Raymond

He woke in the night and rolled on to his side and looked at the alarm clock and stared at the wall and thought about his dream. In it, he saw a woman with red hair standing on a river bank yelling at him, warning him of some impending crisis, but couldn’t make out the words above the wind that was roaring in his ears. The next thing he knew it was morning; he looked over and saw that the blue light from the outside was turning yellow and filling the room, then threw the covers off and sat on the edge of the bed. He stood and walked to the phone and dialed room-service and a moment later there was a knock on the door and a man wheeled a tray in then left the room. He walked over to it, picked up a piece of bacon and ate and looked out the glass at the empty road, grasslands leading away to a sky that was a metal sheen. He closed the curtain and then a wooden clock perched on the wall chimed the hour and a bird came out, through tiny doors, springs and cogs ticking and the bird tweeting. He looked up at it then back down at his breakfast and ate the rest of it, stood and walked to the bathroom, showered and got dressed and cleaned his teeth, then sat back down on the bed. Memories came: his wife’s face squinting at him, telling him what he should be doing, sunlight falling on her dress in patches. He stood and packed up his clothes and put them in a suitcase and looked around the room, turned and opened the door and walked down a green carpeted hallway, back to the sales-desk where the same woman from when he first checked in sat looking at him.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Well, I guess I’ll be leaving today.’

‘Right.’

She nodded and he paid and made his way to the car-park, put the case in the boot, opened the door and sat in the seat. More memories: his wife sitting next to him, waiting for him to get the car started, the pinch of her face, annoyed at his dithering, the sound of her sighing, the feel of the warm breath coming out of her mouth on his face. And then they were gone and it was just him, same old Raymond, the empty car and the open road. He started it, pulled it out and decided to keep on going in the same direction he had been taking, north along the coast.

Vacant brown land, the empty road cutting the middle of it; he turned the radio on and flicked through the stations and came to the local channel which was too political for his taste, snapped it off and opened the window to get the air in and keep from falling asleep.  A truck roared past; he drove on and passed a number of country towns and grew tired and, after a while, decided to pull into one, slowed the car and took the turn-off, the gravel cracking under the tires, a cluster of houses standing huddled together off the main road.

A woman with high shorts and good legs came out of one then bent over a tap, turned it on and looked at him. He pulled the car into a motel that had a flickering vacancy sign, sat and opened the door and got out, took a deep breath in and looked around, the smell of sausages cooking somewhere. He got his suit-case out and made his way to the small building, the light spilling onto the garden, revealing gnomes that the manager had collected over the years, then stepped inside the entrance to the reception where an overweight middle-aged woman sat behind a desk, watching a small television.

He looked down at the woman and, after a while, she looked up and told him about the room price then handed him a key and he thanked her and made his way down a hallway of red shag-pile carpet, opened the door and unpacked his things and sat on the bed and looked around. A table and chairs facing the glass, clouds coming over, a giant ravine, green in patches, spreading over the car-park, darkening the world. The rain came down in earnest, pelted the roof-top and he sat and watched it splash onto the pavement in the night then looked around for the time, decided that he should eat something. He walked over to the phone and called room-service and a moment later there was a knock on the door and a woman wearing the company uniform walked in, pushing a tray, turned and left, and he walked over to the table and lifted up one of the trays and sat and ate and kept watching the rain.

When he woke it was dark and he looked around and couldn’t see anything and forgot where he was, rolled over and groped for the lamp, switched it on and looked around the empty room, at the fake wooden walls and wondered if everything that he believed in was a lie then turned the light back off and fell back to sleep.

He woke and got up and showered and got dressed and left the room and walked down the hallway and saw that the same woman was on the desk from the day before. He walked past her but she didn’t look up and then he stood at the window and looked out. For a winter’s day it was pretty warm and so he decided to walk and search for a café then made his way to the main road. A truck roared past, barely missing him, roaring in his ears, hurtling out of sight. The track led away from the high-way and he followed it and walked passed a caravan-park, saw a woman in a dress, sitting in the doorway of one, looking back at him and he turned and kept walking and then it opened up to a main road, shops and cafes and the beach then came to a small cafe with red painted windows and stopped and decided to go inside.

It was half-filled with people. He looked around and found a seat by the window and looked out at the beach, the sound of the ocean a backdrop to everything. A waitress came to the table, looked down at him, smiling, and he looked up at her and ordered his usual breakfast and then she turned and walked away and he tried not to stare at her a*s as she did, then looked back out the window and a moment later, she was putting his coffee and scrambled eggs down on the table. He ate his breakfast and looked back out the window, got up and paid and made his way down to the beach, started walking the sand that stretched out for miles.

The wind blew hard on his face. He watched the seagulls gliding around and just then a little girl in an anorak and gum-boots ran up to him, looked up and tugged at his pants. He looked down at her and saw a look of disappointment come over her face as though he wasn’t the person that she was expecting to see and then she turned and started running away and he looked up and saw a woman watching the two of them. The little girl ran to the woman and then they started walking and he watched them and wondered about them then turned and kept walking. The wind roared in his ears and he looked around and realized that he was lost then decided to turn back and kept walking until he recognized his whereabouts, then saw the steps he had first come down, climbed them and made his way back through the grassland then back onto the main street.

