– Here we are.
The gravel path curved up through the trees. It was dusk now. I switched from sidelights to headlights.
– Bloody dark, though…
The gnarled bark seemed to jump out at us. Then a black arrow painted on a white background. Maureen was half asleep, rocking in the passenger seat, but Ricky was wide awake in the back. I could see him watching me in the mirror, pointing his nose as if he’d scented something.
The hotel was set back above a wooded parking area. I squeezed between a Lexus saloon and a Jag. Maureen woke with a snort, gathering up the map where it’d fallen from her knees.
– Thank the baby Jesus!
She was no fan of satnav and neither was I. Maureen liked to navigate with a map in hand, though in a crisis she didn’t always know her right from her left and I had to filter the intel coming in. Well, we’d survived.
The hotel was painted white. A nineteenth century house set at the head of the valley with views of the fells: Helme Crag, Gibson Knott, Bracken Hause. Easedale Tarn hidden, above. Grasmere tucked away, below. We imagined the ghosts of Coleridge and Wordsworth let loose in the gloaming. And Dorothy. Maureen gave a cynical laugh at that. Dorothy would be hanging on their every word, obviously. We got Ricky out first. He pissed against the wheels of the Jag, back leg trembling.
It was late November, a day of unrelenting drizzle. Until the sky began to break apart into patches of blue. Ricky was gulping at a bowl of water, thoughtfully placed outside the hotel entrance. Wet dogs and muddy boots welcome! At least it was dog-friendly. Though Ricky wasn’t really our dog. Our daughter, Bella, had got him from a dog sanctuary when she broke up with her boyfriend. She was a translator, French and Italian. Ricky was everlastingly grateful for Bella. Then she got posted to Brussels for the Brexit negotiations. He became ours, indefinitely. Definitely, I mean. Maureen thought he was insincere. Duplicitous. A dog? A Jack Russell? You had to hand it to her.
In the lobby was a receptionist’s desk, a computer on screensaver and a half-eaten packet of Polo mints. There was a little hand bell. I rang it. A stern portrait of Wordsworth as a young man hung at the end of the entrance hall, his sensual lips strangely at odds with his expression. Maureen and I exchanged glances. I rang the bell again, this time bringing a kind of yelp and a clashing of pans from the kitchen. Footsteps shuffled deep in the house, then a guy in a striped apron emerged into the reception area, blinking as if he hadn’t seen daylight for a long time.
He had lank brown-blond hair worn in a mop, with a sharp beak of a nose and oddly level teeth. He was a little taller than me, younger for sure, but slightly stooped. His eyes had a wary look as he glanced at the computer screen, then at us. He tapped the keyboard to bring it to life. Maureen stepped forward.
– Hello. We have a room booked in the name of Cooper.
He looked startled, fumbling for words.
– Hiya, pleased to meet you. I’m Gav.
We shook hands, self-consciously. I was born on Scottie Road myself, but hadn’t realised the Scouse diaspora had reached this far. He glanced at the screen.
– Cooper, Cooper…ah yes, Cooper. Four nights. Excellent. You’re in the Rydal Rooms.
He fumbled at a row of brass hooks, holding out a key on a wooden tab. At the same time, he saw Ricky looking up at him with doleful eyes.
– Aw, that’s a lovely dog. He? She?
– He.
Gav clucked his tongue and checked something on the screen again.
– Ah yes, here he is. One dog.
He sounded relieved. Â
– He’ll be fine. Let me show you the room. And let me help with the
luggage.
We followed Gav up a staircase that turned onto a landing with a window overlooking the parking area. Then down a short corridor to our room. A ten-by-twelve oblong with a tiny en suite separated from the room by a folding door.
– I hope this’ll be alright for you.
Maureen slumped onto the bed, pushing her wheeled luggage into the only available space. We murmured something that might have passed for agreement. Gav talked us through the keys, the code on the front door, the fire escape procedures, and then took his leave. Dinner was served from six-thirty.
Ricky lay full-length on the floor, resting his head on his paws. He raised his eyes to look at us and yawned as Maureen slipped off her shoes.
