The Hothouse by the East River

Author:Muriel Spark [Spark, Muriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-23T20:20:13+00:00

It is the next morning and he has failed to locate her. She has not telephoned from Zürich to tell him her flight number. It is seven-thirty when he wakes up in. his restless bed. Garven. is still asleep; he has made no pretence of being a manservant all during Elsa’s absence. He comes and goes, he sleeps late or early as he pleases, pushing the coffee-pot around the kitchen and clattering his breakfast cup as if he owned the place. Paul tries not to coincide with him.

He reaches for the phone, puts in a call to Elsa’s hotel in Zürich, jumps out of bed and hastens to his bathroom. Paul shaves and listens for the phone while silence continues to break from Garven’s bedroom. He thinks ahead to her arrival at the airport, her fuss with the porter and her luggage, while he waits at the door beyond the Customs’ tables. She will have to tip the porter very quickly at the point between. the luggage reception and the Customs. If you want to tip me, Ma’am, tip me now, the porter will say, just as he is about to wheel forward the piled-up trolley. Elsa will slip the note into his hand which is already on the trolley handle. The hand opens and closes and the porter murmurs ‘ain’t allowed’, cheerfully pressing on, with the passenger following the luggage at the trot.

Paul thinks ahead, with his ears open for the ring of the phone. She should arrive some time around eight tonight. I’ll watch for her flight number on the board, then stand by the arrivals gate, watching her, busy in her fur coat, through the Customs, showing and explaining and ingratiating herself most suspiciously with the Customs officers. Paul dresses and goes to make coffee.

A key in the front door. Garven, he thinks. Not in his room at all, no wonder he was quiet. At that moment he hears Garven’s bedroom radio begin to pour forth the morning’s news. The step in the hall must be that of an intruder. It had to happen, Paul thinks, it’s happened to everyone else. He hears a few more steps along the corridor and he hears Elsa at the door of her bedroom. ‘Paul,’ she says. ‘The hall porter’s bringing up my luggage. Let him in..’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ Paul says, rushing out of the kitchen.. He kisses her in greeting and shouts, ‘You damn bitch, I was waiting up all night to hear the flight number.’

‘You haven’t been to bed?’ she says.

‘Yes, well I went to bed. But you said, “I’ll call and let you know the flight number and the arrival time.” I would have met you.’

‘Yes,’ she says, throwing her coat on the bed while her shadow, regardless of the morning sunlight in front of her, makes the same gesture, hanging a moment from her raised arm like a raglan sleeve. Dust motes dance in the light and her shadow falls casually at a different tangent across the bed like the flung coat.

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