Hotel Milano, page 4
Bit over the top, she smiled. She said, Perhaps you should apply for the job, Frank. You know? Edit the magazine. Really. You should re-engage.
You mean now I’m not hampered by an embarrassing domestic arrangement?
I mean the board might be interested in an experienced older person holding the fort for a few years while they groom up someone younger.
A caretaker?
She frowned: Do you really think one should simply step back from it all? Period. Just because of some flak years ago.
I watched her across the table. It was good to be challenged. Let me tell you, I said, what happened with Rachel. I took a chunk of bread. Do you mind?
Not at all. She poured the remaining wine, lifted her glass to her lips.
So, when she was diagnosed, the doctors gave her a year. If that. For a month or so we despaired. We tore our hair. Then she said she wanted to travel. She wanted to enjoy what was left.
Makes sense. Deborah settled in her chair.
I told her about our journeys. We gave up our jobs. Our peregrinations we called them. Now we were walking in foreign cities. Watching films in languages we didn’t know. Far from dying that year, she survived five more. I told Deborah how the long-protracted poignancy had exhausted us. Each year was to be the last, then it wasn’t. We were grateful, but bewildered, drifting. I told her about the bitter arguments with her parents. They wanted her home. They felt I was to blame. I told her how Rachel had begun to spend extravagantly. There was the problem of the care she needed. Expensive drugs. Wherever we went. But also her desire to enjoy everything in the time she had. We had rented flats in Paris, Madrid, Rome. Always in the city centre. Always with a view to her dying before a six-month rental was out. She wanted to meet people, to know the world. We had sought alternative cures, in California and the Philippines. Just in case. And India. I sold my house, and then, when they died, my parents’ house. My son was not pleased. Or Connie. Rachel raged against her fate. The medications gave her the energy of a teenager. She wanted to dance all night. I couldn’t keep up. Then she was a zombie until the next treatment. At thirty-six she looked older than I was at sixty-five. It seemed it would go on forever. I was anxious we would run out of money. But the end came quickly. We had gone to Delhi, to an Ayurvedic clinic. She was suddenly worse. She couldn’t breathe. I took her to Shimla to escape the heat. A Sikh drove us through the night. She died next day.
Lifting my glass, my hand shook. Now I have made you more depressed than before.
Deborah said not at all. I’m glad you told me. She hesitated. I see what you’re saying, though. You have nothing left to give.
The waiter brought the bill. She said the magazine would cover it. I thought it would be tacky to mention the flights and the hotel. Tomorrow, she said, she was off to visit an old friend in Florence. To mull over the future. Saying goodbye, I asked, By the way, what was with Dan wearing that prayer cap? In his coffin. She had no idea, she said. I was as surprised as anyone.
Her hotel was in Corso Buenos Aires. I checked the map on my phone. It was after ten. Again I decided to walk. After so much conversation, so much wine, I needed to exhaust myself, otherwise I would be awake all night, putting out fires.
Google gave the distance as a mile. Slightly less. I felt befuddled. It was cold. The traffic seemed more feverish than it had been during the day. As if the city were hosting some major event. Though surely if they had closed down the restaurants they would have cancelled any concerts and sports and the like. Waiting to cross a major road, I became aware that the five or six people gathering beside me all had suitcases. Trolley wheels rattled on the stone flags. People were hurrying. My hotel was beside the station of course. Others poured in from side streets. A crowd was swelling, drawn by a magnet that was more powerful with every block we walked. Many people had masks. But not umbrellas. It had come on to drizzle. Many were speaking on their phones. They seemed to be walking faster now. The traffic had jammed. Horns sounded. People dragged their trolleys between cars. A siren wailed. I began to worry about the chilly air on my neck.
The big plaza outside the station was teeming. A solid procession flowed towards the whiteness of the floodlit edifice with its winged horses and warriors. Impressed, I let myself be pulled along, trying to work out how I could cut across the packed, moving crowd to my hotel whose facade was visible now above trees on the other side of the square. There was a clamour of voices. Apparently I was the only person without luggage. A dog yelped. The bodies were pressing tighter. Eventually, inside the first grand hall of the station, I was able to get behind a pillar that parted the flow, like a rock in a river. A PA boomed. For a moment I thought I might faint. I leaned on the stone. Yet I felt elated too and, as the dizziness passed, extremely alert, alive. If somehow I could get across to the next pillar, and the next, and one more, perhaps I could make it out of the crowd on the other side. I waited for a slight easing in the throng. Someone changed direction, calling to a friend. Now!
