The Absolutist (2 page)

“Of course, sir,” he said, swallowing a little and staring down at the reception desk as if his entire future were mapped out in the wood; here in the grain was the girl he would marry, here
the children they would have, here the lifetime of bickering misery they would inflict upon each other. His mother touched him lightly on the arm and whispered something in his ear, and he shook his head quickly and hissed at her to stay quiet. “It’s a mess, the whole thing,” he said, raising his voice suddenly as he returned his attention to me. “You were to stay in number four, you see. But I’m afraid number four is indisposed right now.”

“Well, couldn’t I stay in one of the other rooms, then?” I asked.

“Oh no, sir,” he replied, shaking his head. “No, they’re all taken, I’m afraid. You were down for number four. But it’s not ready, that’s the problem. If you could just give us a little extra time to prepare it.”

He stepped out from behind the desk now and I got a better look at him. Although he was only a few years younger than me, his appearance suggested a child play-acting as an adult. He wore a pair of man’s trousers, a little too long for him, so rolled and pinned in the leg to compensate, and a shirt, tie and waistcoat combination that would not have seemed out of place on a much older man. The beginnings of a moustache were teased into a fearful line across his upper lip, and for a moment I couldn’t decide whether in fact it was a moustache at all or simply a dirty smudge overlooked by the morning’s facecloth. Despite his attempts to look older, his youth and inexperience were obvious. He could not have been out there with the rest of us, of that I felt certain.

“David Cantwell,” he said after a moment, extending his hand towards me.

“It’s not right, David,” said Mrs. Cantwell, blushing furiously. “The gentleman will have to stay somewhere else tonight.”

“And where is he to stay, then?” asked the boy, turning on her, his voice raised, a sense of injustice careering through his
tone. “You know everywhere’s full up. So where should I send him, because I certainly don’t know. To Wilson’s? Full! To Dempsey’s? Full! To Rutherford’s? Full! We have an obligation, Ma. We have an obligation to Mr. Sadler and we must meet our obligations or else we disgrace ourselves, and hasn’t there been enough of that for one day?”

I was startled by the suddenness of his aggression and had an idea of what life might be like in the boarding house for this pair of mismatched souls. A boy and his mother, alone together since he was a child, for her husband, I decided, had been killed in an accident involving a threshing machine years before. The boy was too young to remember his father, of course, but worshipped him nevertheless and had never quite forgiven his mother for forcing the poor man out to work every hour that God sent. And then the war had come and he’d been too young to fight. He’d gone to enlist and they’d laughed at him. They’d called him a brave boy and told him to come back in a few years’ time when he had some hair on his chest, if the godforsaken thing wasn’t over already, and they’d see about him then. And he’d marched back to his mother and despised her for the relief on her face when he told her that he was going nowhere, not yet, anyway.

Even then, I would imagine scenarios like this all the time, searching in the undergrowth of my plots for tangled circumstances.

“Mr. Sadler, you’ll have to forgive my son,” said Mrs. Cantwell, leaning forward now, her hands pressed flat against the desk. “He is rather excitable, as you can see.”

“It’s got nothing to do with that, Ma,” insisted David. “We have an obligation,” he repeated.

“And we would like to fulfil our obligations, of course, but—”

I missed the end of her speech, for young David had taken me by the crook of the elbow, the intimacy of the gesture
surprising me, and I pulled away from him as he bit his lip, looking around nervously before speaking in a hushed voice.

“Mr. Sadler,” he said, “might I speak to you in private? I assure you this is not how I like to run things here. You must think very badly of us. But perhaps if we went into the drawing room? It’s empty at the moment and—”

“Very well,” I said, placing my holdall on the floor in front of Mrs. Cantwell’s desk. “You don’t mind if I leave this here?” I asked, and she shook her head, swallowing, wringing those blessed hands of hers together once again and looking for all the world as if she would welcome a painful death at that very moment over any further discourse between us. I followed her son into the drawing room, partly curious as to the measure of concern that was on display, partly aggrieved by it. I was tired after my journey and filled with such conflicting emotions about my reasons for being in Norwich that I wanted nothing more than to go directly to my room, close the door behind me, and be left alone with my thoughts.

