round and round to the third floor. Along the quiet corridor, fumbling his key card, and into his room. Where he manages to not-quite slam his door, and leans against it, breathing hard.
How did she know he was here?
Leaving the lights off he moves to the window and looks down. A few cars pass, but no pedestrians. What is she doing? Why is she waiting in the street, what is she planning? Something moves at the pavement edge and he cranes to see. A cat.
Eventually he turns from the window and moves to sit on the bed. It is neatly made; his washbag on the bedside table has been tidied and straightened. Anyone could have been in here. He runs his fingers over his face, as if the softness of his eyelids, the slight friction of the dayâs growth of stubble, are new; his face, his head, his whole body feels fragile as an egg. He will have to go to bed. But his bowels have turned to water.
He canât bring himself to switch on the bathroom light. The fan comes on automatically; he wonât be able to hear someone at the door. Thereâs nothing he can do if someone does come to the door, beyond not answering it. But he needs to know. He lifts the lid and lowers himself gingerly onto the toilet in the dark. When the hot liquid has shot out of him he wipes himself, pulls up his trousers, and moves towards the door so heâs grasping the handle with one outstretched hand, and reaching for the toilet flush with the other. He has to force himself to press the flush and get out of the bathroom on the roar of sound, pulling the door closed behind him. Outside the bathroom door he waits, listens: nothing.
She knows where he is. He canât go back to the conference tomorrow. He undresses in the dark, keeping his underwear on, and crawls into bed. He can listen better when he is lying flat. He can see the shape of the windows, he can see the crack of corridor light under the door. He is keeping an eye on the entrances and exits. Maybe heâll get some sleep.
It is two hours later, after he has lain quietly breathing, staring at the passing illumination of headlights across his ceiling, marking the sounds of the hotel and its inhabitants, including two sets of feet moving along the corridor to a door beyond his own, which duly opens and closes; it is after this that he realises what she is doing. Keeping him dangling. It is her intention that he will lie awake, jumping at every shadow; that the drip drip drip of what she might do will slowly unhinge him.
He has already given himself up to it. So why didnât he simply turn and face her in the street? The answer is a spasm of nausea; fear and self-disgust conjoined. The idea of facing her cannot, itself, be faced.
He thinks about going home. He thinks about Eleanor. She sometimes accuses him of playing the victim. She has accused him of that when she has done something which makes him unhappy. âDonât play the victim, please.â There is no reply, because he is the victim, or has been, of what El has done, and she knows it. He understands her to mean, âDonât ask me for sympathyâ or âYou are as bad to me as I am to youâ, or simply, âDonât feel sorry for yourself.â He understands her to mean that his response to her behaviour is tiresome.
He is playing the victim now. He is the victim. He should go to the police. But he is embarrassed by his own naivety. Also he doesnât speak German. And he doesnât believe they would protect him anyway. âDonât play the victim,â he tells himself. Donât go back to the conference. Donât go home. Donât lie here in the hotel where she knows you are. Go somewhere else, give her the slip.
He imagines leaving the hotel, dragging his wheelie case, crossing the road to the tram stop. No. He imagines asking the receptionist to call a taxi. Skulking in the lobby till the driver calls him. Hurling himself into the passenger street and shouting, âThe