Behind the second pillar a boy had spread out a blanket with mobile phone covers. He made space for me and grinned. In the next rush I stumbled and went down hard on a knee before a woman pulled me up. I caught a cat’s gleaming eyes in her companion’s arms. Then I was out of it. Limping. The pavement in front of the great building was oddly empty. A doorman opened for me. When I asked at Reception what was going on, an older man told me he wasn’t aware of anything unusual. The lobby was immersed in a wealthy hush. In my room, the ice had melted round my Veuve Clicquot. The shower was as voluptuous as any shower ever was. I had my head on the pillow before midnight.
VI
It was Sunday. I didn’t get down to breakfast till ten. My night, as expected, had been troubled. One cannot meet people and talk and remember without paying the price. Without going on talking and remembering through the night. Yet the funeral itself seemed a non-event. Or I had failed to make much of it. I had come to put Dan to rest, perhaps to find some reconciliation with Connie. Instead I had resurrected Rachel. Uncanny, in retrospect, the instinct that pushed the door SOLO AUTORIZZATI.
I thought about Deborah. Why hadn’t I asked her about her personal situation? There were good people in the world. I dreamed I was in a long queue, climbing steps in a lobby. Perhaps a government building. Or a temple. At the top one must pass through a tiny hoop, not much bigger than a coin. It was impossible. Yet everyone managed. Everyone said there was beauty and freedom on the other side. As we shuffled nearer, the hoop glowed gold like a crown and all around was dark.
Waking, I ran myself a bath. The bathroom boasted the same polished black granite as the Bonaccorsi monument, multiplied in bright mirrors. It must have been about 3 a.m. The knee I had fallen on in the station was swollen and stiff. I soaked for a while, reading Tennyson. I was surprised that Arthur had rebuked the knights who went after the Holy Grail. They were needed at the Round Table to protect the realm. Wrongs will not right themselves, the king complained, while you are off looking for a mystical experience.
The five-star towels were gorgeously fluffy. I slept better towards morning, but at the breakfast buffet, choosing between raspberries and strawberries, I became aware that I had also dreamed of Ben. What he had wanted to tell me, he said, was that Dan Sandow had left him a handsome inheritance and so he wouldn’t need to trouble me for money ever again. The tea was excellent. I decided I would spend the day looking round Milan then fly home tomorrow. Or Tuesday. Meantime, with what I was spending here, and not having my laptop with me, I felt I might reasonably expect the concierge to book me a suitable flight. But Reception turned out to be busy, unusually so for a Sunday morning. The desks were besieged. Returning to my room my eye fell on a newspaper lying on the thick blue carpet outside my neighbour’s door. It had a single word headline. ESODO.
I set off to walk to the centre. The morning was bright and cool. Clear skies. This has been my life for some years now. Walking. Albeit mostly in west London. I’m not keeping fit. I’m not looking for the Holy Grail. I’m not sure I would recognise a mystical experience if I had one. Or it’s all mystical. Sometimes I tell myself I’m accumulating truth. I seek out crowded places and let the world appear in all its density. I clear my mind to make space for sounds and smells and all the shifting colours. Keep the phone off. Perhaps it’s a duty. Or I’m remembering those walks with Rachel. At first I took notes. There was half an idea of striking back. After all these years. Some kind of testimony. The world would be surprised. Then one day I carried my papers down to the basement and dumped them in the recycling. To burn them would have been too grand. Too dangerous in a small flat. After that, whenever I found myself writing things down – We must put order into experience, was Dan’s mantra – I would bin the papers right afterwards. Or if I was writing on the computer, simply not save the document. It reached the point where I would be aware, as I was writing, that the words would soon be destroyed. This provided an unexpected pleasure. I wrote more strenuously and elegantly than I ever had, safe in the knowledge that my words could have no consequence. Then the habit fell away and I stopped altogether. I was left with my long daily outings, occasional evenings at the theatre, even the opera. Occasional visits to Ben’s. Avoiding politics. My granddaughter Sophie is delightful. In small doses. Life is good.
