‘Is the sun in your eyes?’ Mr Marshall said. ‘I’ll get a nurse to get that sun out of your eyes.’ He stepped back into the corridor. ‘Monica!’ he said. ‘Sun out of his eyes!’ But Monica, whoever she was, didn’t come.
‘Actually,’ Moose said, ‘I like to see the trees.’
‘Trees,’ Mr Marshall repeated, frowning. He seemed to be wondering how a man of his abilities had failed to factor them in. ‘You still living up on the old what’s-the-name?’
‘Brighton Heights.’
Marshall frowned again.
‘That’s just what we call it. Because … well, there’s the hill, if you remember. And it’s an ironic thing, because it’s not that high really, it’s not like you’re up there with the gods looking down, though you do feel a bit separate to your surroundings. Also, when we were out in New York, Freya and I ended up visiting these sort of relatives who live in Brighton Heights in Staten Island, which has these grand old houses, and a lake that’s really a reservoir. It’s a long story.’
‘It sounds it,’ Mr Marshall said. ‘You’ve got to do what the young guy says, Moose.’
‘Dr Haswell?’
‘Haswell. Right …’ Haswell whose eyes had a hard athletic intent, cold as the mints Moose used to eat before a diving meet: sugar-packed and powerful, the tingle-fresh sense you’d burnt your tongue. ‘This is our show,’ Marshall was saying. ‘Chance to return a favour. No use getting down. Couple of days. Hope to keep you in this nice little room. I’ll never forget that party for my fourth.’
‘Fourth?’
‘Marriage,’ Mr Marshall said.
‘Oh. That was your fourth, was it? Our pleasure to host you, anyway. Maybe bear us in mind for future … celebrations.’
‘Thanks also for the voucher. Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves. A heart requires care. No fags yes. No spirits yes. Cut down on those crisps and sweets you keep squirrelled about your person.’
‘Energy,’ Moose said. ‘I work long hours, like you.’ He objected to the word squirrelled.
‘Look after it, or one day it’ll be total blackout. Ticking time bomb is what people say. Tick tick. Tick.’ Mr Marshall sneezed. ‘It’s all nonsense, more or less, but however it helps to think of it.’ With an unpleasant lusty look he inspected the contents of his handkerchief. ‘Like I said, the only thing a heart really resembles, if you’ve actually held one, is a blood-soaked fist. Break too many knuckles and you can’t go on fighting, yes? And you want to keep fighting, don’t you? Fighting against the body’s immemorial attempts to make us all look and feel like shit.’ Briefly he barked with laughter. ‘Is that wife of yours still carrying on with an American chap?’
‘Ex.’
Marshall’s hand shot up to his ear. ‘She is then, is she?’
‘Carrying on with him in London now, I think. Or with someone else.’
‘God,’ Marshall said, running fingers through his hair. ‘Jesus.’ For about five seconds he looked fiercely upset. ‘You’re in pain?’ he said.
‘No. It’s actually fine.’
‘You’re sure? I can get them to up your intake.’
‘My heart.’
‘Yes?’
‘Ever since Viv went, I’ve tried to keep it away from attractive, feisty women. I’ve done it many favours. I’ve tried to preserve it.’ He allowed himself a gentle smile.
‘Well,’ Marshall said, ‘I wouldn’t say you’ve done it many favours. But best advice I ever heard? Marry someone mediocre. Medically what’s on your mind? I’m here to help.’ A quick glance at his watch.
‘I suppose … Well, I guess the only thing is that I’m still slightly nervous that this might happen again, or what this means for me, and so on … I haven’t had a chance to really discuss my — well, my condition fully with anyone, because obviously you guys are so busy and everything … So that’s part of the nerves, I suppose, though I’m definitely not complaining.’
The admission of nerves. The request for more attention. Moose could see straight away that he had made a double mistake. The truth was there in the shine of Mr Marshall’s eyes, little hoops of light that were interpretable as distaste. Wanting on a great scale — that’s what made people shameful. Nervous patients were the medical equivalent of needy hotel guests, probably? The light sleeper, the hot-water junkie, the badly asthmatic anti-allergen guy, the vegan woman who dislikes meat almost as much as people made of it.
Mr Marshall held one foot behind him, your basic quadriceps stretch. ‘Nerves are natural, Moose.’ He shifted to the other leg too quickly to reap a reward.
‘You want to hold for thirty seconds at least,’ Moose said.
‘Heart attacks make doctors nervous too. People are always surprised to hear there are still, in this day and age, uncertainties around the most appropriate treatments, yes? Bed rest, for example, has been for most of my career the most simple and established of ministrations for the kind of infarction we’ve been looking at here. But just the other day I read a journal piece — well, was told about one — suggesting that, in a forty to fifty male like you, the prevalence of deadly blood clots in the legs should force a reappraisal even of the bed-rest strategem.’
‘It’s a comfort to hear all that,’ Moose said.
‘Stay off the smokes, yes? The cigars.’
‘I don’t smoke cigars.’
‘Quit smoking. All of it. Assume, every time I stare at you, that what I’m saying is give up smoking. Do that and you’ll be fine. Best thing? Get some bed rest.’
Narcoleptics, Moose thought. Of all hotel guests, narcoleptics are the most highly prized. Shut the door. Leave them be. Rarely hear a peep. When they get hungry they order to the room. You charge them extra even though it costs you less, frees up the restaurant to squeeze in more covers.
In hospitality the thing that killed you was headcount, the sheer size of the payroll in a luxury place. That and the two hundred towels washed each day, the sourcing of vintage lampshades, the touching up of rooms every Monday and Friday: suitcase scuffs, shoe marks, loose plaster, broken mirrors. The maintenance required was amazing but you did it without thinking, just got on with the jobs, and maybe that was the secret? Today he’d spent a lot of time speculating that his life would be better if only he spent a lot less time speculating. He’d been thinking of Viv, too. Her puzzling combination of confidence and insecurity. She was the kind of woman who’d turn up at a fancy-dress party holding a photo of the person she was meant to be.
Mr Marshall had gone. From the corridor came the clinking of water glasses, an affable social sound, restorative and daily. It was the afternoon.
Monica the nurse, laughing.
‘No no,’ he told her. Her happiness was lifting the pain in his chest. ‘I’m serious. Never need to pay for that stuff.’
‘What, ever? Come on, you’re teasing me.’ Not pretty, no, but something invitingly inquisitive about her dark mouth, the way it was never wholly closed.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘think it through.’ A moment of hesitation, of industry guilt, but it gave way soon enough to his desire to entertain. ‘Try this at my hotel and there’ll be trouble, but here’s the thing. At the desk, at check-in, say you’d like a no-smoking room. Then go up to your room and open the minibar. Mix yourself a couple of gin and tonics, eat a nice chocolate bar, throw the mini whiskies in your suitcase. Then light up a fag, smoke it, flush the stub down the toilet, and go downstairs. Complain that your room smells of smoke.’