Ritual (11 page)

Only the dark clouds rolling overhead as if they were hurrying on
their way to some distant battle.

The food at the
Windsor Hotel was relentlessly dull. In an attempt to console himself for not
having been able to eat at
Le Reposoir
,
Charlie ordered the Grande Royale menu, which started off with steamers,
followed by charcoal-broiled blue-fish, carpetbag steak, and peach pie. In the
hands of a competent chef, any one of these traditional American dishes could
have been a masterpiece. In the Windsor Hotel, they were tough, dry, slimy, and
canned, in that order.

Charlie sat
alone at an underlit table, facing a badly painted frieze of Windsor Castle in
England, chewing his way through this unappetizing menu while a four-piece band
played ‘Tie
A
Yellow Ribbon’ and the six businessmen
sitting next to him chain-smoked cigars throughout their meal.

When he had
finished, Charlie was approached by the maitre d’, who stood beside his table
with his hands folded over his groin. ‘You didn’t care for the dinner, sir?’
the maitre d’ asked, with unconcealed annoyance.

‘The dinner was
– acceptable,’ said Charlie.

‘Perhaps a
small glass of brandy on the house?’ the maitre d’ suggested. His tone of voice
was almost ferocious.

‘That won’t be
necessary.’

The maitre d’
bent forward. He had huge open pores in his nose and his breath smelled of
Binaca. ‘It isn’t my fault this place is so bad.’

Charlie stared
at him without expression.

The maitre d’
went on, ‘I do my best,
I
used to work at the Hyatt
Pilgrim in Boston. But what can I do with a place like this? They won’t invest
any money on it.’

Charlie said,
‘What does this have to do with me?’

‘Come on, Mr
Restaurant Inspector. You can’t kid me. I know a restaurant inspector when I
see one.’

‘You think so?’

‘I was
expecting you. I knew what you were, the moment you walked into the room. All
restaurant inspectors have that same look. Most men who are forced to eat alone
will keep their eyes on their food, or on a book. But you – your eyes are never
still. You are looking at the cutlery, at the glasses, at the table linen. You
are timing the waiters, you are testing the food.

After you have
finished your coffee you will go to the men’s room to make sure it is clean.
You may even try to dodge into the ladies’. I know your kind.’

Charlie slowly
shook his head. ‘You must be making some kind of mistake here, friend. I’m a
salesman, dealing in hydraulic valves. You want to come out and look at what
I’m carrying in the back of my car?’

‘You can’t kid
me,’ the maitre d’ hissed at him, triumphant now. ‘I was told. I was expecting
you.

You don’t fool
me for one moment.’

‘Bring me the
bill,’ said Charlie.

‘No, sir, no
charge,’ retorted the maitre d’.

‘I want the
bill,’ Charlie insisted. ‘In fact, if you don’t bring me the bill right now I’m
going to call for the manager.’

‘No charge,’
the maitre d’ challenged him.

Charlie paused
for a moment, and then stood up. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘No charge. I’m not
going to get myself involved in an argument about it.’ He raised his eyes. ‘All
the same, I’d like to know who told you to expect me.’

The maitre d’
shrugged, and flapped at Charlie’s coat with a napkin to brush off the crumbs
of peach-pie. ‘The restaurant business is a brotherhood, sir.’

‘Like the Cosa Nostra,
you mean?’ said Charlie sarcastically.

‘No, sir.
More like monks, or friars.’ Charlie looked away.
The maitre d’ was obviously drunk.

Either drunk, or so disaffected with his job that he didn’t care
what he said, or to whom he said it.
Monks or friars,
Christ Almighty.
The only possible religious ingredient in the
restaurant business was the prayers of forgiveness they said when they wrote
‘Fresh’ and ‘Home Cooked’ on the menus.

The maitre d’
said, ‘How about that glass of brandy? Come on, friend. It’s on the house.’

A little
wearily, Charlie nodded. The maitre d’ clapped his hands and the wine waiter
came over, a stocky, unsmiling type with a tight maroon coat and a tight maroon
face to match. ‘Give the gentleman .a glass of the Courvoisier, Arnold. You’d
like it in the lounge, sir?
In the lounge, Arnold.
Next to the fireplace.’