In Milan, I recalled a happy morning years ago in the crowds around the Duomo. Rachel and I had climbed a spiral stone staircase, not to go through a burning hoop, but to view the city and the mountains from the roof of the great cathedral. It must have been before her illness when we were both busy people, busy together, ever interrupting conversations to check emails, compare notes, confirm appointments. Now I set off in that direction. Perhaps I would climb to the roof again. But after a hundred yards or so I knew it was not to be. My knee was fine, or no more than stiff, for five or six paces, then when I set my foot down there would be a sharp, shooting pain. What the difference was between the steps that were painless and the step that was excruciating I could not fathom.
Few people were about, despite the good weather. Some were trundling their bags towards the station, late arrivals at yesterday’s party; there was a queue outside a small supermarket, which struck me as strange. Perhaps at some point I would have to find out what was going on. When newspapers resort to one-word headlines drama is guaranteed. Meantime, Google Maps told me I was two hundred yards from the Indro Montanelli Park. I proceeded cautiously and found myself limping down a broad gravel avenue, under tall trees, beside a muddy lake. Wonderfully, a kiosk was serving coffee. I sat at a table and took a decision. Let this be your one Milan moment. Enjoy it to the full. Then book the first flight home. This evening.
The park was pleasantly alive with children and joggers. Dog owners. Soft sunshine picked out buds on winter branches. There were whiffs of tobacco, even dope. And all round me, at the cafe tables, animated conversation. I have become a great lover of parks in recent years. An atmosphere of truce presides. Time slows. People remember life need not be all struggle. I hung on long after my coffee and eventually ordered a glass of wine. An anxious father jumped to his feet to retrieve his toddler. Matilda! Two girls fed the ducks. It had been well worth coming, I thought. If only for this. And yesterday’s conversation with Deborah. And Tennyson. I imagined Sir Bedivere tossing Excalibur into the duck pond, waiting for the hand to come out of the water. Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. I must read that passage again.
Sir, flights to the UK are fully booked.
I spoke to the concierge from a line some distance from his desk. After a ten-minute wait.
I have just checked for another gentleman, sir. Then he explained that, as of tomorrow morning, the Region of Lombardy would be closed.
Closed in what sense?
There will be no travel in or out, sir. That is why everyone is leaving.
As he spoke, I felt a sneeze coming and turned abruptly to clamp my nose. The concierge took a small step back. Trains to France and Germany are also fully booked. A number of guests have been making enquiries.
Tomorrow? Tuesday?
The first flights were for Thursday, he said, but it remained unclear whether people would be allowed to fly.
In his late thirties, this man wore his silver buttons with pride and seemed comfortable with his role as competent servant. All the same, it was hard not to suspect a veiled pleasure in his manner as he prospected these difficulties for his wealthy guests. If I chose to prolong my stay at the hotel, he warned, I should let the booking desk know as soon as possible.
Others were queueing behind me. I moved aside and gazed around the lobby. Although the external facade of Hotel Milano had the cheerful grandeur of twenties art deco, the refurbished interior might have been any luxury hotel from Bangkok to Los Angeles. Violet, cream and lemon surfaces. Suffused lighting and shininess. Not unlike the Sacro Cuore funeral parlour. With here or there a polished column or marble balustrade, even a fountain and sculpted nymph, as if the past were still with us.
I took the lift back to the sixth floor, noticing for the first time photographs of a gym and spa bath. News of a rooftop restaurant. Beside me a woman with a fur jacket coughed and apologised. She said something in Italian. When I shook my head, she said, Perhaps soon we will have to stop to use the elevator. I smiled, but she must have seen I still hadn’t understood.
A maid was in my room, smoothing out the quilt. She excused herself and made to leave. No, go ahead, I told her, don’t mind me. She seemed confused. A minute, meek-looking creature. Hispanic perhaps. Or Filipino. A subservience as international as the decor. Take your time, I said and retreated into the corridor.
On a sofa opposite the lift I tried to collect my wits. Was this an adventure or a nightmare? Dan had died and the world had fallen apart. As if the survival of civilisation depended on it, Deborah had said. Their editing. I wondered if she had taken her train to Florence. Was she serious when she suggested I apply for the job? And should I simply take the concierge’s word for it and accept that there were no flights? How different, the concierge’s confidence from the housemaid’s meekness! How perfectly in line with their roles and destinies. Their ethnicities. Experience told me that if I went straight to the airport and hassled for long enough, out of the chaos a seat would emerge. Or if I climbed on a train and sat in the buffet bar, very likely no one would bother me until we were over the border. Switzerland was barely thirty miles away. Or I could take a bus east, to Slovenia and a plane from there.