– Oh Ricky, that says it all.
– It’s a bit…I don’t know…
– Basic?
– I suppose so, all the other rooms were booked, remember?
– I know. All the other hotels were booked.
– They were.
 Maureen raised her legs onto the bed. The room felt pretty chilly, but then the heating system kicked in with a long gargle of water. The room seemed to go from nought to sixty in a few minutes. We started to remove some outer layers, stepping over Ricky where he sprawled on the floor. I remembered his basket was in the back of our car and slipped on my coat.
It was completely dark outside now, apart from the glare of the hotel windows and the low-level lighting on the driveway. So, an evening walk around the grounds seemed unlikely. The hotel advertised ‘blazing log fires’ and offered a range of refreshments in the Buttermere Bar. We locked Ricky in the room, filling his bowl with water and his other bowl with some crumbled biscuits.
Then I followed Maureen downstairs. We turned left for the lounge, a high-ceilinged room with a long table. A vase of lilies stood dead centre, shedding pollen. Pale flames flickered in the cast iron grate. The hearth and the fuel basket were piled with logs, blackened by moisture. These were logs that had never been seasoned, logs that had lain in the Lake District rain for several months by the look of them. They were fungal with rot. The dining room adjoined the lounge with tables set for dinner. The Buttermere Bar was down a corridor and was completely deserted.
 There was a bay window overlooking the grounds that had sunk into darkness and gave back reflections of the room. Of us. It was chilly. There was a small bar with hand-pumps and optics. Fitted out in light oak, relatively recently from the look of it. There was another silver bell on the bar. Ringing it seemed a little imperious, so we waited. And waited. In a lull in our whispered conversation, Maureen suddenly lunged forward and struck the plunger with the flat of her hand. The bell rang and we heard footsteps in the corridor almost at once.
We were expecting Gav, but a much older man shuffled in. He was wearing black trousers, a black waistcoat, a white shirt with a black tie. He had a long face and could easily have been the local undertaker, except for a gold earring. His hair was white, scraped back into an impoverished pony tail. He wore half-moon glasses and looked over the top of them at us. His eyes were almost black, too.
– Good evening, lady and gentleman.
 A gruff baritone, voiced in a Cumbrian accent.
– Good evening. We were hoping for a drink.
I smiled in what I hoped was a friendly manner. Maureen sat down in the window seat overlooking the darkened garden.
– No problem at all. What would you like?
– Well, a gin and tonic with ice for my wife and I’d like a beer, I think.
– G&T is no problem, but no ice I’m afraid…
He interrupted himself to cough and we could hear the phlegm shifting in his lungs.
– Beer?
– Aye, but we only have the Angel on tonight. Local brewery.
He indicated one of the beer engines which carried a badge with an incandescent body of light ascending. The eponymous angel.
– That sounds good…
He smiled thinly, pouring tonic water into Maureen’s gin. Then he was pulling on the hand-pump. It groaned at the apex of each exertion.
– There you go, sir. It’s a nice pint is that. I’m Levi, by the way.
– Hello, Levi, pleased to meet you.
– You’re welcome, sir.
– I’m sure. Can you add the drinks to our tab?
– No problem at all. What’s your room, sir?
I told him and he wrote it down in a ledger with a black cover as if he was recording plague victims. He left the room and I sipped the pint. The head had already sagged in the middle and the beer had a strong, yeasty taste. Maureen was grimacing over her gin.
– Too sweet. No ice. Bloody hell! How’s the beer?
– Enchanting.
– I could have done with some peanuts.
She sipped at the gin again and flinched.
– Maybe not…
Then, after a moment’s reflection.
– Levi? Levi, my arse.
   I sat down next to her. We watched ourselves reflected in the window. Lost souls. It was cold in the bar, so we went through to the lounge where a thin woman with a coil of hair was huddled on the sofa reading a guide book. We nodded to her and sat on the opposite side of the fire which I prodded tentatively with the poker. I remembered lighting the fires as a kid. It was one of my jobs in the era of coal. You saw it piled up in merchant’s yards all along the docks.
