The Other Room Read online

  He got up to leave his room, put his mobile phone in his spare suit jacket pocket in the wardrobe in case Teresa called... He wouldn’t want the noise if he was sneaking around, wouldn’t want to feel guilty speaking to her in another man’s room.

  The light to 222 clicked green. Waits stepped in.

  He reached the wrong side for the light switch; remembered; switched sides and found it. He had convinced himself that he’d either see a room where no one was staying, with no personal effects at all; or a room strewn with things that couldn’t possibly be his (shopping bags; a fur coat; a track suit and trainers). So much so that the similarity shocked him again. Not just similarity; the exact duplication, reversed. It was his suit, hanging in the wardrobe to his left, a bulge in the jacket breast pocket. Window open an inch. His magazine laid open on the bed as he had left it. Waits walked into the bathroom – his toothbrush (frayed – he needed a new one), his razor on the sink. No mirror. This is wrong, this is very wrong, he thought. Very...

  No, control yourself, he thought. Keep calm... Quite what he was planning, quite what he was expecting he didn’t know. He wondered what he would do if the man whose room this was came back – would they both look identical? Would the other man be as shocked as Waits?

  You’ve done nothing wrong, Waits told himself, and took a piss in 222’s toilet, not out of need or fear, but by way of marking his territory; making himself believe that he should be here.

  Suddenly a noise came from the main room. The mobile phone in the other man’s jacket pocket was ringing. It’s ring tone was identical to his own. Not quite thinking about it, Waits answered.

  “Mister Straw?” a woman’s voice asked. One letter different to his own in a mirror, Waits knew – he had tried it once as a kid. He had always thought that if he had ever had need to use a pseudonym, an alias, ‘Straw’ would have been the name he would have chosen... But Wait’s life to date had hardly called for false names – it had barely called for his real one.

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “You said you’d be back in town today,” – the voice on the other end had an odd combination of coquettishness and sales-pitch. “Would you be requiring one of our girls as a companion again tonight?”

  “Yes,” Waits whispered. “Tonight.”

  “Same credit card I assume? Good. Now, same girl or a bit of variety...”

  “Same one,” Waits whispered again. He had no dream feeling to fall back on, and the fear of being caught somehow was tight in his throat.

  “Same hotel? Which room number?”

  “Two two two,” Waits said.

  “Same room too?” the woman said, with what sounded like the first deviation from her script. “What are the odds?”

  ***

  When she came, as far as Waits could tell she was the same girl. When she came, she made the same noises.

  The light for 224 clicked green as he left her sleeping in the hotel bed next door. It was around midnight. On the mobile in his jacket pocket were three missed calls from Teresa.

  ***

  Early morning, he went back. (No longer thinking it strange as such, no longer surprised that the light to this other man’s room turned green for him.) She was still there.

  Afterwards, he was in a hurry, for he was late for his course. The girl looked at him with bemused eyes as he cast about the room, naked. “Where are my clothes?” he said.

  “They’re there babe,” she said. “In your wardrobe.”

  “No they’re not mine... I mean, the clothes I came in here in, this morning.”

  “Did you go somewhere? I thought I’d slept next to you – you paid for me to. Where did you go babe?” The girl said ‘babe’ like she’d done so many other things: patiently, perfectly, without emphasis.

  “But...” Waits started; stopped. He could hardly tell this prostitute he’d hired her using another man’s credit card, brought her to another man’s room. But where was this other man – why hadn’t he come back during the night? Why had he booked this room and not slept in it?

  But these were questions Waits didn’t have time for. Shrugging, he pulled on the spare suit from the wardrobe. There was a frayed thread coming from one of the buttons – he had been meaning to ask Teresa to fix it. There was the bulge of his mobile in his breast pocket.

  “You look smart,” the whore said. “Give me a call next time?”

  Waits stuttered something, left Room 222 and shut the door behind him. He didn’t care about leaving that young girl in there – if she was going to steal anything it would be nothing of his now would it? Refusing to let other thoughts nag at him, Waits headed downstairs to the function rooms. Because he was in such a hurry he didn’t go back to his own room first; he went straight from 222.

  ***

  It didn’t take long for Waits to decide he was on the wrong training course.

  The content was clearly aimed at potential managers, at people who had the gumption to progress further through the office hierarchy than he. It was about managing people like Waits.

  Maybe it is the right course, Waits though, maybe my boss is gearing me up for... But he knew that was unlikely – even if he had impressed his boss so much with his honest appraisal of the last course (and that hardly made up for years of silence and averageness) his boss was the type who gave no advantage to those who might be future rivals. Quite the opposite. But the room and the date are right, Waits thought, so obviously...

  There was a noise from his jacket pocket – he surreptitiously took out his phone. It was a text from Teresa: LOVE YOU BABE X. Waits frowned. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d called him that, told him that...

  He looked up suddenly. Someone had just said his name. Someone had just said ‘Straw’.

  They were going round the table introducing themselves. Waits heard himself describing a job he didn’t have.

