, unmanageable impulse which first set them all in train. She’s doing it now, and now, and now, and now, and it will continue, she’s certain, unto the horizon and then, indeed, beyond. Frankly, she finds it exhausting, interrogating her own interrogation. But the satisfaction she derives from her own infuriation seems to have become irresistible. The useless precision of this exasperating thought inclines her to sigh out loudly, self-impatiently, but she is mindful to not. Especially as she begins to perceive light sounds of a stirring emanating from the bed. She does not turn to check, instead braces for a trespass on her silence.