I prodded again. The pyramid of logs collapsed in a hiss of steam, sending white smoke up the chimney. The woman looked up, grimacing in solidarity. Maureen flicked open her compact mirror, applying more lipstick. She shook her head, an involuntary shudder. Somewhere a bell rang signalling the start of dinner and we rose to get into the dining room, choosing a table near a radiator.
The dining room filled up as guests drifted downstairs. They were mainly couples of some description. Mainly elderly, some still wearing their walking gear. Some past walking. They wore twin sets and sports jackets and pullovers. There was a younger pair of women who were conspicuously cheerful and attentive to each other. Right next to us were two couples who’d joined together for a holiday. We couldn’t help tuning in. One couple’s son was marrying the other couple’s daughter. It was a bit hard to work out. The women spoke in low accents whilst the men engaged in competitive banter about the jobs they’d recently retired from, the places they’d visited. I thought of Ricky pissing against the Jag’s wheel.
           The wine was exorbitantly expensive, but actually not bad, if a little leathery. It was brought by Levi, swathed in a white serviette. Swathed in bullshit, Maureen muttered, but at least they hadn’t sprinkled dust on it. Levi opened the bottle, winked at me, then poured a measure straight into Maureen’s glass. She tasted it and gave him a perfunctory nod.
– Hmn. That’s fine. Thank you.
– Not a problem. You’re welcome.
– Now, here we go…
Levi filled my glass and topped up Maureen’s. After a wait that was just a few minutes too long the food arrived, Levi cringing into the room with the white serviette over his arm and plates balanced. My beef bourguignon was authentic, if chewy. Maureen’s aubergine parmigiana looked sloppy and exuded strings of mozzarella that she had to wind around her fork. Not terrible. Not anything, really. Maureen ate it stoically enough.
We skipped pudding to share the cheeseboard, which featured a number of Cumbrian cheeses I’d never heard of, but which resembled cheeses I had heard of. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible meal. As Maureen remarked afterwards, it was almost as good as we could have cooked ourselves.
We rose and left the restaurant and no one said a word. It occurred to me how much enjoyment is a compromise with the truth. Our problem was not being able to compromise. After all, we could actually cook and we knew the difference between a Bordeaux that was promising and one that was past its best. No one complained about the food or about the fire which was sizzling in the grate as we headed back upstairs to watch a film on the flatscreen TV from the safety of our bed. Ricky whimpered gratefully when we appeared, turning his gloopy eyes towards us as we fumbled through the door.
You’d be amazed at how many films there are about people disappearing. Children, women, guys who lose their memories. It was a minefield finding anything either of us could bear. Though, to be honest, I knew it was fiction and could put it somewhere, but Maureen found it difficult. So, we watched a film about a chemical spill in the States. It was a courtroom drama, really. A drama-doc treatment of a true story. A farmer’s cows get sick from a chemical spill. He tries to fight the company, but it turns out he’s got cancer from the chemicals. It reminded me of farms on the outskirts of Liverpool about to get gobbled up by urban sprawl. I fell asleep well before the end, so that brief synopsis is from Maureen, who woke me the next day, hissing. How long are we staying here, two days or three? It was four. She’d booked it after all. Now she was laying it on me.
Ricky was pacing the floor, making those distressed baby noises, so I got dressed and found his lead and tip-toed downstairs. I went out through the hallway with the dead computer and the packet of polo mints. It was drizzling. I let Ricky off the lead, feeling in my pocket for the plastic bags. There was a smell of cigarette smoke. I went out through the little porch and there was Gav huddled in a raincoat, blowing out furtive little puffs, as if he was learning to smoke. He looked as if he’d been working all night. Which he might have been. It was post-Brexit and most hotels were struggling to find staff.
– Morning, sir. Not a great one, I’m afraid.
– Morning Gavin. It’s Steve, actually, Steve is fine.
 He looked a bit surprised at that. I wasn’t one of those people who ever liked being called ‘sir’. It always seemed the height of insolence to me.
– Which part of Liverpool are you from.
I thought he was going to choke on his filter tip.
– Fazakerley. Near Alder Hey. You know it?