A couple came hurrying down the corridor wheeling matching leather trolleys. The woman, in her forties, discreetly elegant. The man must have been pushing eighty. Rachel and myself, if we had had more time. Their faces were tense. The man covered his finger with a tissue to press the button on the lift console. Another alternative would be to rent a car and leave it at the airport in Zurich.
Again a sneeze was coming. The lift doors were closing. I looked right and left, and indulged. Not my normal two sneezes, but three. All explosive. Of course if I broke my rule and checked a major news site, I might understand if this was worrying. But I only yearned to get back to my room, lie on the freshly made bed and read Tennyson. During the night, amid the black reflections of the bathroom, Sir Percivale’s grail story had seemed revelatory. Of what? Why had every place he looked and every person he spoke to crumbled to dust? The maid would surely have finished now. But a sudden anxious intuition had me tapping the banking app on my phone. There was the rigmarole of passwords, the need to retrieve a code from a text message. Thirty seconds to enter six digits. I hurried through three menus and found I had lost a third of my savings.
For a moment, on the white sofa opposite the lift, I stared at the figures on the screen and tried to remember when I had last checked. My investments were in no way adventurous. Returning to my room it seemed intensely silent. A message flashed on the TV inviting Mr Marriot to consider the option of the Express Checkout.
The stock market must have collapsed. That was all. It was sobering. But the afternoon passed pleasantly on the sixth floor of the Hotel Milano. The room’s extravagance was gauche, but comfortable. I took the Veuve Clicquot from the fridge, popped the cork and sipped bubbles on the balcony. Not one but three ambulances wailed by. A steady stream of people marched ant-like to the station; no one seemed to be coming out of the place.
Inside again, I sprawled in a leather armchair, but couldn’t concentrate on Tennyson. Of course the amount of money an old man needs will depend on how long he has to live. You are already entering borrowed time, I thought. That said, there were people in my family who had borrowed a great deal of time. A grandmother had passed a hundred. It is not a loan anyone can ask you to repay. And what exactly would happen if I ran out of money? It occurred to me how futile the parsimony of these recent years had been when a third of what I had hoarded had vanished overnight. I could have been more generous to Ben. Or to myself. Had frugality been a form of mourning? I wondered. The truth is, Rachel once said, everyone is in my position, at death’s door, just that they don’t know it, while I do. We had been settling into business-class seats. Later she laughed and said, I suppose knowing it is my position.
I drank another glass of champagne, took a nap and towards six, phoned down to Reception and told them I would like to extend my booking for another two nights. A woman’s voice asked if I was happy with the room I was in and I said absolutely.
Then I picked up the remote from a silver tray, sat on the end of the bed opposite the television and prepared myself. It had not been snobbery that led me to do without one. Many years ago now. To abandon all newspapers. Turn off the radio. I may be a snob, but that’s not the point. Like the alcoholic who at last appreciates that total abstention is the only way forward, my renunciation had been a question of survival. I had realised, in the early noughties I suppose, that my profession was becoming dangerously toxic. Perhaps it had once been possible to deliver facts and even considered reflections without an agenda. That was no longer the case. Everything was overheated, hasty, polarised. There were no barriers to immediate reaction. Huge pressures built up in a matter of hours, to second this or that declaration or outcry or hashtag. Or to oppose it. And hours later to apologise for not having seconded it. Or for having seconded it half-heartedly. Or for not having opposed it. My instinct was always to question, to resist. I thought I was resisting. Newspaper editors invited me to express views they might have liked to express themselves. Or to shoot down. Views they knew would rouse mayhem. The media thrives on what it denounces. You are part of the system, Rachel observed. A red rag to the bully. Where in the past Connie would spur me on – You’re not bold enough, Frank! – Rachel yearned to cool me down. Where would this lead? she asked. Do you want to be lynched? I made an effort to fight my instinct for polemic. There must be ways to state what I thought coolly. But the cry was always: Whoever is not for us is against us. Coolness was insult piled on injury. One must live in a state of outrage. Not to do so was outrageous.
