Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 14.2

Youssef pulled up to the curb. He switched the engine off and sat in the car for a while, watching the hotel across the road. Then he took a deep breath and got out.

The street was empty. The sun was setting redly over the rooftops, and the fountain in front of the hotel cast a long, strange shadow across the driveway.

The hotel had been absurdly hard to find. There was no street sign, and Youssef had driven past the street twice before spotting the narrow entrance. Two huge elms cast the entrance to the street in shadow, and the houses on each corner had identical high bluestone walls, as if the street had cut one property in two.

His wife had loved the hotel as a child, and he could see why. There was a fairytale quality to it: the steeply pitched slate roof, the little towers with their narrow windows, the half-wild garden with its thickets and winding paths, the wrought iron gate with its vine leaf curlicues and medieval spikes.

He walked up to the front door and knocked. For a long time nothing happened. Ravens croaked in the distance and pigeons cooed in the eaves.

When the door did open Youssef's first impression was that it had done so by itself. This startled him. But there was someone there. Perhaps it had been the poor lighting in the hall, or the way the setting sun cast shadows through the doorway, or the man's drab clothing - which seemed to melt into the pattern of the wallpaper – or the fact that he was so very gaunt and standing so very still in the shadows. Even his eyes were oddly colourless.

"Come in," the man said.

Youssef did. "Mr. Ambrose?"

"James, please," the man said as he pushed it closed again. "This way," he said, motioning down the hall towards an open doorway. Youssef led the way. He couldn't hear the man following him, but when he looked back he was right there. Youssef could hear the floorboards creaking under his own feet, but under the other man's they did not. It was as if he weighed nothing.

A teenage boy appeared from a doorway at the end of the hall. He gave Youssef a sullen, red-eyed look.

"Your room please, Joe," Mr. Ambrose said. The boy disappeared.

The room Youssef entered was lined with bookshelves. They held books mostly, but there were some medals on one shelf, and a few broken radios on another. His eyes were drawn to an alarm clock that served as a bookend. It was silent, its second hand motionless.

"Please have a seat," James said.

Youssef did.

James lowered himself carefully into his chair, as a much older man would.

"Your son?" Youssef said.

James nodded.

"We share a name. Youssef is Arabic for Joseph."

James nodded politely. "Would you like something to drink?" he said. His voice trembled.

"No thank you. Sir -"

"James, please."

"James. Mr. Ambrose. I am sorry for your loss."

James looked at his hands. The silence drew itself out. When he couldn't stand it any longer, Youssef said: "I have come to discuss the funeral arrangements."

"Alice is dead," the other man whispered.

The light above the snooker table flickered and somewhere deep in the hotel a pipe thumped. Outside the window the light had faded to a bluish-purple. Cicadas were starting up out in the long grass, one by one, like a chain reaction.

"She asked that her body be cremated," Youssef said softly.

James didn't look up from his hands. "Bring her ashes here. We will hold a small service."

"May I come?"

James did look up then, his face white with some inner strain. "Of course. How could you not? Your daughter too."

"She would love to meet you," Youssef said.

James nodded. The terrible strain had left his face, but his colour had not come back. The light from the window seemed to shine through him. Youssef blinked and the illusion vanished.

"Sir – James. I loved my wife very much. I know that when she – fell pregnant, it was a great shock to you. That my background -"

"I don't care about that," James said suddenly, fiercely. "And I did not care."

Youssef swallowed. "My parents cared a great deal. I was cast out of my own family."

"And now she is dead."

Youssef nodded. "Now she is dead."

James rose slowly to his feet. "I will show you out. Thank you for taking care of everything."

At the door Youssef thanked him, and walked out into the twilit street. As he felt in his pockets for his keys he glanced up at the first floor of the hotel. There was a light on in one of the windows. He could see someone silhouetted there, a woman, watching him.