  It was like that throughout the course – if he just didn’t think about what he was going to say the right answers came. The answers that would convince. Who he was trying to convince Waits didn’t know.

  During the lunch break, someone gave Waits her business card, and was obviously expecting his in return. Waits didn’t have a business card of course; but with the same ease with which he’d given different answers all morning, Straw took one from his wallet and gave it to the woman. He remembered from her introduction the position of power she held (unless she had been lying too, although Waits didn’t think of himself as a liar). Did exchanging business cards mean anything, in real life? In this life – it wasn’t a life Waits was used to, he had no experience to judge whether it was a polite formality like talking about the weather, or whether this woman, who apparently ran a much larger and more successful company than the one Waits worked for, could conceivably be interested in offering him... Waits refused to let himself hope too much; he ended this thought consciously, rather than the usual way his mind had of just letting things trail off.

  Already Waits was thinking about the evening – the course was two days long and he had another night in the hotel. Could he really use another man’s credit card twice? Use his bed twice (for Waits could only think of hiring a prostitute from Room 222, where it wasn’t really him)? What if the real Straw, wherever he was, had noticed the charges and called the credit card company..?

  But the alternative seemed another long night of his own life, and Waits was already starting to dread that; to wonder why he should...

  But in the end it didn’t matter, the worries about Straw’s credit card at any rate. Waits had a night in the bar with the others from his course, and again he seemed to say the right things. One of the other women there (not the one who’d given him her card) seemed to take an interest in him, and although he knew he could no doubt hire a younger, prettier one, Waits was just as jealous of a man that could pick up girls in bars as he was of one who could dare hire a prostitute. The girl he was chatting to smiled at him sweetly, fluttered her false eyelashes at him. Waits l
et Straw react for him, reply for him, gallantly buy her drinks. But he had already decided that it wasn’t going anywhere, he wasn’t going to take her back to Room 222. Or hire some poor young girl – they were all likely from abused homes, Waits thought, how could he have... His libido had only been strong out of boredom and unhappiness, it wasn’t characteristic of Waits. And he remembered the text message from Teresa – he felt good, he was happily married after all, unlike Straw no doubt; and despite the somewhat confused and contradicting thoughts in his head, it had been him, Waits, who had really attended this course and done so well – who'd networked, who'd had barely concealed offers from woman ten years his junior... What midlife crisis? Waits thought.

  Somewhat drunk, he headed back to his room (forgetting he was still in 222’s suit, it was after all identical) and dug out his swipe-card, stuck it into the slot for 224.

  The light clicked red.

  Waits stared dumbly at the red light; tried his card again; actually tried the door handle. But he couldn’t get in. Waits felt sick as he headed down to reception – the hotel seemed deserted, and he found himself trying to be quiet as he walked along the identical corridors, the worn carpet. At the reception desk a man he’d never met before smiled warmly in recognition.

  “Mister Straw?” he said enquiringly.

  “Ah, yes,” Waits said – he was confused about whether he should be keeping up the charade or not; in his mind who he was stemmed from which room he had last left, and he found he couldn’t remember. Which name should he answer to? But the receptionist had called him Straw, and that seemed easiest. “Ah yes, my card doesn’t seem to work. I can’t get into my room.”

  “No problem,” the receptionist said, taking the proffered card. “Sometimes they do that, they’re quite sensitive to their surroundings. If I just...” The man swiped Wait’s card through a machine on the desk, then typed something into his computer. “That’s reset for you now Mister Straw. Room 222. Apologies for any inconvenience.”

  “Room 222?” Waits said blankly.

  “Is that not right?” the receptionist said, looking somewhat alarmed. He glanced at his screen. “It says here...”

  “No, no,” Waits said. “That’s me.”

  The hotel still seemed deserted as he went back up. He tried to get back into Room 224 again, but still it wouldn’t let him in. It seemed he really had no choice – Waits inserted his card into 222. The light clicked green.

  Waits entered the room with no sense of caution, barely even looking – in the manner, in fact, of one entering his own room after a tired day. He was no longer concerned in checking for the real occupier Mister Straw, or if there were any whores in the bed. He sat down, and felt lonely. He was used to such hotel-room feelings – of wanting to be back in his own house, no matter that he wasn’t always happy there. He thought of the text message he had received from Teresa that day: LOVE YOU BABE X. His life was hardly that bad after all. Yet he hadn’t even replied! Frowning, Waits took out the mobile phone from the pocket of the jacket he was wearing, and pressed the button to call Teresa.

  It wasn’t Teresa who answered.

  It wasn’t Teresa but he recognised the voice, recognised but couldn’t place it. Which was odd – how many numbers for young women did Waits have stored on his phone?

  “Hello?” he said. “Teresa? Who is this?”

  “This wasn’t part of the deal,” the girl on the other end said sharply. Her anger was in contrast to the sleepy purr with which she had initially answered, a seduction Waits now saw was put on. He suddenly remembered whose voice it was. But the prostitute was still speaking: “This wasn’t the deal,” she repeated. “I knew this was a bad idea. I knew there was something up with you, I knew I shouldn’t have given you my number. But the deal was you wouldn’t call back!”

