Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 3.2

The Cripple wore an old army uniform. Medals were pinned all over his chest. His sleeves were sewn closed where his wrists would have been. He had short hair and pale blue eyes, and a mouth that dribbled at one corner and didn't close properly. His feet were bare: he had clean feet and long toes and neatly-clipped toenails. I wondered how he cut his toenails. A grand piano about the size of a doll's house stood at his feet. He was playing the piano with his toes.

Then there were the Singing Dogs.

There were five in total: two sitting on each side of the Cripple, and a little curly-tailed one out front. There was a big black one with a deep voice, a medium-big one with a medium-big voice, and so on, right down to the little one that was hitting all the high notes. I don't know what kind of music it was, but it involved a lot of howling. When they howled it wasn't like when a dog usually howls though. They didn't sound lonely or sad. The Cripple would play a few notes, then the dogs would start singing, one after the other, and sometimes the big dog would sing along with the piano all by itself, closing its eyes and crooning up into the sky. It was the greatest thing I'd ever seen.

When the song was over the Cripple washed his feet in a bowl and dried them on a towel, then using his feet he fished some things out of a shopping bag. The dogs watched him closely the whole time. He got out five dog biscuits and put them in a pile by the piano and the dogs came and got their biscuits one by one. First the little one came and took the smallest biscuit and returned to its spot in front of the piano and carefully ate it. When all the dogs had finished their biscuits the Cripple passed a drinking dish around. The dogs were silent the whole time. They didn't fight, or rush for the bowl, or anything.

Once all the dogs had drunk the Cripple started a new song and the dogs joined in one by one. I could've listened to them all day. I'd never given much thought to dogs before. I never realised they could do stuff like this.

No, what got me was the people.

It was a busy street and people were passing by the Cripple and his Dogs all the time. But they didn't even look at him.

I saw a woman shiver as she walked past. Her eyes closed for a second and she tilted her head back – but when she never looked over at The Cripple, and she didn't look back as she went on down the street. I wonder if they heard anything. Maybe they thought it was someone's radio playing somewhere.

When the Cripple had finished the song I went over to speak with him. When I got near all the dogs bared their teeth at me. Jesus. I thought I was going to get eaten alive. I stepped back and the dogs instantly stopped snarling and seemed to forget I was there.

"Mister – oh Sir?"

The Cripple was holding the dogs' water bowl between his feet like a monkey holds a cantaloupe. He looked up at me sadly, then went back to the water bowl.

"I like your music, Sir," I said.

He didn't look at me again, and he didn't say anything. I wonder if he heard me at all.

I realised Sophie was tugging at my sleeve.

"What?" I said.

She was pointing at the laneway beside the Cripple and his dogs.

It was very narrow: no car would be able to drive through it without losing its doors. Even though it was a hot day the bluestone cobbles of the lane were shiny with damp. The buildings on each side of the entrance looked empty, and the people walking by never looked up it, though I saw a man wrinkle his nose as he went past.

There was an iron signpost at the entrance, one of those old-timey ones with a lamp on the stalk and the sign underneath poking out like a branch.

NAMELESS LANE

The lamp was lit. It flickered like a candle, and I realised it wasn't electric. Perhaps oil, like in the old days. The lane was gloomy. Not that you could see far into it anyway, because it was crooked, and disappeared quickly around a bend. Stone archways crossed from building to building, at the first floor, the second, the fifth, the ninth. Some of them had fallen down. There were high, dark windows. I wondered if any faces looked out of them.

I glanced at Sophie. She glanced back at me. The baby wasn't bawling any more, just looking up at us with his wicked little eyes.

I took Dirty Joe's directions out of my pocket. "Well this is it," I said.

Still, neither of us moved.

"I don't like it," Sophie said.

"Dirty Joe wouldn't send us anywhere bad. It's just a lane."

"I don't like it," she said again.

"You stay here then. I'm going inside." Still, I didn't move.

Sophie was looking away down the street.

The baby grabbed at my chin with his fat claw. I reckon I must've squeezed him or something, because he let out a little fart. Then he giggled, pleased with his own fart perhaps.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the lane. The noise from the street went kind of distant, like it had been switched down, and when I looked back it was hazy and colourless like an old movie, the cars going sluggishly by and the heat baking off the pavement. Sophie shimmered in it like a mirage.

I was almost to the first crook in the lane before I heard her footsteps behind me. She grabbed my hand. "You idiot," she gasped. And suddenly we were both laughing like fools.

We continued on down the Lane. The cobbles were slimy, and water was trickling from a dark hole in the bricks and going away down the lane. We turned the corner. Beyond it the lane vanished away into a hazy distance. I looked up at all the arches and felt dizzy. There were dripping sounds everywhere, and high up a moaning wind.

We passed doors from time to time. They were heavy and didn't have handles, and there were strange yellowish weeds growing at the doorsteps. There were numbers on some of the doors. The first number I saw was 299. The next was 3. After that was number 1158. Me and Sophie just looked at each other. The baby dribbled and I had to wipe his mouth with the front of his jumpsuit.

We came to a small green door that was almost totally covered by weeds. It had no number that we could see, so we moved on. I looked back at it though, because it was different to the others. Then I told Sophie to hang on. I went back to it and knelt down and brushed the weeds aside.

"Sophie!" I called.

It was Number 29. The numbers were black.

"But it's so small," she whispered.

"Looks like it's made for little people," I said.

"Or little somethings."

The baby chuckled.

I thought we'd be able to get through the door on our knees, but a big person might have got stuck. There were metal bands going across the door. The metal had gone green. I wondered how long since it had been opened.

Sophie shivered and looked around. I could tell she didn't like the lane and was eager to get out of it. So it was she who got down and turned the handle and pushed the little door open.