Read The Driver's Seat for Free Online

raised eyebrows as who should say, ‘What
next?’ ‘I’m your type,’ Bill says.
    The
taxi stops at the grey stone downtown Hotel Tomson. She says, ‘What’s all that
on the floor?’ and points to a scatter of small seeds. Bill looks at them
closely and then at his zipper-bag which has come unzipped by a small fraction.
    ‘Rice,’
he says. ‘One of my sample packs must have burst and this bag isn’t closed
properly.’ He zips up the bag and says, ‘Never mind.’
    He
takes her to the narrow swing doors and hands her suitcase to the porter. ‘I’ll
look for you at seven in the hall of the Metropole,’ he says. He kisses her on
the cheek and again she raises her eyebrows. She pushes the swing door and goes
with it, not looking back.

 
     
     
     
     
    FOUR
     
     
     
    At the hotel desk she
seems rather confused as if she is not quite sure where she is. She gives her
name and when the concierge asks for her passport she evidently does not
immediately understand, for she asks him what he wants first in Danish, then
French. She tries Italian, lastly English. He smiles and responds to Italian
and English, again requesting her passport in both languages.
    ‘It is
confusing,’ she says in English, handing over her passport.
    ‘Yes,
you left part of yourself at home,’ the concierge says. ‘That other part, he is
still en route to our country but he will catch up with you in a few hours’
time. It’s often the way with travel by air, the passenger arrives ahead of
himself. Can I send you to your room a drink or a coffee?’
    ‘No,
thank you.’ She turns to follow the waiting page-boy, then turns back. ‘When
will you be finished with my passport?’
    ‘Any
time, any time, Madam. When you come down again. When you go out. Any time.’ He
looks at her dress and coat, then turns to some other people who have just
arrived. While the boy waits, dangling a room-key, to take her up, Lise pauses
for a moment to have a good look at them. They are a family: mother, father,
two sons and a small daughter all speaking German together volubly. Lise is
meanwhile gazed back at by the two sons. She turns away, impatiently gesturing
the page-boy towards the lift, and follows him.
    In her
room she gets rid of the boy quickly, and without even taking her coat off lies
down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She breathes deeply and deliberately,
in and out, for a few minutes. Then she gets up, takes off her coat, and
examines what there is of the room.
    It is a
bed with a green cotton cover, a bedside table, a rug, a dressing-table, two
chairs, a small chest of drawers; there is a wide tall window which indicates
that it had once formed part of a much larger room, now partitioned into two or
three rooms in the interests of hotel economy; there is a small bathroom with a
bidet, a lavatory, a washbasin and a shower. The walls and a built-in cupboard
have been a yellowish cream but are now dirty with dark marks giving evidence
of past pieces of furniture now removed or rearranged. Her suitcase lies on a
rack-table. The bedside light is a curved chromium stand with a parchment
shade. Lise switches it on. She switches on the central light which is encased
in a mottled glass globe; the light flicks on, then immediately flickers out as
if, having served a long succession of clients without complaint, Lise is
suddenly too much for it.
    She
tramps heavily into the bathroom and first, without hesitation, peers into the
drinking-glass as if fully expecting to find what she does indeed find: two
Alka-Seltzers, quite dry, having presumably been put there by the previous
occupant who no doubt had wanted to sober up but who had finally lacked the
power or memory to fill the glass with water and drink the salutary result.
    By the
side of the bed is a small oblong box bearing three pictures without words to
convey to clients of all languages which bell-push will bring which room
attendant. Lise examines this with a frown, as it were