Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 12.3

Later that week when we switched on the television The Deaths were there. It was dark outside their kitchen window, and there was an empty bottle of wine and two glasses on the table, and candles all over the place, which was weird enough for starters. But, weirder still, Mr. Death was wearing a suit.

Some people look strange in suits. Mr. Death, with his crazy beard, was one of them.

Mrs. Death, on the other hand, wasn't dressed up in the least. From what I could see she wasn't wearing much at all. And I could see an awful lot. She was sitting up on the kitchen table for some reason.

"Oh my God," Sophie said. "Ben, don't look."

"Why?"

"You can't."

"They can't see us."

"That's not the point." Sophie got to her feet and stood in front of the TV with her hands on her hips.

"Hey, I can't see what's happening!"

Sophie's face was as red as a beetroot. I was trying to see around her but she'd backed right up to the TV.

I heard Mr. Death roar like a bear. Mrs. Death giggled. There was a sound like dropping a big steak on the floor, then a kind of slurping. Mrs. Death went hmmmmm, like someone trying to figure out a difficult sum. More slurping sounds. Mrs. Death made a sound like a chicken.

"I'm turning it off," Sophie said. She fumbled behind her for the dial.

"Wait!" I said. "They're just getting into it."

It sure sounded like it. Mr. Death was snorting like a bull. The table was squeaking and creaking away like anything.

Then it happened.

CRRAAAAAASSHH!

"What the fuck was that?" I said.

Sophie still wouldn't get out of the way.

"Let me see!"

"No!"

I grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her out of the way.

"Arsehole!" she screamed, and tried to knee me in the balls, but I twisted around and she missed. Then I tripped over the rug, or she did, and we both fell over. I landed on top of her.

"Get OFF me!"

I rolled off her and sat up.

Her face was bright red. "Look!" she said, pointing at the TV. "Happy now?"

There was nothing on it. No Mr. Death. No Mrs. Death. Even the table was gone.

"Where are they?" I said.

"You probably scared them off."

"I just wanted to see."

"Yeh, well look what you've done now."

I could hear Mrs. Death crying.

"I didn't do anything," I said.

"Shut up," Sophie said, and pressed her ear to the speaker in the TV. Mrs. Death's crying was growing louder, except it was changing as well. Suddenly she wasn't crying. She was laughing. She had one of those shrieking, whooping old lady laughs. Mr. Death was laughing too – he honked like the braying of a donkey. They both got louder and louder, and more and more hysterical. Mrs. Death would whoop with laughter, then take a deep breath and say "The table!" and then she'd start whooping again. I wondered if this was normal behaviour for people who have just done it.

Sophie's eyes were shining now. "He broke the table," she said.

"How?"

"You know," she said.

But I couldn't picture it in my head.

Suddenly Mr. and Mrs. Death's laughter was cut off. The TV screen had gone dead.

"It must have been her," I said. "She was sitting on it."

Sophie shook her head. "It was him for sure. Men always break things. It's because they're brutes." I don't know where she'd got that word from. It didn't sound like something from her magazines.

"Well we'll never know, will we?" I said. "Someone didn't let us watch it."

As it turned out, it didn't really matter who had broken the table. All that mattered was that the table had been broken, and that Mr. Death had been involved.

That, it turned out, was enough.