The Hotel

Chapter One

Mama lost her job when the recession hit. The last in, the first one out. Mr. Lawrence   said, "I'm sorry to do this to you, Kelly." And Mama told him to shove his apologies where the sun didn't shine. I was sure she'd find another job, but she didn't. We quickly went through what little savings she had and got evicted from our cosy little flat.

I worried about where we were going to live. Mama didn't. She'd believe something would turn up. For weeks we stayed with different friends of hers. It was fun in the beginning, staying at a bunch of places. Once I spent three nights sleeping under a kitchen table. But the novelty soon wore off for us and Mama's friends.

"I can feel it in my bones, Lucy. Something is going to turn up, and you'll have your own bedroom again," Mama told me as she got ready to go out to the pub. I was ten years old, more than capable of looking after myself when she and Penny went out at night. Still, I know she felt guilty about leaving me alone.

That night she met Tom. He wasn't rich or overly handsome, but he was charming and had a steady job. He had his own home. He was willing to take me on and raise me as his own child.

They were dating two weeks before we moved in with him. Mama was sure he was the one, her soul mate. But then she had thought that about many men. They all let her down, my dad included.

Tom was a great guy when he was in a good mood. He'd laugh and joke.

He'd sing and twirl Mama around the kitchen, calling her "My queen," and I was "His princess,". I loved him as much as Mama did and wished he was my dad in those moments. Sometimes, Tom would bring home fish and chips for us all. Those were my favourite days. Because I knew he was in a great mood, and nothing would change it.

I would sigh with relief because Mama would be safe.

When Tom was in a bad mood, he didn't laugh. He would scream and shout until his face turned bright red. Sometimes, I thought his head would explode from the rage. At times I wished it would.

He would punch the walls and doors, then Mama. Never me. Tom only ever shouted at me. He hated everything about me in those moments.

The thing Tom disliked the most was me calling Mama, Mama instead of Mum or Mother. But it is what I had always called her. It's what she preferred.

Night after night, I would lay in bed, listening to her cries and the sounds of his fists hitting her body. In the morning, we would all pretend it hadn't happened even though the bruises were visible on her face and arms.

Tom would shower Mama with gifts and the promise he'd never hit her again. He meant it when he said it, but something inside him always made break those promises. I used to wonder if there was a demon living in his head or heart that would take over and make him do bad things.

The day after my eleventh birthday, Tom hit Mama for the last. I wasn't there when it happened. All day, I sat at school with a voice of doom screaming inside my head, "You need to get home. Something bad is happening."

Maybe Mama thought he would kill her. Perhaps she was fed up with being a punching bag. I don't know why she did it, and she never said.

The house was silent when I returned home from school. I found Mama in the kitchen making cakes. She had blood on her hands and fresh bruises on her face.

Mama wouldn't speak to me. No matter how hard I begged for her to say something. She was in a world of her own.

I found Tom's dead body on the landing. Mama had caved his head in with a hammer and then left the hammer on his chest. All I could think as I stood there was Tom was as scary dead as he was alive.