The Lover's Children novel Chapter 35

GEORGIE

Is there that extra moment that says he wants me…?

… but won’t take it further?

If there is, it’s brief enough that I’m not sure.

Borje’s breath blows blue. His pupils widen, then contract. “I’ll see you to the door.”

Side by side, we stroll to the hotel entrance. His fingers brush mine, but he makes no attempt to touch me. On the front step of the lobby, “Thank you for a lovely evening, Georgie. I hope we can repeat it.”

“I’d like that. Um… Would you like to come in for a coffee? They’ll still be serving at the bar.”

He shuffles, looks down. “Coffee? No, I have an early start tomorrow. But I’ll call you if I may?”

I can feel the subtext, something unsaid. But I can’t read it. “Borje, is there something wrong? You think my Dad’s going to appear with a shotgun? I'm one of the grown-ups.”

“Are you?” He smiles slightly, leans in, brushes lips over my cheek. The kiss is tender and soft, but so fleeting. “Good night, Georgie.”

And with that, he strolls back to the car and drives away into the night.

*****

THE CITY

“Don't hurt me,” she weeps. “I did everything you wanted.”

“Not yet. Not everything.”

I’m sick of her whining. So, I pay her.

That shuts her up.

*****

MICHAEL

The clatter and chaos of breakfast drifts along the hallway as I descend the stairs. Nature calls and, without thinking, I push open the door to the guest bathroom at the rear end of the hall.

It’s already occupied…

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean…” Then I stall. The occupant is Klempner, face and beard foamed, wielding one of the old-fashioned cut-throat razors.

“Got a problem in Mitch’s place? Something wrong with the plumbing?”

He pauses, a naked stripe of skin visible through the foam, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “No, no problem. Mitch has been dissolving herself in the bath for the last hour.”

“Ah… At that ungodly temperature women seem to favour? The ritual usually includes perfume, oils and a lot of steam.”

“That’s the one. I preferred not to venture out into the world radiating roses and lavender. It might give the wrong impression.” He draws the blade down, then frowns. “I’d not thought I’d be in the way here. I’ll only be a minute or so. I’m nearly done.”

Don’t hurry yourself. I’d hate you to make a slip with that thing at your throat.”

He doesn’t reply. Face angled to the mirror, he slips the blade up from under his chin, slicing away foam and stubble to a neat line edging his beard.

“I can lend you a razor if you need one. Or I’ll get one from the guest supplies in the hotel.”

Klempner completes the stroke before speaking. “Thank you, but I prefer to do it this way.”

“Why for God's sake? They invented safety razors to stop us all cutting our own throats.”

Klempner swills the blade clean in the basin, then once more draws it carefully up. before examining his face left and right… “It keeps me in practice for a steady hand.” Swiping away the remaining foam with a towel. he slides a hand under his chin and over the top of his neck, he nods in apparent satisfaction, then tosses the towel in a laundry basket… “Done. All yours.” And he strides past me, out and away, kitchenwards.

*****

In the kitchen, the normal breakfast activities are in full swing. Klempner sits at the table, an empty seat beside him.

James is at the hob. “Larry? Bacon? Mushrooms? Sausage?”

“Eggs are fine, thank you.”

James looks a little crestfallen. “How many?”

“Three sounds good.”

“Scrambled? Fried? Boiled? An omelette?”

“Poached please, if that's no trouble.”

“It's no trouble at all. I just thought you might like a change.”

“No. Poached eggs are fine. I’ll make more toast.”

James turns away, muttering. “Never known a man addicted to poached eggs before.”

Klempner pours coffee from James' pot of devil’s brew, unruffled. “Fond memories, James. Heavenly memories even.”

Richard arrives with Beth, hovers between coffee pots, sniffing at first one, then the other. “Not many people have heavenly memories of hospital.”

Klempner sucks in his cheeks. “I have learned that Heaven comes with clean white sheets and is staffed by angels in starched blue uniforms.”

“Interesting you should mention that…”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I was following up on your visit there, making sure all the bills were paid and so forth. Apparently, the hospital administration is planning an expansion.”