The truth was that I did not know whether I could even go through with my plans for the following day. I knew there were trains to London at ten past the hour, every second hour, starting at ten past six, so there were four I could take before the appointed hour of my meeting.

“What a mess,” said David Cantwell, whistling a little between his teeth as he closed the door behind us. “And Ma doesn’t make it any easier, does she, Mr. Sadler?”

“Look, perhaps if you just explained the problem to me,” I said. “I did send a postal order with my letter in order to reserve the room.”

“Of course you did, sir, of course you did,” he replied. “I registered the booking myself. We were to put you in number four, you see. That was my decision. Number four is the quietest of our rooms and, while the mattress might be a little
lumpy, the bed has a good spring to it and many of our clients remark that it’s very comfortable indeed. I read your letter, sir, and took you for an army man. Was I right, sir?”

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded curtly. “I was,” I told him. “Not any more, of course. Not since it ended.”

“Did you see much action?” he asked, his eyes lighting up, and I could feel my patience beginning to wane.

“My room. Am I to have it or not?”

“Well, sir,” he said, disappointed by my reply. “That’s rather up to you.”

“How so?”

“Our girl, Mary, is up there at the moment, disinfecting everything. She kicked up a stink about it, I don’t mind telling you, but I told her that it’s my name above the door, not hers, and she’ll do what she’s told if she wants to keep her position.”

“I thought it was your mother’s name,” I said, teasing him a little.

“Well, it’s mine, too,” he snapped indignantly, his eyes bulging in their sockets as he glared at me. “Anyway, it will be as good as new by the time she’s done with it, I can promise you that. Ma didn’t want to tell you anything, but since you’re an army man—”

“An
ex
-army man,” I said, correcting him.

“Yes, sir. Well, I believe it would be disrespectful of me not to tell you what’s gone on there and let you make up your own mind on the matter.”

I was intrigued now and a variety of possibilities came to mind. A murder, perhaps. A suicide. A straying husband caught by a private detective in the arms of another woman. Or something less dramatic: an unquenched cigarette catching flame in a waste-paper basket. A guest absconding in the night without settling his account due. More tangles. More wasteland.

“I’m happy to make up my mind,” I said, “if only I—”

“He’s stayed here before, of course,” said the boy, interrupting me, his voice growing more animated as he prepared to let me have it, warts and all. “Mr. Charters, that’s his name. Edward Charters. A very respectable chap, I always thought. Works in a bank in London but has a mother somewhere out Ipswich way and goes to see her on occasion and usually comes into Norwich for a night or two before heading back to town. When he does he always stays here. We never had any problems with him, sir. A quiet gentleman, kept himself to himself. Well dressed. Always asked for number four because he knew how good the room was, and I was happy to oblige him. It’s me who organizes the rooms, Mr. Sadler, not Ma. She gets confused by the numbers and—”

“And this Mr. Charters,” I said. “He refused to vacate the room earlier?”

“No, sir,” said the boy, shaking his head.

“There was an accident of some sort, then? He was taken ill?”

“No, it was nothing like that, sir. We gave him a key, you see. In case he came back late. We give it to preferred clients. I allow it. It will be perfectly all right to give one to you, of course, what with you being ex-army. I wanted to join up myself, sir, only they wouldn’t let me on account of—”

“Please,” I said, interrupting him. “If we could just—”

“Yes, I’m sorry, sir. Only it’s a little awkward, that’s all. We’re both men of the world, am I right, Mr. Sadler? I can speak freely?”

I shrugged. I expected I was. I didn’t know. Wasn’t even sure what the phrase meant, if I was honest.

“The thing is, there was something of a commotion early this morning,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning forward in a conspiratorial fashion. “Woke the whole bloody house up, it did. Excuse me, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “It turned out that Mr. Charters, who we thought was a quiet, decent gentleman,
was anything but. He went out last night but didn’t come home alone. And we have a rule about that sort of thing, of course.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Such niceties! Was this what the last four years had been about? “Is that all?” I asked, imagining a lonely man, kind to his mother in Ipswich, who had somehow found a little female companionship for the evening, perhaps unexpectedly, and had allowed himself to be taken over by his baser instincts. It was hardly anything to get excited about, surely.