– Yes, I know it well.
He blew out a thin wraith of smoke.
– My son died there.
Ricky was worrying at something in the shrubbery and looked up. Gav snuffed out the cigarette, as if it was suddenly inappropriate.
– Died there? Oh, my God. I’m sorry, mate. I’m so sorry.
The funny thing was, he looked sorry. Alder Hey brought people from all over the country and beyond. There were a lot of sick kids there. Kids with cancer. Kids with diseases you’ve never heard of. You never know what people have gone through.
I went to deal with Ricky and by the time I’d tied off the bag and turned around Gav was gone, though we could hear him calling to Levi as he fried eggs and bacon in the kitchen.
Our son, Mark, had been taken. He was two years younger than Bella. They were both at primary school. Bella was nine and was bringing him home. Just a short walk, just a few hundred yards. They’d stopped at the children’s playground on the way and Bella had met some friends. When she turned around, Mark was gone. I guess none us can ever get over it. He was found in woodland a few miles away. Still alive, but only just. It was January. He’d been out all night, alone. Half-buried in leaves.
Mark died in the hospital the following day. He was badly bruised and had a fractured arm. He was hypothermic. The facts. But the facts are just symbols of the rest. What they hide. Which is indescribable. Which is beyond words. But we’d learned to talk about it matter-of-factly. It happened, after all. And it’s happened to hundreds of other families. Except no closure for us. No pale-faced inadequate in the dock. Nothing. Bella had it worse than any of us. We never found out who took him or how or why. But he could never have got that far on his own. So, someone was out there. You found yourself looking at people sometimes. And then you tried not to.
Maureen and I met at university. She was tall and had a fringe of dark hair, a straight nose and a very direct way with her. She was studying psychology and I was just finishing a degree in business management. After a couple of years doing jobs that weren’t leading anywhere, we were trying to get our business off the ground selling children’s clothing and play equipment. Supplying shops in the north-west, mainly. That was before town centres were hollowed out everything went online. We saw the writing on the wall as that was happening and sold out the company to a bigger outfit. We’d done OK. We’d survived. We retired in our late fifties. How lucky was that? It’s just that work had become all we knew.
 We worried about Bella. We over compensated, of course. We spoiled her whilst agreeing not to do. She’d done well. She was living abroad, a talented linguist. She’d been given the chances we’d had to make for ourselves. Maureen was still taking anti-depressants which took the edge off the darker days. I’d been put on statins and beta-blockers, like a lot of other guys. So what? I couldn’t complain. I didn’t.
It would be unfair to say the hotel was bad, but it wasn’t good. It enforced a kind of survival instinct in us. I learned to go down early in the evenings, building up the fire so the wood dried out and a modest blaze might be possible over the last of the wine. We turned down the heating so our room went from over-heated to only moderately warm. We learned to run the taps and wait for hot water to arrive. We talked Ricky through it, promising he could go home soon. We wondered if we should have retired at all, whether we weren’t still young enough to take on another challenge. Or maybe this was it.
It rained for the entire four days. We’d brought our walking gear but didn’t get much further than a few strolls around the village and the lake when there was a break in the cloud. We visited National Trust properties, we hung about in the bookshops and art galleries. We bought an original painting of the lake that we thought would look good above our mantelpiece. We ate out at lunchtime and ate at the hotel in the evenings, repelled by the dark and the cold and rain. I took a couple of pictures with my phone to send to Bella, but only managed a couple of long shots up the valley. Mainly mist sagging over the hills and lake where it lingered like smoke over a volcanic crater.
 Time on our hands wasn’t good for us. We’d generally avoided it. Because you always think back. Half the time you don’t even know you’re doing it, but the thoughts are there in your subconscious. The day Mark disappeared it was my turn to get home early and cook the kids’ tea, then make something for us as they watched television. I had to drop some boxes off with the courier we used and I hadn’t quite left myself enough time. I screeched to a halt in the car park and there behind the counter was Veronica. I handed over the boxes and we sorted out the labelling. She had a long pony tail and a provocative way with her. If that’s the word. She smiled at me and pushed me against the wall in the store room and we snogged each other, losing precious minutes. In business you end up in all sorts of situations.  See you later, Steve. Then that little chuckle. Because we had a secret. Maureen would have murdered me if she heard half the stuff that went on. I was a good-looking guy back then, wasn’t I? Shut up.
