Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 10.1

"'Brilliant! Fantastic! Marvelous!' And do you know what they do?"

"No."

"Nothing! They can't write another word! They're so blinded by their own brilliance that they can't even put pen to paper. And I don't have to worry about them for the rest of the year. They're happy. I'm happy. They become accountants, doctors, bureaucrats, English teachers -"

"And the second pile?"

"The fair writers, yes. I tell them they're terrible!" He threw his hands in the air. Suds shot across the kitchen. "And what do they do?"

"Walk out?"

"Yes! Possibly! I hope so! They begin to stew. They cook in their own juices. They throw bricks through my office window!"

"You've planned this?"

"I bought a dustpan yesterday."

"Aren't you being a bit hard on them?" Mrs. Death said. She took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes. "They're only in high school."

"It's the perfect time! Get your claws in em while they're young, Margaret, that's the ticket. The New Method – I can hardly wait." He stroked his crazy beard and looked up at the wall, as if the New Method was something that was hanging there, like a clock or something. He kept talking the whole time. "I'll feed their hatred. I'll let it fester. And when they get home from school each day, what will they think to themselves?"

"I don't know, dear."

"They'll think: 'I'll teach that old prick a lesson! I'll write the greatest novel ever written!" They stay up all night. They slave over their stories. They miss my classes, and those they do attend, they sleep through. They do three, five, ten drafts! Then, at the end of the year, half a dozen novels land on my desk. I read them all. I stay up late every night reading them. I can't put them down."

There was a smile at the corners of Mrs. Death's mouth now.

"Then I pass them all!" he finished. "With flying colours!

What Mrs. Death said next seemed to stump him.

"Will you tell them? In the end I mean?"

He gazed out the window and stroked his fantastic beard, like it was an animal that enjoyed being petted. "No," he said. "I won't. I'll -"

He fumbled the glass she'd just handed him. I thought it was going to smash on the floor, but she snatched it out of mid-air. Amazing.

They caught each other's eyes. And suddenly they were both laughing.

"Peter Death, you have two left hands."

"Yes yes. I know it."

They did the dishes in silence for a while.

When they were almost done Death held a butter knife up to the light. "I was going through some old photos last night. I found one of my first car. Have I ever told you the story about my car accident?"

"You've had several car accidents."

"This was a bad one. Before I met you. I'd forgotten all about it until I saw the photo."

"Were you hurt?"

"I walked away from it. Incredible really."

"Was anyone else hurt?"

Death went silent. He was concentrating fiercely on the spoon he was drying.

"Peter?"

"No," he said. "Well yes. A dog. I swerved to avoid a boy who was playing on the road, but I ran over his dog. Killed it. I was going too fast. I hit a tree." He gave his wife a glance, then put the spoon in the dryer and took a wet coffee mug from her hands.

"Oh that's awful."

"I'll never forget the look on that boy's face." He took a deep breath and began slowly drying the mug. "I didn't drive for years after that. I couldn't."

"But why are you telling me this?"

"It's been playing on my mind." He gave her a haunted look and turned away from her.

There was a silence.

"Actually," he said, too brightly. "I was watching a documentary the other day, and it jogged my memory."

"Peter, are you okay?"

"The date I crashed my car was the sixth of August, 1945."

"Should that mean something to me?"

"Yes it should."

Mrs. Death looked out the window above the kitchen sink as she thought. I wondered what she saw out there. Eventually she turned to Death and shook her head.

"Marge, it was the day they -"

But the TV had gone blank.

"Fuck," I said. I reached out and turned the dial, but the Deaths were nowhere to be found.

"I wonder what happened?" Sophie said, giving the TV a curious look.

It was the hotel, I thought. I didn't tell Sophie that though – she was weird enough about the hotel already.

I was glad when she changed the subject. "Last one to the office is a rotten egg!" She raced out of the room.

Mr. and Mrs. Death had paid for their room like anyone else, and when we got to the office there it was sitting on the desk: a phonograph from the old days, you know, with the big thing coming out of it like a tropical flower or a shell from the ocean deeps. Me and Sophie didn't know the word phonograph, so we called it a HORNPIPE. There it was, just sitting there listening to us. Brilliant.

Sophie tried to get the HORNPIPE working, but it's boring watching someone fix something, so I poked around the office while she did it. I looked at the painting Elinor had done, of the man with the cane and the moustache, who was standing out the front of the hotel. I thought about him sometimes. I wondered if he was Elinor's husband or her father. Perhaps he wasn't related to her at all. He did look kind of familiar though. As Sophie tapped and swore at the HORNPIPE I reached out to cover the moustache with my hand – but I pulled my hand back again without touching the painting. Somehow I was afraid to touch it. I didn't even want to look at it anymore. I looked away. That was when my eyes fell on the filing cabinet in the corner.

We hadn't thought much of it because it was locked. Now I went over for a closer look. I tried one of the drawers, just in case, but it didn't budge. I ran a finger over the keyhole. Somewhere in the back of my mind I saw a key, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it.