‘They’re not bad, are they? Did you buy them with your own money?’
She shrugged. ‘They’re grapes.’ A woman walked by in excellent boots.
‘Any nuts?’
‘No way. Is there healthy stuff you need?’
‘I’d be interested in receiving some HP Sauce, Frey. Really interested. The food here could do, between you and me, with … something.’
‘Brown sauce is quite vinegary. You’d be better off eating the hospital food on its own, and then snacking on fruit or whatever.’
‘Vinegar is not the reason I’m in here,’ he said. ‘Vinegar is innocent.’ He plucked another grape and inspected it sadly, as if somewhere, engraved on its thin shiny skin, were the secrets to a healthy life. ‘Make sure you don’t take on any extra shifts. Really, you don’t even need to do your own shifts. Everyone would understand.’
‘Act normal, you said.’
‘I’ve been telling Marina to run the show. And maybe our esteemed General Manager will also show his face. Is he still on the jam-tasting trip to Yorkshire? He really is winding down. Happens when people are on their way out.’
‘I think he’s doing that training series at the other hotels. Then New York to make links with the high-end travel agents there, is what John said.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah.’
‘New York.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe we should move back there, Frey.’
‘Maybe you should stop smoking,’ she said.
He chewed. ‘I’ll be out of here in a few days. This Thatcher visit’s going to —’
‘The promotion, yeah.’
‘Soon enough you’ll be in Spain, eating tapas and swigging sangria, busily not-talking to boys. I might join you. I might have my pick of hotel offers in a year or two. Manage a famous one, maybe, in … I think I fancy Madrid. Marina can suggest places. I think one of her sisters lives in Madrid. If you do Spanish at uni, they probably offer a year abroad. Food for thought.’ After this speech his body slipped downward in stages and his eyelids began to droop.
Beyond a wall someone retched. Down the corridor a woman wailed. This place was a department store for sadness.
‘I’ll come back tonight.’
‘Tonight? Maybe spare pyjamas.’
‘OK.’
‘OK then.’
‘Cool, bye.’
She kissed his cheek. Cool was a word she never, ever used.
Outside, a clarifying knowledge came over Freya: I am well, I am young, I am fine. Her relief for a moment overpowered her concern. The air was fresh; she was free. A cat walking along a wall. Pausing and diving down. You could hear in the distance tiny wavelets rushing in.
Only when she reached the corner shop and bought a drink did tears come again. Stupid. He was fine. She twisted the ringpull off the can.
She passed the White IIart pub, the arm of the capital ‘H’ crushed by last year’s snows. She remembered her first ever kiss, the fake ID she’d had in her hand, Tom Williams’s tongue in her mouth, the convivial saltiness of it, the unwelcome touching of her bum, and the unexpected moment a month ago, at a posh dinner to which all hotel staff had been invited, when she’d tried an oyster for the very first time and found that she fleetingly missed him.
On the pavement outside Amadeo’s Susie was standing with two girls and a guy. Freya slowed and tried to find a way to — No, too late to cross the road.
‘Well,’ Susie said. ‘Look who it isn’t.’ As a greeting it didn’t even make sense.
‘Hi, Sooz.’
‘This is her,’ Susie said, turning to her friends. ‘I was just telling them. Saying that I knew someone who could give us access, but she didn’t have any convictions, so.’
‘That’s nice of you, Sooz. Thanks a lot.’
‘Nice shoes,’ Susie said, and the sneeriness in her voice was truly world class. One girl sniggered and the other shook her head. The boy was chubby and had a flop of blond hair, green braces over his shirt, and he held out his right hand and said, in the poshest voice she’d ever heard from a person under thirty: ‘Very pleased to meet your acquaintance.’
‘She won’t be pleased to meet you,’ Susie said. ‘She doesn’t care one bit about the cause.’
‘Shh,’ the blond boy said. ‘Now, Freya, what’s this I hear? You won’t help us with a little stink bomb? It’s just, you know, it gets us in the news. Stupid pranks, not much upset caused — inconvenience, right? — but when it gets into the news we get a few column inches to elaborate on, well —’
‘The cause,’ Freya said.
‘You catch on quickly. They could use you in the SWP.’
‘That’s not what he’s from,’ Susie said, too eager. ‘He’s the LPYS. He edits Socialist Youth.’
He smiled. ‘All true,’ he said. ‘And what do you do, Freya?’
There was a pause — she didn’t know how to answer this — and all at once the girls and the boy looked at each other and laughed. It was a strange moment, more like a half-scene in a dumb nightmare than a real exchange. It left her feeling sick.
‘Sorry,’ the blond boy said. ‘Didn’t mean to embarrass you. But are you sure you couldn’t help us out a little?’
Why did she want to cry again? Susie was staring at the entrance to Amadeo’s.
‘I —’
‘Yes?’ The blond boy was touching her wrist. Gentle. The girls whispered to each other.
‘I’m not going to throw any stink bombs around the hotel.’
‘Of course.’
She had their attention now. It was the same as before. They were going to laugh again. ‘But there’s a back entrance, where the kitchen staff smoke. I–I could maybe let someone in, I guess, if it’s just for a joke.’
‘You legend,’ he said. ‘That would be excellent, really excellent.’ Her offer had stiffened their expressions.
‘One person. On the Friday. But only if I know exactly what —’
‘Chanting outside. A stink bomb inside. No damage done — you have my word, Freya. You’re doing your bit for free expression.’
Susie stepped forward and flung her arms around Freya — ‘I knew it, Frey-Hey. I knew’ — and in this moment Freya thought of the time she’d asked Susie’s little sister to name her ten favourite people. Six of them had been animals, two of them were her mum, and first place went to a plastic doll called Amanda Jane whose eyes were alarmingly large.
III
HOW THE HELL to get out of here? His contract only gave him six days sick pay a year. After that the cheques would stop coming. The unions had been bruised by Thatcher’s assaults. In hospitality a few broken ribs. He hoped she knew what she was doing. Hoped he’d have a chance politely to ask her. To say, ‘Hey, Maggie, how about helping our industry?’ But it was true, too, that a couple of years ago it was impossible to sack bone-idle staff. They used to wave their union cards and grin, speak without respect. He wanted his employees to think of him as a nice guy, but the moment they took advantage it stung him. Now he felt gravely betrayed by his own body. The head of bloodflow. The department of hearts. I fed you, didn’t I? I watered you? I did my bit to relieve your urges? There was that time I rubbed moisturiser stuff on your skin. Still you decided to go on strike.
Mr Marshall was leaning into the room, his head crowned by irrepressible grey curls, his face expressing the exact combination of compassion and apathy that made doctors so good at their jobs. His features were lengthy. His shoes had a frightening shine. A heart that would probably never fail him. A body that had probably been run for many years on death-repelling breakfast juices, improbable quantities of exotic fruit, the fine sea spray of expensive sailing boats gliding cleanly between private islands.