I should have been home when the kids got there, my car in the driveway. I’d forgotten to leave a key under the plant pot by the front door. So, Bella had brought Mark home and then looked for it. Nothing, obviously, so they’d gone back out to the play area to kill time. They’d only been there twenty minutes, but by the time I arrived Bella was panicking, realising something had happened. To Mark. To our son. To us. Things can go wrong in a moment. And they do, and you can never get that moment back.
 The key was in my jacket pocket. We’d rushed out that morning and I’d just forgotten. Sometimes you think you’ve done something because you do it every day. But there it was with my small change. I could never forgive myself. It should have been just a little thing. But there’d been Veronica, slipping her hands around my arse. She even came to Mark’s funeral, hugging Maureen, snivelling into a tissue. Then it was like there was some hiatus, a break in time, in continuity. After that, nothing made sense. Time cracks on the gap. Who said that?
 Day four started with faint sunshine at the curtains, Ricky whimpering beside the bed.
– Oh, shit, that bloody dog…
– I’ll do it.
– No, it’s OK, it’s my turn.
Maureen sliding her legs out of the bed and catching a cat lick in the bathroom. She dressed quickly and found Ricky’s lead hanging beside the door. I must have fallen asleep again. I’d had a couple of whiskies after dinner the night before. When I did come to, there was no sign of Maureen or Ricky. Maybe the sunshine had tempted her. I got in the shower and spent a few moments under hot water, trying to shed a headache. When I got dressed, there was still no sign of them. I checked my phone in case she’d texted me. Nothing. I met Gav firing up the computer.
– You haven’t seen my wife, by any chance?
– No sorry, mate. I’ve been busy in the kitchen.
– She took the dog out.
He seemed a little needled by that, Gav. Snappy.
– Nice day, eh? She’s probably done the loop around the grounds.
I left it at that. Breakfast was still being served for another hour. I was pretty hungry, but that could wait. Maureen’s boots were gone from the hallway. I got my coat and left the house, following the lane that led to the village. It separated, one path jinking round to follow the perimeter of the grounds. I sent Maureen a text message. Where r u? No reply.
The path climbed gently for a few hundred yards, leading towards the head of the valley before turning back. I walked the whole circle. No sign of Maureen or Ricky. I found a crumpled tissue, trampled into the mud, but that was all. It could have been anyone’s. I got back to the hotel and walked straight into Gav and Levi talking outside the house. Levi was chuckling at something. Even the chuckle was lugubrious. Maureen hadn’t been in for breakfast and no one seemed to have seen her that morning. By now my heart was bumping under my ribs.
I went back to the room and checked Maureen’s toilet bag. I found a blister pack of medication, unopened. Had she stopped taking the tablets? She’d done it before a few years ago and it was like watching someone drown in front of me. Affective depression. Meaning you were depressed because something had happened. Life had happened. Anti-depressants take the edge off things, that was the point. No one likes taking them, I knew that. It could have been coincidence. She might have finished a pack or forgotten to take them so early in the day. The point was, I didn’t know. I checked my phone for messages again and noticed Maureen’s phone beside the bed plugged into the charger.
What to do? I left the house and took the path towards the village, following a left fork that passed through a patch of woodland. Then Ricky appeared, bounding through the trees towards me, trailing his lead. He jumped up against me, yapping and smearing my jeans with mud. I took the lead and he pulled me after him, into the woods and along a trail almost hidden by fallen leaves. Ricky was pulling hard, leading me from the path to a little knoll at the heart of the wood. He let out a couple of excited barks and I saw a figure clinging to a tree, head bowed.
It was Maureen. Of course, it was. Ricky ran to her and whimpered, trying to attract her attention. She looked up as I got to her, putting my hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me as if I was a total stranger. No makeup, her face streaked as if she’d been crying.
– Maureen, sweetheart.