Everywhere dead; he found the same café, ordered a coffee and sat, looked for the waitress but she was gone, sipped the coffee and watched the sun go down then stood and paid and started the walk back to the motel. By the time he had made it back, it had grown cold; he pulled his coat close and walked inside and saw the same woman at the desk, sitting, watching a small TV, then walked past her and found his room, opened the door and flopped onto the bed and fell to sleep. Dreams of his wife, weeding their garden.

He woke in the night and stood, walked over to the window and looked out the curtains, at the blue light beyond and wondered about his life, what he had ever done that was any good, stood and felt the cloth of the curtains in his hands, looked out at the parking lot, an old beetle and Chevrolet standing dormant.

The next day he decided to leave the motel and walk back down to the café and eat his breakfast there. The same bosomy waitress served him. He looked up at her and they smiled at each other and then the doorbell to the café jingled and the woman and child from the beach walked in. They sat down at a table opposite and then the little girl piped up and pointed at him and the woman turned and apologized, explaining that she was prone to excitement.

‘It’s quite alright, Miss, I was a school teacher for many years, so I know what children are like.’

‘Really, oh, that’s wonderful.’

She looked back at the little girl and they both seemed to decide that he was safe and then the woman turned back to him.

‘I don’t mean to be rude but I haven’t seen you before around these parts, Ruby and I, we know mostly everyone, don’t we Ruby. Are you here on a holiday or business?’

‘I suppose you could say, a holiday, yes, a holiday, I’m happy with that.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to disturb.’

‘No, it’s fine, really.’

She suddenly turned to him and looked him in the eye and he saw that she was beautiful.

‘You know, there’s a bonfire on tonight, down on the beach, we’d love it if you could be there, wouldn’t we, Ruby.’

They finished their food and the little girl smiled at him and they stood and left the café, leaving him to sip his coffee and look out the window. He got up and paid and took another walk down to the beach, walked on the sand and looked up at the houses overhanging the cliff, felt the wind on his face and thought about the woman and child and decided he would go against his grain and go to the party. He walked back to the motel and made himself some lunch and took a chair to the outside of the room, sat and ate a ham and salad sandwich, soaked up the afternoon sun and read a novel but couldn’t get in to the story, felt the afternoon slip away like the end of some memory he once had, and, by the time he looked up, it had turned cold and was starting to rain again. He stood and went back inside his room and took a shower and got dressed.

It was cold outside. The sound of the crunching of his feet as he walked made him want to turn back. Everywhere, the dark and the cold, the wind stinging his face. Trucks made beams of light in the dark, roared past and illuminated the path and then he came to the caravan-park; some strange village, globes of light spraying into the dark, the night closing in, trees swaying and bending towards him, dark giants whispering stories. It opened up to a night time sky and from here he could see the sand and further along, the coast, and at the end of it, a flickering gold light in the distance where tiny shapes that looked like figurines. He stepped down and walked, watched the light become bigger, the wind howling in his ears and then came to it. A bin with a fire inside of it stood in the centre of groups of people that sat on rugs, some passing bottles around. He walked amongst them and couldn’t see the woman, suddenly realizing that he didn’t even know her name and for that he was an idiot, and then he felt someone tapping on his arm, turned and saw that it was her.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.’

‘It’s, Lynne.’ She looked down at the little girl standing by her side for a second and then back at him. ‘And I believe you’ve already met my daughter.’

She led him away from the group to a rug that was sitting on the beach and sat and looked up at him.

‘Well, aren’t you going to sit down?’

He looked at the two of them and something about the whole scene felt familiar as though he had done all of these things before, yet somehow in dreams.

‘We brought sandwiches, didn’t we, Ruby. Go on Ruby, offer the man a sandwich.’

The little girl took a sandwich out, wrapped in paper and handed it to him and he opened it and the two watched him eat and he thought it might have been about the best sandwich he had ever eaten and then they were lying down on the rug and looking up at the stars that glowed in the night and still he had this feeling that the whole thing was part of some dream that he once had and then became aware of the sound of the waves and that the little girl was resting her head on his shoulder and he realized that it must be getting late. He sat up and looked around and saw that the two girls had fallen asleep, and then looked around. Couples sat in the night, some kissing, passing bottles around. He looked down and saw her lying there and wondered who she was, this woman, then gently woke her and they stood and packed up like people who had known each other for years and then he was walking them home and promising to meet the next day, everyone too tired to say anything. They came to a beachfront house and he watched them walk inside and saw that they were wonderful then turned and kept walking, made it back to the motel, found his key and his room and collapsed into his bed.

When he woke, it was well into the morning. He got up and put the kettle on and ordered room-service and thought about the night before. The day stretched out before him in a long glare and he wondered what he would do with himself, whether or not he should stay. There was something about the place, and yet it was no different from any other, the same beach and mosquitoes, the same small houses and coast-land. He looked around and thought about just getting in the car and driving but something kept his feet planted on the carpet. He looked back out at the day beyond. Who knew what it held.