Hotel 21 by Senta Rich

Author:Senta Rich [Rich, Senta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526650450
Published: 2023-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The day I left home I headed straight for Bromley South train station. I had 165 pounds in my pocket – the emergency money I had saved from working in the Devil’s Corner, which I was very grateful to have.

My plan was to get on the first train to anywhere, and by two o’clock on that rainy February afternoon, I found myself sitting in a packed carriage on my way to Hastings. For two hours I stared out of the window – half focused on the reflection of my face, which was still bloody from the attack, half focused on the overgrown hedges and occasional back gardens flicking by outside. All I knew was there was no going back.

As the train glided into Hastings station, the rain had finally stopped but everything was dripping and sodden. I stepped on to the platform with a few other passengers, who scurried off to waiting cars and journeys home. I stayed on the platform, watching the train disappear down the track. Now I was here, I had no idea what I was going to do.

I found a small B & B on a leafy street on the way into the town centre. It was a regular house with a ‘rooms available’ sign in the window. It was twenty-two pounds a night and the owner, a woman with a fake smile and a cardigan covered in dog hair, asked me to pay up front. I didn’t blame her. I was a sorry sight with my battered scalp and crappy sports bag.

Breakfast was a self-service situation with cereal, toast and coffee on tap in a small, stuffy dining room with a local newspaper on the table. I flicked through it on my first morning and found the jobs vacancy page. Most of the jobs required experience and qualifications and since I’d only worked in a café for three weeks, I didn’t feel I had much to offer. But I needed a job, and quick, if I was going to support myself. I decided that whatever job I got, it would have to provide me with two things: enough money to live off and access to items I could take without anyone noticing.

I spotted an advert for a cleaning job in an architect’s office. I wondered if that would suit me. I was the only one who ever cleaned the flat in West House, apart from when we were expecting a visit from a social worker, so I figured it was something I could be good at it. But cleaning the same office every day would have the same problems I’d had when I worked in the café: the staff are too familiar and aware of what they have and where it is. There was also an advert for a house cleaner, but that felt even more problematic than office cleaning. Anyway, the house cleaning job required references. I continued to trail my finger through the listings until I stopped on the last advert.

Housekeeping Assistant: responsibilities include room cleaning on a daily basis.

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