The Hotel for Hungry Ghosts

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There is a man in room twelve-hundred-and-three whose name is George S. Larson and he has lost his hat. It’s a Panama hat, I’m given to understand: asphodel white, with a ruby band around the brim from which pokes the feather of a crow. It was his pet, the crow. Delilah. She lived thirteen years, although I cannot recall how I know.

‘Found that hat yet, Sal?’

Gill asked me this as I took my seat in the tearoom. The old cup in my hand held an under-brewed Yorkshire and, although I added only the briefest dash of milk to compensate, the colour remained quite wrong. I drank it anyway and I burnt my mouth. It did not hurt.

‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘But I will.’

The bell above the refrigerator tolled. Just past ten o’clock, mid-winter light looming dankly through the kitchen windows and barely a bite into my ginger nut biscuit and that was that—off again, tea break over. That’s my way. Trotting out of the kitchen and through the corridor and into the lobby as if I had heard a gunshot, starting stalls and fellow filles left behind in the mud. Remember Me was my favourite last year. Always quick off the shot. Never won, of course. My horses never do.

I found Mrs Deauville, the Hotel Manager, stood behind the desk, watching the young receptionist tracking mud across the William Morris rug. She was fond of that rug: her little strawberry thieves, the thrushes, mirrored in gold and green. Now, they were scuffed. I could not help it. I smiled. I was that lad, once. I remember my own Mrs Deauville, ever so many years ago—a stern woman, who frightened me something terrible at first but for whom I grew a keen fondness quickly after. Mrs Keyes was her name. I thought of her as I watched this lad clock eyes with Clarissa. To me she was simply Clary. I never took to that new surname of hers, Deauville. To this lad, however, she was not Clarissa nor Clary. She was judge, jury and executioner. Also, perhaps, god. 

Now, the lad saw his sin.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. The rug.’

Clarissa turned to me instead. Her eyes were the same antique green as the vines before the lad had spoiled them with his boots. These eyes warmed a little as she looked on me, and I saw in those irises her myriad histories, the woman she was before her children stopped calling, before her hair turned white, before her name became Deauville. A ghost of a young girl, picking strawberries by a pond, reading about a boy from Kensington Gardens. 

‘The woman in five-hundred-and-four is smoking again.’

‘Right away, ma’am.’

I slapped my hand upon the countertop, and off I was. I felt a little sorry for the young receptionist. This will learn him.

Along the carpets, up the stairs, past the wainscotting and dead petals and dirty clothes in their baskets, past the windows which revealed framed vistas of the gloomy rooftops of London. I would complain of my arthritic knees, but it’s been many a year since those have bothered me.

‘Miss Kingsley?’

I knocked upon her door.

‘Miss Kingsley, might I come in?’

A voice within.

‍Go away.

‘Afraid I cannot, Miss. Smoking is prohibited, as you know. I will open the door now.’

I found her on the bed, the young Miss Kingsley. Her back was to me, her frame folded over, elbows on knees, head obscured. In the blue light, her skin was translucent. Cold. She was crying, poor lass, and though I could not see her face from this vantage, I could tell by the tremor in her shoulders and the soft sobs that sounded, mildly muffled. From her body, came the vapour.

‘Miss, I’m terribly sorry but I must ask you to stop smoking.’

I don’t know how.

She did not speak in English, although I’m sure that is what she thought she was doing. Never mind; I’ve learned to interpret the wails and moans and creaks of the floorboards.

‘Miss, the other guests are growing upset. Reminds them of their own recencies, the smoking. We have had two complaints already.’

She began to howl at that. The lamps about the room flickered. Now, the smoke billowed thickly from her body, reeking of the chemical flames that took her. I read about it in the paper. Office fire. Two hundred dead on Salisbury Street.

‘I know it is trying, Miss Kingsley, but as soon as you accept that your purpose is complete, you will cross over and feel all the better.’

‍ How would you know?

I opened my mouth to respond to this. I closed it.

How would I know?

‘Well,’ I said, ‘What I mean to say is that there is no changing it now, Miss. You had a lovely funeral, which is more than many of us get. All of your cousins came and so did that young man, Steven. Your father read such a pretty poem, you told me yourself yesterday.’

Did you have a funeral?

‍I had to stop myself from snorting.

‘Miss Kingsley—unlike you, I am not a ghost.’

I left her then and returned with a warm cup of chocolate and a pink box of ginger nut biscuits and a heavy, wool blanket for her to keep the memory of the flames away; she did not react to the blanket set about her shoulders, nor the hot chocolate nor biscuits, until I described them for her in detail. It was as if she did not believe them real, at first. As if upon hearing my words, her very imagination brought these tangible, domestic comforts home to her.

We chatted a while. I asked her about her life and her family and I let her tell me about the fairy stories she had liked when she was little. I told her the recipe to the ginger nut biscuits: one pound of flour, a half-pound of treacle, a quarter-pound of sugar, a quarter-pound of butter, half an ounce of ground ginger, three quarters of a teaspoon of soda and, finally, essence of lemon, if the baker so liked. I did not. Miss Kingsley liked the recipe. She used to go to the old bakery behind Salisbury Street for luncheon. It was not, however, until I mentioned Peter Pan that we realised we had a true, mutual love. ‘My niece adored that story,’ I told Miss Kingsley. ‘Begged her mother to have her name changed.’