Klempner, his face a mask, watches as Richard chooses a coffee pot, then pours. “Is that right?”

“Yes... An entire new wing after a donation from an anonymous donor.” He sips, then grimaces, marches to the sink and tips the cup.

Klempner’s lips quirk. “Wrong pot.”

*****

KLEMPNER

What to do today?

Aimless, I amble through the house, seeking inspiration.

I find the female half of the family in the dining room. Mitch, Beth and Jenny. Cara and Adam sit on the carpet amid a scatter of discarded A4 sheets, each clutching a crayon the size of a banana, gurgling delightedly as they commit hell in red and green.

Vicky’s carrycot lies by Mitch’s feet at one end of the long table, but Vicky herself is with Jenny, sucking contentedly from a bottle. My older and younger daughters make unlikely siblings, but both seem happy with the arrangement.

Mitch, choosing a pastel from the rainbow in the tin by her side, is working on sketches for something or other. Dolphins and sea horses in improbable colours battle for space with smiling octopuses and what I’d judge to be a blue whale were it not pink.

“Since when did octopuses smile?”

She glances up. “It’s a few ideas for Michael. He’s thinking of getting the crèche pool tiled to be more child friendly. It’s plain white and blue right now and it looks a bit sanitised.”

“Oh.” I look over her sketches. “Are sea horses really purple and green?”

“It’s for a children’s pool.”

“Can I help?”

She sets down her pastels. Irritation crackles through her voice. “I don’t know, Larry. Can you help?”

Hmmm…

Beth sits at the other end of the table, tapping into a calculator. Clicking her tongue at the result, she jots down a note. A ledger lies open to her left, a sheet of paper to her right. Columns of figures, written in a careful hand, are annotated with scribbled comments on sticky yellow notes. She taps in again and adds another note then, clucking, red pens out an entire column of figures, dropping the paper to the carpet.

My granddaughter chortles in delight, grabbing the sheet in pudgy fingers. Wielding her crayon like a cook stirring soup, she completes the work Beth started with her red pen, babbling some comment in Baby-Speak to Adam. He stabs down with a crayon at his current work of art and babbles agreement back.

“What’s that you’re doing, Beth?” Jenny, milk bottle in hand, gazes over the table at the mess of documentation spread over the dining room table.

Beth pencils another note, adds it to one of the sheets, then jots something on what looks like a summary page, so far listing several dozen other similar jottings. “I’m going over the stocktake figures for the hotel.” Her pencil hovers over the last note and she adds some further annotation. “I’m not happy about some of the supplies.”

“Which supplies?”

“The hand washes, the shampoos and the grooming products. Some go into the rooms for the guests. Others supply the spa section. But it seems to me we’re going through too much. And with what they cost I want to know why. Michael pays for designer brands, and they don’t come cheap.”

Jenny’s forehead wrinkles. “Why on earth are you bothering with that?”

Beth gives her a cool look. “I’m a shareholder. I’ve an interest. And besides, I don’t like the idea that someone might be ripping us off.”

Michael, soundless, has materialised behind me. “You think someone has their hand in the till, Beth?”

“For now, let’s just say I’m looking into the possibility.”

Propping himself over her, knuckles resting on the tabletop, “Where’s the problem?”

Beth taps a file with a painted fingernail. “The inputs are fine. I have all the invoices and delivery notes along with the stocktake figures from stores and housekeeping. I’m tying that in with what is likely to be used by guests in the hotel or the spa facilities…”

“But?”

“But I’m having to make assumptions about how much disappears due to guests who simply rifle the lot. You know, the ones who pocket the mini-shampoos and soaps as freebies. I can’t believe it’s all of them, but that’s what the numbers suggest.”

Michael straightens up, rubs the back of his neck. “You worked as a hotel maid for a while, didn’t you? You’d have an idea from that surely, of what’s typical.”

Beth smiles. “That was only for a few days. I encountered Richard and that was the end of my Maiding Career.”

Jenny pipes up. “It was maybe a third of the guests when I was doing the job.”

All heads swing her way. “Sorry?” says Michael. “When was this?”