“Not quite all, sir,” said David. “For Mr. Charters’s … companion, shall we say, was no better than a thief. Robbed him blind and when he protested held a knife to his throat and all hell broke loose. Ma woke up, I woke up, the other guests were out in the corridors in their night attire. We knocked on his door and when we opened it …” He looked as if he was unsure whether he should go on or not. “We called the police, of course,” he added. “They were both taken away. But Ma feels wretched over the whole thing. Thinks the whole place is spoiled now. Talking about selling up, if you can believe that. Moving back to her people in the West Country.”

“I’m sure that Mr. Charters feels wretched, too,” I said, experiencing pangs of sympathy for him. “The poor man. I can understand the young lady being arrested, of course, if she had become violent, but why on earth was he? Surely this is not a question of morality?”

“It is, sir,” said David, standing up to his full height now and looking positively affronted. “It most certainly is a question of morality.”

“But he hasn’t broken the law, as far as I understand it,” I said. “I don’t quite see why he should be held accountable for what is, after all, a personal indiscretion.”

“Mr. Sadler,” said David calmly. “I shall say this plain, as I think you might have misunderstood me. Mr. Charters’s companion
was not a young lady, I’m afraid. It was a boy.” He nodded knowingly at me and I flushed a little and looked away.

“Ah,” I said, nodding my head slowly. “I see. That.”

“So you can understand why Ma is upset. If word gets about …” He looked up quickly, as if he had just realized something. “I trust you will be discreet about this, sir. We do have our livelihoods to consider.”

“What?” I asked, staring at him and nodding quickly. “Oh yes, of course. It’s … well, it’s nobody’s business but your own.”

“But it does leave the matter of the room,” he said delicately. “And whether you wish to stay in it or not. As I say, it is being thoroughly cleaned.”

I thought about it for a moment but could see no objections. “It really doesn’t bother me, Mr. Cantwell,” I said. “I’m sorry for your difficulties and for your mother’s distress, but if the room is still available for the night, I am still in need of a bed.”

“Then it’s all settled,” he said cheerfully, opening the door and stepping back outside. I followed him, a little surprised by how quickly our interview had been terminated, and found the boy’s mother still in place behind the desk, her eyes darting back and forth between us.

“Mr. Sadler understands everything perfectly,” announced her son. “And he would like to avail himself of the room after all. I have told him that it will be ready in an hour. I was right to do so, I presume?” He spoke to her as if he were already master of the house and she his servant girl.

“Yes, of course, David,” she said, a note of relief in her voice. “And it’s very good of you, sir, if I may say so. Would you care to sign the register?”

I nodded and leaned over the book, writing my name and address carefully on the ledger, the ink splashing a little as I struggled to control my grip of the pen in my spasmodic right hand.

“You can wait in the drawing room, if you wish,” said David, staring at my trembling index finger and, no doubt, wondering. “Or there’s a very respectable public house a few doors down if you require a little refreshment after your journey.”

“Yes, that I think,” I said, replacing the pen carefully on the desk, aware of the mess that I had left behind me and embarrassed by it. “May I leave my holdall here in the meantime?”

“Of course, sir.”

I leaned down and took my book from inside the bag, fastened it again and glanced at the clock as I stood up.

“If I’m back by half past seven?” I asked.

“The room will be ready, sir,” said David, leading me towards the door and opening it for me. “And once again, please accept my apologies. The world’s a funny place, sir, isn’t it? You never know what kind of deviants you’re dealing with.”

“Indeed,” I said, stepping out into the fresh air, relieved by the breeze that made me pull my overcoat tightly around my body and wish that I had remembered my gloves. But they were inside, in the bag, in front of Mrs. Cantwell, and I had no desire to engage in any further conversation with either mother or son.

To my surprise, I realized for the first time that day that it was the evening of my twenty-first birthday. I had forgotten it entirely until now.