Now
Ruth and DJ stood side by side in front of the small hotel. Painted in a garish canary yellow, it stood at the end of a small complex of shops. Ruth noted there was a café, a chemist, a newsagent and what looked like a beauty salon included in the row.
She looked to her left and then to her right and saw rows of red-brick semi-detached houses. Their driveways were in the main empty, waiting for their owners to return home from their working day.
‘Is that our hotel?’ DJ asked, disappointment lacing his words. His dream of a fun holiday hotel, with a swimming pool, maybe even a Jacuzzi, faded with every mediocre angle of the building in front of them.
‘Yes, it appears it is. The size would suggest that it is more a guesthouse than a hotel,’ Ruth noted.
‘The sign is crooked,’ DJ said, pointing to the blue wooden sign that said, ‘The Silver Sands Lodge’.
Ruth had noticed the lopsided sign the moment the taxi pulled up outside. If a ladder was in her eye line, she would have climbed up and straightened it. Instead she pointed to their surroundings.
‘They have put us in a hotel that is falling apart,’ Ruth said, looking at the fallen sign.
‘I don’t want to stay here!’ DJ raised his voice with deliberation. He wanted to upset Ruth. He wanted to cause her pain. Maybe that would stop him feeling so bad. Maybe that would keep the tears away.
‘We have no choice.’
‘I want to find my dad,’ DJ said, kicking the road with such ferocity that a haze of dust rose up to obscure him. He hoped this time the whole hotel collapsed in front of them.
‘You choose now, in this moment, to say that,’ Ruth said.
‘I want to know where he is,’ DJ repeated, knowing that his question was unfair. Knowing that Ruth could not answer him. But he was sick of being fair, of understanding, of helping. He was sick of it all.
‘I do not know where your father is. You know that,’ Ruth said, taken aback by her son’s outburst.
DJ ignored this statement and said, ‘He might be able to help. If we can find him. I want to find him.’
Ruth thought about DJ’s father. His large, round, earnest face only seconds away from laughter at any time. If we kiss, that will be it. That’s what he’d said. They had kissed, they had done a lot more than kiss, but it turned out that it wasn’t it, after all. Over the past ten years Ruth had gone over and over their last moments together. She believed him when he said he would be back. She had waited for him. She supposed she was still waiting.
‘Come on, it is time to check in. We shall talk about this another time,’ Ruth stated. She picked up her case and sack and began counting the steps to the front door.
One, two, three …
‘You always say that,’ DJ complained, but he followed her all the same.
… nine, ten, eleven …
This was wrong. There were twenty-eight from kerb to door at their old flat. Only eleven here. She took a step sideways. Twelve. Better, but not right.
DJ sighed, watching her.
A bell tinkled as they opened the double front door. Ruth wiped her feet and nudged DJ to do the same, trying to put the bothersome number twelve out of her head.
‘It’s dirtier than our shoes!’ DJ said, nodding down towards the doormat that had years of mud ingrained into it.
A woman looked up from her computer screen with interest and studied them both up and down, taking in their suitcases and black sacks.
‘Ruth and DJ Wilde?’ She smiled as she spoke, but it was without any real warmth.
‘Yes,’ Ruth said. She noted the woman’s name badge: ‘Erica’. The owner.
‘How did you know it was us?’ DJ asked, impressed by the woman’s correct assumption.
‘My guests don’t normally bring black sacks with them. Don’t just stand there, you’re making my entrance all cluttered up!’ Erica said. Then she tutted, loudly, in case they were in any doubt as to her distaste about their appearance.
Ruth and DJ moved in quickly without a word.
‘Now, as it’s your first day, I am making an allowance, letting you use our front entrance.’ She smiled as she informed them of her generosity.
‘I do not understand,’ Ruth said.
‘We have a side entrance reserved for our social housing residents,’ Erica explained.
DJ and Ruth looked at each other, confused.
‘That’s rule number one,’ Erica stated, ‘but it’s one I am most particular about.’
‘Excuse me?’ Ruth was still at a loss.
‘The front entrance is for our normal guests,’ the woman replied, her smile still in place, but her eyes narrowed.
Normal. That word again. How many times had Ruth heard people say that she was not ‘normal’, and here, once again, she had been labelled. There was no getting away from it.
‘But we are guests, too,’ Ruth stated.
‘Of course you are. But you must also know that you are different to our paying guests. It was my Billy’s idea to make an entrance just for you. It’s just down the lane to the left of the hotel. You’ll be far more comfortable using that.’
‘I am quite comfortable using this entrance,’ Ruth insisted.
‘Are we going to have an issue here?’ Erica’s voice was sharp now. All pretence of a smile gone.
Ruth and DJ shook their heads in unison. The thought of a park bench put paid to Ruth’s annoyance.
‘We might be safer using the side entrance anyhow,’ Ruth said. ‘Your sign looks like it is about to fall off. That is a health-and-safety issue.’
‘That blasted sign!’ Erica said with irritation. She beckoned them over to the front desk and turned a large red hardback book towards them. ‘Our register must be signed every night to let us know that you are in the hotel. If you would please do so now …’
Signatures were listed beside room numbers, day after day until they blurred into one big hot mess.
Ruth’s hand shook as she picked up the pen and added her autograph to the list of names. Big Brother is watching us.
‘We’ve placed a laminated list of all the rules in your room. They have been drawn up by the council and ourselves to help make your stay as comfortable and safe as possible.’ Erica’s voice had taken on a singsong quality that Ruth suspected she reserved for new guests like them.
‘Your curfew – that’s rule number five, by the way – states that you must return to the hotel by 11 p.m.,’ Erica continued.
‘Why?’ Ruth asked. She could not remember the last time she was out later than nine or ten, but that was not the point. To be dictated to like this felt intrusive.
‘For the convenience of our guests. It’s just better this way,’ Erica sighed, her patience growing thin.
DJ moved closer to his mam. The adventure of hotel living was wearing off and they hadn’t even seen their room yet.
‘Now,