Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 12.6

When I went into the lounge room the next morning I switched on the TV. There wasn't anything on at first – just the empty Snooker Room – but then the Ape appeared, moving groggily across the room and rubbing its eyes. There were two empty bottles on the snooker table. The Ape looked at them and groaned. There was a HORNPIPE on the table as well, with a pile of records next to it, and a broken record on the floor under one of Ginger Jane's shoes. The Ape let out an enormous sigh and slumped on the armchair.

The Ape had changed.

Its fur had a matted look these days, like an old worn carpet that has started to ruck up at the edges, and there was a streak of silver down its back that hadn't been there before. It never went around on all fours any more. Sometimes it wore a bowler hat. It looked ridiculous in a hat.

A cough came from the direction of Lucio's bedroom.

The Ape was always first up in the morning, and it always woke Lucio. Lucio should have remembered this, because the Ape had been waking him for many years. Nobody ever woke Ginger Jane.

When the Ape opened Lucio's door it froze in the doorway. There was a muffled cry from the bedroom. The Ape slammed closed the door and backed away. It was shaking.

It walked around the snooker table a couple of times like it was lost. Then its eyes fell on the rack of cues. It went over and grabbed one of the cues off the rack. Then it began demolishing the room with it.

There were many fine things in the Snooker Room. All of these things the Ape demolished. It pulled the drawers out of the cupboards and turned them upside down on the floor. Shit went everywhere. It pulled the box of snooker balls out of a drawer and began throwing the balls. The pink smashed through the window and vanished into the grass outside. The blue shot through into the kitchen and smashed in half against the stove. When all the balls were gone it slammed the cue against the snooker table until it broke in half. Then it tore the snooker table's cloth to shreds with the broken end of the cue.

By the time the bedroom door opened there was hardly anything left in the room to break.

The Great Lucio stood in the doorway. He was tying his dressing gown around himself. His moustache was twitching like how a big blowfly twitches its wings. He came into the room with his hands out to the Ape, muttering away. "You must understand – in the circumstances – only human – under the influence – my Ape."

Ginger Jane appeared in the doorway. She lounged against the jamb in her underwear and yawned, as if she saw Apes demolishing rooms every day. Her lips were red and smeared and her eyes were red and her hair was messy and her hands and feet were dirty. Her toenails were painted red. For some reason the sight of her red toenails made my stomach turn.

The Ape stood very still with the broken cue in its paw and glared across the room at Lucio. Its eyes were red. I could hear it puffing away, like a hot locomotive.

Lucio closed in on the Ape with his arms out, as if he expected it to rush into his arms.

The Ape growled. I'd never heard it growl before – I didn't know apes could.

The Great Lucio was still talking away, well whining away, really. "I can't begin to tell – how much – regret it – "

"Regret it?" Ginger Jane said from the doorway.

For a moment Lucio and the Ape stood in front of each other, the Ape still puffing away, Lucio holding his hands out in front of him. Then the Ape exploded.

There was a whoosh, and a sound like a rug being beaten out, and Lucio went oomph! He crumpled like a sheet. Before he could crawl away the cue thwacked into his side again. He screamed. All I could see of the Ape was fur and teeth.

The third time the cue hit Lucio he somehow managed to get both hands around it. Apes are strong. It dragged him across the room. I don't know how Lucio held on to the cue. His hands were slick with blood and probably full of splinters.

Suddenly the Ape let go of the cue. Lucio rolled backwards into Ginger Jane, who screamed and stumbled back into the bedroom. Lucio sat up in the doorway and looked stupidly at the cue in his hands. The Ape slouched towards him, still growling.

"Please!" Lucio wailed.

I don't know exactly how it happened. I saw the Ape launch itself at Lucio, and Lucio close his eyes and bring up the cue to fend it off. There was a thick wet sound like pushing a shovel through damp earth. The Ape grunted heavily.

By the time Lucio rolled out from under the Ape it was already dead. With the cue sticking out of its back it looked like some kind of weird hairy dinosaur. There was a lot of blood.

Ginger Jane screamed, and spewed on the carpet.

Lucio's mouth was opening and shutting like a fish's. A blubbering sound was coming out of it. It started off quiet, but got gradually louder. His dressing gown had come undone in the fight, and when he got to his feet it opened and I could see his pale chest and skinny hairy legs, and his willy looking like an old wet sock hanging on a clothesline.

Ginger Jane had got a fair bit of her spew on herself. She tried to wipe her hair out of her eyes and the spew clung there like magic.

Lucio suddenly seemed to realise she was there.

"OUT!" he screamed. "OUT, YOU WENCH!" "PUT SOME BLITHERING CLOTHES ON AND GET OUT!"

Ginger Jane tumbled back into the bedroom. There was a desperate rummaging sound, and in about ten seconds she was out again with a bunch of clothes under her arm and dragging a big suitcase.

Lucio screamed and kicked out at a red bra that she'd dropped. She bent down to snag it with one of her dirty red fingers, looking up at Lucio with huge eyes. She went out the door at a crouch, blubbering.

Lucio slammed the door behind her. He fell back against it. His legs seemed to collapse under him, and he slid down to the floor and began to cry.

I switched the TV off. I didn't want to watch him cry.