Open-handed Page 8

  ‘The councillor,’ the woman said.

  ‘Ex-councillor,’ Sylvester said. ‘I’m retired.’

  ‘You look too young to be retired.’

  Sylvester smiled. ‘I mean from council work. I’m running my own business now.’

  ‘I know your name all right.’

  Sylvester nodded. ‘Yeah, well, I was a councillor here for nearly ten years.’

  The woman blushed and looked at the ground. ‘We’ve only been living here a short time.’

  ‘Oh, right. Where are you from?’ Sylvester asked.

  ‘From over there…’ she waved vaguely out across the water, towards the land in the distance ‘… on the other side.’

  ‘A refugee,’ Sylvester said. He smiled at her.

  ‘Sort of,’ she said.

  ‘And do you like it out here?’

  ‘Yes. Very much.’

  ‘So do you know the hotel? You know where we’re talking about? The old place on the coast road.’

  ‘The eyesore,’ Dessie said.

  ‘I know it,’ the woman said.

  ‘We’re giving out some information on the proposed plans for development on the site. Just there’s been a bit of publicity about it and this is giving the other side.’

  ‘I haven’t been paying attention, really. Should I be for or against it?’

  ‘Well, it’s up to you to decide but I think it’s a strong proposal. It would be good for the area. We’re talking about a medium-size development of luxury apartments. There would be new retail space, a high-end supermarket, a couple of restaurants and a café, which would provide employment for up to a hundred people. The whole profile of the neighbourhood would improve and, putting it bluntly, it can only be positive for house prices up here. All of that has to be good for everyone surely.’

  ‘It sounds good.’

  ‘Have a look at the leaflet anyway.’

  ‘Okay.’ She turned the glossy little brochure over in her hand. ‘Is there going to be a vote on this or something?’

  ‘It’ll be a City Council decision. We’re just letting people know what would be involved. Some of the things that are being said are pretty wide of the mark so we’re giving you the facts.’

  ‘All right. Thanks.’

  ‘Thanks for your time.’

  As Sylvester and Dessie were walking down the path the woman called after them: ‘Is it your company?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Sylvester said, turning.

  ‘This development. These apartments. Is it your project?’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘Right,’ the woman said, sounding doubtful. ‘Okay.’

  ‘I just think it would be good for the area. Getting the information out there, you know. That’s all.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she said, and nodded.

  Sylvester smiled. ‘Thanks again,’ he said.

  21

  She checked herself in the mirror of the cloakroom of a café around the corner from where she was meeting them. She looked well enough and she was satisfied with that, but her stomach was sick. Maybe they’ll have gone, she thought, hoping. Maybe they’ll have moved on to somewhere else and I can say I arrived late. Go home and take these clothes off and know where I am.

  From the warmth of the summer evening, past the crowds sitting at outside tables and standing around under awnings smoking, through the heavy doors of the bar that were swung open before her by two suited bouncers, who looked like they were from back home, into the music and shouting and laughter of this place. Dark wood and low lighting and a well-dressed older crowd, women in pairs and threes, men in suits or shirts and jeans, all performing for each other. She walked the length of the bar watched by everyone because that was what this place was for. Watching. Where would she end up? To whom did she belong?

  At the back, sitting in a large semi-circular booth, she found them. Luke White stood when he saw her. He took her hand and held it as he thanked her for coming. There were four men, including Gavin, and five girls. White introduced her to the ones she didn’t know, name by name, none of which she remembered, too distracted and embarrassed at being the centre of their attention. She sat beside one of the managers, a girl she knew to say hello to but had never seen outside work.

  ‘Hard to remember everything,’ she said to Agnieszka. ‘When you’re standing there.’

  Agnieszka laughed, soft and short.

  ‘Agnieszka is one of the best bar staff we have in Symposium,’ White said to the table. ‘She could be a manager in six months.’

  ‘If I don’t take her from you,’ one of the men said. Plenty of greying hair, one button too many open, nice jacket, an ease and strength in his voice that he’d been born with and not earned, it seemed to her. He smiled. ‘I own a couple of casinos around town. I always need good people. I might abduct you.’ The table laughed. ‘Two minutes in and I’m scaring the girl,’ he said.

  Agnieszka smiled back. ‘I’m not scared,’ she said.

  The champagne helped, two bottles in ice-buckets on the go all the time. She watched what she drank, sipped at the same rate as the others, but they kept topping everyone up and the bottles kept arriving until she noticed that three hours had passed and her nervousness was gone. Whatever it was White wanted didn’t seem like anything to be worried about. Maybe he was checking her out to see if she could hold her own with these people. Suitable for promotion. Or maybe he was just interested in her. She watched him as he talked. All these men had the same absolute certainty in everything they said that made them seem more interesting than they were if you actually listened. He was good-looking in a clean way, dressed well in clothes that showed their money. The hardness she had seen in him before didn’t seem to be there. The girls laughed and contributed occasional comments that were listened to and turned into jokes. Girl talks. Punch line. Laugh. It was comfortable in its pattern, nothing to be taken seriously. No topic was maintained for more than five minutes.