She took my hand from her shoulder is if it was a dead weight.
– Maureen.
 She shook her head slightly, shuddering in the early morning cold.
– Let’s get back to the hotel, eh? Ricky!
 The dog was investigating something in the undergrowth. He padded back to me and I stooped to take the lead. When Maureen spoke, she sounded like a voice playing on the radio in another room.
– Why were you late, Steve?         Â
Oh, fuck.
– What?
Ricky yelped, pulling at the lead.
– Why were you late home?
– You know why, you know. I was dropping off stuff with the courier.
– Liar! You bloody liar!
I knew she didn’t mean it. I tugged her away from the tree as gently as I could. There was dirt under her fingernails which were usually immaculate.  Dirt on the knees of her slacks. We walked back through the woods as far as the path. Then up the driveway to the hotel. That white arrow on a black background. It was like leading a woman in a trance, Ricky running ahead and investigating fallen leaves as if there was nothing wrong in the world. Then the hotel came into view, oddly reassuring.
Levi was taking charge of a delivery of fruit and veg from a guy driving a white van. He waved to us and carried the boxes inside. When we got to the foyer, Gav was there, saying goodbye to the foursome who’d sat next to us at dinner.
– Good luck to you all. I hope the wedding goes well!
They were smiling and shaking hands, wheeling their luggage out to the gravel like normal people. We pressed against the wall to let them pass, Maureen managing an eerie smile. Gav ran his fingers through his hair and turned his attention to us.
– Mr and Mrs Cooper! You missed breakfast.
 I let go of Maureen’s hand.
– We did, long story. Maureen got a little lost…
Gav gave what once must have been a boyish grin and Levi winked at me and squeezed between us with the last of the boxes.
– I could make you some toast. And tea? Coffee?
– That would be lovely. Toast and coffee sounds great. We’re a bit muddy.
– No problem at all, just go through.
 He ushered us towards the dining room where a young woman in a green tabard was clearing tables. Maureen left Ricky with me and went off to get cleaned up.
I remembered that it was our last day. We needed to get home. I had that feeling again. The feeling that Mark could come back at any time, Bella holding his hand, the way I’d shown her. They’d arrive home and be waiting for me in the garden. I’d be just a few minutes late after the traffic. I wouldn’t fancy cooking, so I’d take them out to McDonald’s for a treat. Maureen would tell me off for spoiling them, but she wouldn’t mind really.
Maureen appeared and settled herself next to me. She’d washed her face and hands and put on some lipstick. There were faint rays of sunshine emerging from the clouds across the valley when Gavin arrived, carrying a silver tray with toast and coffee.
– Here we go, toast for two and coffee for two!
He unloaded the contents of his tray.
– Thank you, that is so kind…
That was Maureen, touching his hand, her eyes soft with tears, with gratitude. And it was. It was simple act of kindness. I wished I could find that in myself. The kindness to forgive myself. But I couldn’t. And nothing was simple now.
I poured the coffee. Maureen was undoing one of those little packets of butter and slicing her toast into triangles. I found a dog biscuit in my pocket for Ricky. Just for a moment we could have been a normal middle-aged couple, recently retired. Soon we’d be driving home. Down the M6, back to it all. There were Levi and Gav, through the window, enjoying a cigarette, grinning at each other as if one of them had just cracked a joke. That was when Maureen reached for my hand.
– I’m sorry.
Was all she said.
– I’m sorry, Steve.
Gavin glanced in at us just then and smiled. I drained the last of the coffee from my cup. Ricky looked up and stretched himself. Maureen was checking her phone, shaking her head, deleting my messages.
Graham Mort is emeritus professor of Creative Writing at Lancaster University and Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He has written ten poetry collections and three volumes of short fiction and has written for BBC drama. He has received an Eric Gregory award, along with other poetry prizes. He won the Bridport short story prize in 2007. His short story collection, Touch (Seren) won the Edge Hill prize in 2011; Terroir (Seren) and Like Fado (Salt) were also longlisted. A new poetry collection, Rivers Joining, and a new short fiction collection, Emigrés, are in preparation.
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