Charlie sat in
a high leather-upholstered library chair nursing his brandy while two large
logs smouldered in the olde colonial fireplace like the last remains of a
derelict building. Across the lounge, sitting in profile to him, was a
thirtyish woman with ash blonde hair and a tight sapphire-blue dress and a
little more jewellery than was tasteful, especially for a country mausoleum
like the Windsor. Charlie surmised that she was a woman of relatively easy
virtue, if not an out-and-out hooker. She made a big play of lighting a
cigarette and blowing the smoke across the lounge. Charlie sipped his brandy
and thought that she had a pretty impressive chest, even if her hips were on
the wide side.

After about ten
minutes, the woman stood up and came across to the fireplace. She stared down
at the
logs,
the elbow of her smoking arm cupped in
the hand of her other arm, her chin slightly lifted.

‘I always think
a real fire is so romantic, don’t you?’ she asked Charlie, without looking at
him.

‘I don’t know
about this one,’ said Charlie. ‘It looks half dead to me.’

‘Ashes to
ashes,’ the woman remarked. Then, ‘Are you travelling alone?’

‘Not entirely.
I have my son with me.’ ‘Do you usually travel alone?’ For the first time she
turned to catch
him
with a blue-eyed stare. She was
good-looking, in a Hollywood kind of a way, short-nosed, broad-cheekboned,
almost
baby-faced; except of course that the crisscross
lines were beginning to show in the corners of her eyes. A diamond brooch in
the shape of a star reflected the light from one of the ceiling lamps. Charlie
thought: Genuine. This woman has been places, and done things, and men have
showed their approval in the time-honoured way.

Charlie said,
‘I’m not looking for company, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You look
unhappy,’ the woman told him. ‘I can’t bear to see anybody looking unhappy.’
‘I’m a little tired is
all.
’

‘Would you mind
if I sat down beside you and talked to you?’ Charlie nodded toward the chair
next to his. ‘It’s a free country. I can’t guarantee that you’ll get any
answers.’

She sat down
and crossed her legs. Her blue shiny dress rode higher on her thighs than it
ought to have done. She smelled of Obsession by Calvin Klein. She blew smoke
over him, but he wasn’t sure that he particularly minded. The top three buttons
of her dress were unfastened and Charlie could see a very deep cleavage indeed.
White breasts with a single beckoning mole between them.

‘I saw you
arguing with Bits,’ she said. ‘You mean the maitre d’? Is that his name?’ ‘It
makes him sound like a gangster, doesn’t it? But his real name’s Arthur. They
call him Bits because when he was younger he was always saying, ‘For two bits
I’ll quit this job,’ or ‘
For
two bits I’ll make that
damned sauce myself.’ Not that he was ever a violent man – oh no.
Just a little temperamental.

He says he was
descended from the Borgias.’

‘That wouldn’t
surprise me,’ said Charlie. He pointed towards the woman’s empty glass.
‘How about a nightcap?
Was that frozen daiquiris you were
drinking?’

She smiled.
‘You know what they say about ladies who have a taste for frozen daiquiris?’

‘I can’t say
that I do. I hope it’s polite.’

‘Polite?’ the
woman laughed.

Charlie ignored
her mockery and held out his hand. ‘I’m Charlie McLean.’

‘Velma Farloe.’
the woman replied.

‘Nice to know you, Velma.
Have you been here long?’

‘Here in this
bar,
or here in West Hartford?’

Charlie said,
‘I never did feel at home in New England – Connecticut in particular. I always
feel like I’m being looked at as some kind of outsider.’

‘Where do you
feel at home?’ asked Velma.

‘Illinois,
Indiana. I guess I’m a small-town mid-Westerner at heart. Mind you, I was born
in Elizabeth, New Jersey. My parents moved to Kokomo when I was ten, and then
to Merrillsville.’

He paused, and
then he said, ‘I don’t intend to sit here and tell you the story of my life.’

Velma dropped
her eyelids in the warm, coaxing way in which some women would have dropped a
perfumed scarf. ‘I don’t mind if you do.”

‘I’m a
salesman, that’s all. That’s the beginning and the end of it.’

‘Bits said you
were one of those restaurant inspectors.’

‘Bits confides
in you, huh?’

‘Come on,
Charlie,’ said Velma. ‘You know who I am. I’m the friendly lady who sits in the
corner of every restaurant lounge from here to eternity.’

The stocky
wine-waiter brought them two fresh drinks. When Charlie offered to pay, he
said,

‘On the house,’
in a gruff falsetto that was as adamant as it was startling.