  When two of the girls went outside to smoke, White shifted around and leaned in to her. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine, yes. Thanks. Very good.’

  His hand was resting on the leather of the banquette close to her arse. Even in this noise there could be silence between them.

  ‘I’d like to buy a drink,’ she said. ‘I can’t just keep taking all this.’

  ‘You can,’ he said. ‘I invited you and you’re not allowed put your hand in your pocket.’

  ‘Well, thank you. I appreciate it.’

  ‘And I appreciate it. You have beautiful manners.’

  She laughed. ‘Really? You think so?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘Is that a strange thing to say?’

  ‘Nobody’s said it to me before.’

  ‘I think it’s easy for you. You know – this. Talking to people. Being friendly. It comes naturally.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s an important thing in our line of work. To be comfortable with people. To make them feel good. If you do that you can do anything. You can make a lot of money.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I know so. I know how important it is and it’s made me rich and happy. And I want the people who work with me to be happy.’

  She didn’t know what to say to that. ‘That’s a good philosophy,’ she said finally.

  ‘Yes, it is. I think you understand me. No point in bringing it to the grave, you know. You could die tomorrow.’ He stood to let the girls back in. ‘You know what I mean?’ he said, as he stood above her. She nodded.

  In the cloakroom later she was washing her hands when one of the girls whom she hadn’t met before came out of a cubicle and stood beside her at the sink. ‘These guys are fun, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you been out with Luke before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lovely guy.’

  ‘Yeah
,’ Agnieszka said. ‘He seems to be.’ It didn’t seem to be enough. ‘Is he?’

  ‘Well, he’s always been very nice to me. I’ve met him a few times. Paul and he have been friends for years.’

  ‘And how did you meet Paul?’ Agnieszka couldn’t remember which one he was.

  ‘I worked in the casino before. We went out for a bit. He’s a great guy too. Still hang around with them. When they all go out it’s…’ She shook her head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Big nights.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘They like to spend their money. It’s a lot of fun. They’ll pay for everything. They get everything. Do you think he likes you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Agnieszka watched her in the mirror. She realized now that this girl was drunk, maybe a bit wired. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think he does,’ she said. ‘Where are you from anyway?’

  ‘Poland.’

  The girl nodded. ‘I think he does,’ she said again, and smiled at her. ‘You’re really beautiful, you know. And much nicer than the others.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Agnieszka said.

  Up in the bar the bottles were finished and the lights were on. The crowd was thinning out. The bouncers had opened the doors at the back and a breeze blew through the building as if to help them.

  ‘There you are now,’ White said, when he saw her. ‘We’re going to the club. Have a drink and relax a bit. You’ll come.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. They looked at each other for a moment. There was enough of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth to let her know that his words weren’t really serious. ‘Don’t you want to?’

  ‘Maybe another time,’ she said. ‘Not tonight, though. I’m tired now.’

  ‘We’ll talk properly then,’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’ She laughed. ‘Do we have something to talk about?’

  ‘We do. But another time. You enjoyed yourself anyway? Are you okay to get home?’

  ‘I’m fine. Yes, thank you.’

  ‘All right, then.’ He shook her hand, touched her arm and looked her in the eye as he did, but that was all. She said goodbye to the others, walked outside straight into a taxi and gave the driver her address. They drove for two minutes and then, with apologies, she changed her mind and got out.

  22

  In the orange light of the evening Marcin and Artur travelled to work together. Back then in the morning, the long bus ride against traffic to the estate, left, right, left, right until they arrived at the house. Cold beer in the fridge, a bit of an old smoke sitting on plastic chairs on the patio, kicking at the weeds growing between the slabs, lying on the sea of daisies that covered the patch of grass that did them for a garden. This could be the summer. Bed at noon. Up at eight. No need to eat because in work there would be fillet steak taken from the back of a padlocked fridge that someone had a key for. Dauphinoise potatoes. Bread rolls. Elaborate plated desserts taken from the pastry section. Could there be a better job than this for two young fellows out in the world, earning more in a week than they would in a month at home?

  Ten feet through the door on the Tuesday night and Artur knew something was up. ‘It’s wrong for mid-week,’ he told Marcin. ‘People. And music. What’s going on?’ he asked Tommy, as they arrived at the desk.

  ‘Fucking debs. We’ll have fun tonight. Serve none of them. Do you hear me? Ray says it. Not one of them is staying here so come two o’clock they’re out. I don’t care who their daddies are.’

  ‘What’s debs?’ Marcin asked Artur.

  ‘I don’t know. Some sort of conference?’

  Two minutes later they stood in the door of the main ballroom looking across at the wonder of it all. Three hundred teenagers in black tie and ballgowns, flowers on dresses, bare feet on the dance-floor where ironic cheers came for the shit pop hits of three years earlier.

  ‘These are rich kids,’ Artur said. ‘You can see it in their bones.’

  ‘If I had a black suit I’d put it on right now and drink myself into the ground with them. Let one of these girls take me to her parents’ big house. That one. Or that one. Any of them. Any of them.’

  ‘We should turn off the air-conditioning,’ Artur said. ‘Raise the temperature. See what happens.’

