Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 6.1

I woke up before Sophie the next morning. I sat out on the balcony and watched the sun come up. Another hot day. The hotel seemed different this morning, but I couldn't say exactly how. There was no noise from anywhere – that was one thing. Whatever birds lived in the trees around Ambrose were either keeping quiet or had gone away. There wasn't a breath of wind.

I didn't know Sophie was there until she spoke. "How'd she survive up there?"

"Soph -"

"What'd she eat?"

"Maybe she found stuff to eat."

"You know what I reckon? Someone was feeding her."

"Come on."

"Well what do you think?"

I looked away. I didn't know what I thought, to be honest. I watched the sun. The colours of Ambrose were changing as the sun rose, but still nothing stirred.

Sophie wouldn't let it go. "Someone's been taking food up to her to... to keep her alive."

"But why? It doesn't make sense."

"Dirty Joe," Sophie said.

I thought about Dirty Joe crying over the photo. I thought about him going all strange in the dark car. "No," I said.

"Her husband then. Where's he?"

"Dead probably," I said. I suddenly remembered something. "Hey, you know that painting downstairs. It said Elinor on it."

"What if he is still alive?" Sophie said. "He could be up there too."

I didn't know what to say to that.

After a while we went into the bedroom where Elinor was.

"Nor," I said.

"Nor," Sophie said.

Burying a person is not like burying a cat. It took us most of the day just to dig the grave. We dug it out in the garden next to the other grave that was there. We used some steam shovels I'd found in the shed. We left Fred in the grass nearby, wrapped in a towel, and although I couldn't see him I heard him giggle from time to time. He liked being outside with the tall grass all around him.

When the hole was deep enough we dragged Elinor downstairs. She was like a piece of wood. I knew she'd go like that because of when we buried the cat, which was the same - you know, stiff. I explained this to Sophie, but she didn't seem very interested.

We got Elinor out to the grave, but we didn't know how to get her into it. You couldn't get in there and lift her down because there wasn't enough room. So we ended up rolling her into it. She flumped to the bottom. I felt bad about that, but it couldn't be helped.

We put her purse in the grave with her. We knew there was a hundred bucks in there, but we wouldn't have taken that money, not in a million years. Then Sophie said a few words. I won't tell you what they were, because they're between me and Sophie and Elinor. There's not many things I won't tell you, but that's one of them.