‘Bits
is
trying to butter you up, that’s all,’ Velma told Charlie.
‘He thinks if he gives you two or three glasses of brandy you’re going to
recommend the Windsor and get him a pay hike.’

‘Some hope of
that,’ said Charlie. ‘This is one of the worst restaurants between Mount
Fissell and Wequetequock.’

‘Well,’ purred
Velma. ‘You sure know your geography.’

She shifted
herself closer. She touched Charlie’s left temple with her fingertips. He could
breathe her perfume, and also that other indescribable odour known as Woman
On
Heat. He sipped at his brandy feeling as prissy as a boy
scout. He needed a woman desperately, but for some reason he always held
himself back, as if it were the right and proper thing to do.
Because of Marjorie?

No, he couldn’t
believe that. Because of everything that had happened in Milwaukee? No, he
couldn’t believe that either. It was far more deeply rooted. It was a glimpse
of his mother fastening her stockings. It was his father’s face intruding on
his unconscious like a big pale blimp, roaring, ‘Women should be respected,
Charlie. ‘Women are holy: Velma said, ‘You’re one of those quiet ones, aren’t
you?’

‘I told you.
I’m tired.’

‘How tired is
tired?’

Charlie raised
his eyes and looked at her. She was mocking him, in a way; but she was also
encouraging him, supporting him, in the way that only women like her knew how.
They could take in travellers from the unforgiving night, men who were tired
and disappointed and lonesome and very afraid of failure, and give them all the
comfort they needed. One night of sex, one night of burying all of their
anxieties in darkness and flesh and the pungent smell of intercourse, and they
were ready to face the world again, ready to report back to J.J. on how many
miles of UPVC piping they had sold, ready to drum up new business. They were as
much a part of American business as Lee lacocca or Aaron Spelling.

Charlie leaned
back in the leather chair and looked around the lounge feeling drunk and
detached. ‘Who told you to talk to me? Was it the maitre d’?
Bits?
Or did you decide to proposition me off your own bat?’

‘I’m not
propositioning you,’ smiled Velma.

‘You wouldn’t
be smiling if you weren’t.’

‘Well, maybe I
wouldn’t.’

At that moment
Charlie knew for certain that he was going to sleep with her. It was her
honesty which decided him, as much as anything else. She was handsome and
straightforward and big-breasted and that was all that he needed, for tonight
at least. He would think about tomorrow tomorrow.

‘You can’t come
back to my room,’ he said. His voice didn’t even sound like his own. ‘My son is
there.’ He checked his watch.
‘Sleeping by now.
He
isn’t used to all of this travelling around.’

‘Its okay,’
said Velma, taking hold of his hand. ‘I have a room. Come on.’

They left the lounge
together. At the doorway, Charlie turned around and saw Bits smiling at him
through the wine racks which separated the restaurant from the lounge. He
turned away without acknowledging that he had seen him. Velma reached back and
grabbed his hand and led him through the lobby to the main building. It was
well after eleven o’clock now, and the lobby was brightly lit, red-carpeted,
smelling of stale cigarettes, and completely deserted.

They kissed as
they went up in the elevator. Her tongue snaked into his mouth. Her hand
reached directly down between his legs and squeezed him. He wasn’t sure whether
he ought to feel aroused or frightened. They didn’t say anything coherent. The
slightest bit of logic would have broken the spell completely, like the fragment
of mirror in The Snow Queen.

Velma’s room
was at the far end of a long, airless corridor. She unlocked it with the
dexterity of experience. She went in first, leaving Charlie in the corridor to
make up his own mind whether he wanted to follow her or not. He hesitated, and
then went inside, closing the door by pressing his back against it.

It was only
then that she switched on the bedside lamps. The room was almost identical to
Charlie’s own room in the hotel annexe, except that the prints were wild flowers
instead of locomotives. Fool’s
parsley,
and fragrant
bedstraw. Velma, her back to Charlie, unbuttoned her dress. He made no move to
help her. She dropped the dress on the bed and then turned around to face him.
There was a strange, bright look of elation and defiance in her eyes. She was
wearing nothing more than a black translucent bra, through which her nipples
showed as smoky pink shadows, and a pair of patterned black pantihose, against
which her pubic hair was flattened like the geographical map of a river delta.