  Four hours later they were dispersing, a stream of them emerging, tottering like newborn calves on unsteady legs and high heels, makeup smudged, features blurry with drink. Girls crying, boys staggering, falling, too drunk to fight. But all moving in one direction, all heading out, away from there. The banqueting staff and the night crew together herding them, closing off the options, you’ll get a taxi on the street, keep moving along. The noise of screams, laughter, occasional bursts of song choruses, the phone at Reception ringing with complaints but eventually, eventually, it was over. Every last young person gone.

  ‘Now the fun starts,’ Ray said. ‘Two o’clock and we haven’t even started. Fucking state of this place. No sleep tonight. Get hoovering, boys. Artur, you’re doing the toilets tonight.’

  ‘Again I do this?’

  ‘Every night.’

  ‘Me again?’

  ‘You again.’

  Marcin walked off, dragging the Hoover behind him, into the ballroom, into the lingering smell of perfume and deodorant, hair products and the sweetness of the drinks of the young. From the lobby he heard voices getting louder. He thought one of the kids had come back, causing hassle. He heard Artur shouting and started to move faster. When he came around to the corridor beside the cloakrooms and toilets, Tommy and Ray were standing watching Artur, who Marcin could see now was pissed off and ranting. He had a flashback to the last time he had seen this, in a bar in Warsaw on a weekend with friends.

  ‘No,’ he was saying. ‘I won’t do it and you know, you know. It’s not right.’ He stopped when he saw Marcin.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Marcin asked.

  ‘The toilets,’ Artur said to him in Polish. ‘Puke all over them. I’m not doing them. It’s not fair. They get to do room service and bags and the bus tours, all the money jobs, all the tips, and we’re fucking hoovering and cleaning up puke and shit. They’re exploiting us.’ Then in English, ‘You do it, Tommy. Not me. Not tonight.’

  ‘You’ll do it,’ Ray said, ‘and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘No,’ Artur said. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘It’s up to you what happens,’ Ray said, ‘but I’m telling you to clean that cloakroom. If you don’t you’re going to be the one with the problem, not me. There’ll always be somebody to do the work if you don’t want to. I’m not going to force you.’

  ‘No problem, Ray,’ Artur said. ‘You get someone else but I’m not doing it.’

  He walked away from them back down the corridor towards the front desk.

  ‘Are you coming?’ he called back to Marcin.

  ‘No, I’m going to stick around.’

  Artur stopped. Oh, come on. We can get something else. Take a few days off and relax. Then start again. Is this what you want to do for the summer? Deal with drunks and clean up rich kids’ puke?’

  Marcin shrugged. ‘I need the money. And I’m here now.’

  ‘Okay. That’s your problem.’ He walked on and went out through the revolving doors.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Ray asked Marcin.

  ‘Home. I think he is finished with this job.’

  ‘I think so too. And are you staying or going?

  Ray and Tommy looked at him with considerably more interest than he’d felt from them before. Interest but not concern.

  ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘Okay so, you can clean that jacks when you’re finished with the hoovering,’ said Ray, as he walked off towards the kitchen.

  Tommy shrugged at Marcin. ‘If you hang around for long enough you’ll be telling people what to do. We all started out doing what you’re doing. If you don’t like it there’s plenty of others that will.’

  ‘I’m
still here,’ Marcin said.

  ‘Well, get on with it so.’

  Two hours later a group of American software boys came in after a night out, drunk and hungry, and were told they could only be served in their rooms. Two sets of sandwiches to be made and delivered. Tommy called Marcin into the kitchen. The trays were waiting. ‘You take that one,’ he told him.

  They went up in the lift and headed in opposite directions. The American handed Marcin a twenty. Back at the lift Tommy met him.

  ‘What did you get?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Twenty.’

  ‘The other fellow gave nothing, the bastard. Give it here.’ Marcin hesitated. ‘I’m not trying to do you,’ Tommy said. Marcin pulled out the note and Tommy plucked it from his hand. He rummaged in his own pocket, produced a ten-euro note and gave it to Marcin. The bell of the lift door pinged.

  ‘There now. Fucking trouser that quick,’ Tommy said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take that money. In your pocket. Now. For fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if you tell Ray he’ll take your twenty and split it four ways – he’ll take ten, give me and George five each and you’ll get nothing.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Marcin.

  ‘Yeah, “Oh”,’ said Tommy. ‘ “Oh” is about right.’

  When Marcin got back to the house Artur was in bed. He woke up when Marcin came into the room.

  ‘So?’ he said.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘What did Ray say after I left?’

  ‘He said nothing.’

  Artur sat up. ‘What do you mean nothing?’

  ‘Nothing. I told him you were gone and he just didn’t seem too bothered.’

  ‘Fucking bastards. I’m finished with that place. It’s no good. It’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. Dirty, servile work. We’re better than that.’

  ‘You may be,’ Marcin said. ‘But I’m down to my last two hundred and I’ve a back week to work. I can’t afford to quit now.’

  ‘Well, it’s a shit job. There’s no doubt about that. I feel better already to be out of the place.’ Marcin said nothing. ‘Stick it out if you want but it’ll start to get to you. You’ll see.’