  “Huh?” Waits said, confused. Why when he selected Teresa from in his phone had it called...

  “The deal was one text message saying ‘I love you’. I knew it was fucked up, I knew you were fucked up! False name, pretending your name was ‘Waits’ or someone.”

  “But I am...” Waits started. “The text was from you? But why?”

  “I was hardly going to refuse was I? After all you’d paid me, and everything else you’d asked me to do. Which I did. But the deal was that you wouldn’t reply, that you’d delete my number after pretending I was whoever. I knew you were messed up.”

  “But I....”

  “Now listen. I won’t tell anyone about this, but if you call me again you’ll be in serious trouble. And not from the police. I know people, serious people. So, prick, delete my number and don’t call me again; don’t ask to see me again either. I knew you were fucked up.” So saying, the whore hung up.

  Waits stared at his phone – Straw’s phone, he now remembered, taken from Straw’s jacket. His phone was next door... He looked through the list of contacts on the phone, and found the one marked Teresa – it wasn’t his wife’s number, and it had only been added in recently. Straw paid someone, Waits thought, to text ‘I love you’, and then altered his phone to make it seem... Waits shook his head, not wanting to finish that thought, not wanting to wonder why Straw would do such a thing. Carefully, he erased the prostitute’s number from the phone. He looked through the rest of the entries just in case, but there was no alternative – he had no telephone number for his wife. And now he found that he couldn’t even remember it by heart.

  Lying back on the bed in Room 222, Waits stared at the patterns on the ceiling with blank eyes.

  ***

  But he didn’t sleep, at least not for long. He was, after all, lying in another man’s bed, even if it was similar to his own next door. He got up, dressed in Straw’s clothes. The bar would still be open.

  He ordered a triple Scotch – something to knock him out but not mean his bladder woke him up an hour down the line. He handed over the credit card from the wallet in his jacket pocket, not caring whose name was on it. He took his glass, took his first bitter sip as the barman went to the till. He stared at his distorted reflection in the whisky glass. There are no mirrors in this hotel, Waits thought distractedly, the full strangeness of this fact not having struck him until now. How Teresa would complain if...

  Another chocked off thought.

  Tomorrow you’ll be back home, Waits thought. So what if you spend the night in another man’s room, he’s paid for it already but he’s not staying in it, he’s none the worse off. Of course there’s the drink, the hundred pounds a pop whore, the...

  “Sir?” the barman said. “Straw?”

  “Um, yes,” Waits said.

  “Your card sir,” the barman said. “It’s been declined.”

  “What? But...” Waits felt indignant, personally affronted.

  “Do you have another card sir, perhaps?”

  “Yes. Well, yes, in my room, but... Look, I’ll just pay for this with cash,” Waits said, handing over a crumpled note (the only one) from Straw’s wallet. He still felt insulted, he had never had a card refused before, never been in debt. “Keep the change,” he told the barman in a tight, unfriendly voice, unable to even feel any satisfaction or smugness in doing so, in putting the little prick in place...

  Am I already drunk? Waits thought as he handed over the money. For in the dull light of the hotel bar, the design of the note, the face of the monarch, didn’t seem quite what he was used to...

  He finished his scotch in one gulp, cursed himself for not getting change for another, and went back to his room, to 222.

  ***

  The next morning he woke with a low hangover and the thought in his head that maybe Straw hadn’t paid in advance for his room at all. If so...

  “If so this credit card won’t work,” Waits said out loud. He had already searched Straw’s wallet to see if he had another, but no. So unless Straw had paid when be booked, or arrived, he, Straw had no way of...

  “But it’s not your room,” Waits said, interrupting himself, not letting his ot
her thoughts finish. It wasn’t his room, his room was paid for by his company, there was no way to link him, Waits, to Room 222. It wasn’t his room, or his credit card that was frozen, and he would do well to remember that.

  Still, Waits felt anxious.

  He decided to skip the training course that day – he had got the gist of it, he could report back to his boss easily enough. There was no point in him attending to learn the content – he wasn’t a director and never...

  Straw is, he thought.

  Wasn’t a director or manager and never would be. The people there weren’t his level and though he’d had fun pretending the previous day, it had just been pretending. Waits didn’t want to think of the easy way he’d spoke as Straw, because now that too made him anxious. He wanted to leave, to get out.

  He felt in Straw’s jacket pocket: car keys.

  He went down to the ground floor, avoiding the hotel’s reception – he didn’t want to be asked any questions about payment. But to do so he had to go by the function room where the training was being held, and he did so at the very time they were all stepping out for a coffee break. The man who was running the course hurried over.

  “Mister Straw,” he said, “hello. Not joining us today then?”

  “Ah no,” Waits said. “I’m not feeling great actually and...”

  “Fair enough,” the man said. “It’s your money.”