Miss Kingsley ruminated a long time on this. Then, she said:

I never wanted to grow up.

‍Now I suppose I never will.

We chatted until at last the smoke died away, until, at length, the young woman’s cold translucency began to fade.

‘Rest well, Miss Kingsley,’ I said. Now, I could not see her. ‘Your stay with us might be brief, but if we can accommodate you any better, please ring the bell.’

‍I left her then and set off not for the tearoom, but room twelve-hundred-and-three.

I must find that Panama hat.

Yet, before I made it up the stairs, I heard that familiar toll of the bell once more and I was off again in the opposite direction. Lobby. Forth storey. Thirteenth storey.

‘Madam Khan has requested another bowl of sweets.’

‍‘Mr Smith doesn’t like the earl grey. He wants camomile.’

‍‘Doctor Garcia does not tolerate pinenuts. Perhaps pistachios?’  

‍I fairly wanted to grumble at Clary by the fifth or sixth request, ‘We are not a damned restaurant!’ And if I did, she would have said what she always says to me: ‘It does not matter, Salvadore. We are the in-between, and we will do what we must to accommodate the dead.’

‍It was mid-afternoon by the time I caught my breath.

‍Back in the tearoom, my hands warmed on the radiator. I looked out at the glum light—how dark this winter was. It almost looked like nighttime. I watched the skinny birch tree in the back lane, behind it a brick wall and the bins. A shadow landed briefly in the nook of the branches; from the creature’s beak, a deep, gurgling laugh expelled. The laugh of a creature who knows you have forgotten something.

‍Had I met Mr Larson before he’d died? I must have. How else would I know about Delilah the crow who lived to age thirteen? Strangely, I could not picture him.

I watched the crow beyond the window for some time, enjoying the empty sounds of the kitchen: clock, refrigerator, the muffled scrapes and dings of the lobby beyond the walls.

The bell tolled again.

‍And again.

‍And again.

‍I saw the time—five o’clock already?

‘Lying bastard,’ I said up at him, and put down my cup. We each of us make enemies with those little, round heathens at one time or another—tick, tick, tick. The older you get the quicker they spin, not unlike a boulder rolling down a mountain, tumbling further and faster until, at last, crashing quite suddenly into oblivion. I know I will crash, myself. I know I will end up in one of these rooms. I see it coming for me; I am no fool. One does not spend decades, as I have done, in this line of work and not think practically about one’s own mortality. Least I know there will be a comfortable bed waiting for me in the end and a plate of ginger nut biscuits. Yet, until that far future, I have a job. I need to find this Panama hat.

So, I fetched the empty plates from rooms six-hundred-and-forty-three, forty-four, forty-five. I fetched the carrot cake and brought it to two-hundred-and-two. I fetched the orange juice and brought it to three-hundred-and-one.

‘Salvadore, Miss Kingsley is smoking again.’

‍‘Right away, Ma’am.’

Seven or eight times I made it back to the twelfth floor before the bell rang again. I, a diligent servant, of course turned around each time and tended to the guests, the ghosts, swapped this meal for that meal, consoled, comforted, brought blankets and tea and sweets and biscuits and whatever else the recently dead wanted in their days and minutes after arriving to the lobby of the afterlife.

I returned to reception and saw the lad still scrubbing at the rug, and I watched as the brush and soap lifted the muddy water away like an old painting stained with smoke and the oils of fingertips and cleaned at last to reveal true pigments hitherto obscured for decades. I watched the strawberries revealed like a memory remembered.

‍Clarissa dully said from the front desk: ‘Found that hat yet, Sal?’

‍‘Damn the whole twelfth floor.’

‍Clary laughed, then, and I threw out an irritated hand and, as I made it to the staircase, I heard her answer the telephone. ‘Miss Larson? Why, I haven’t been Miss Larson for years.’

‍That was it! George S. Larson had been Clary’s husband.

‍But hadn’t she had children of her own? Real children, not a crow named Delilah?

And what of her married name, Deauville?

I shook my head.

It was like unpicking the woven strands of a rug. The thin, coloured blights kept slipping away from my fingers and although I could see some portion of the picture in perfect clarity—Delilah, strawberry thieves, asphodel, the invention of the motor-car—I could not tell the other strands from pieces of limp spaghetti.

The bell rang.

And off I was again.

And when I sat down at last in the tearoom for supper, I found Clarissa and Gill.

‘How did you die again, Gillian?’

‘You ask me that every supper, Sal.’

‘Tell me again, Gill.’

‍And she did, and I remembered the woman she was when I met her. Older than me. A beauty. A baker. A stern woman for whom I grew a keen fondness. Shame she was dead.

‍‘My contract has two hundred years left.’

‍My eyes fairly bulged from my head.

‍‘Two hundred? You are exaggerating, Gillian. You mean two.’

‍‘No, Sal,’ said Clarissa, ‘Not this again. She means two hundred.’

‍‘Two hundred years?’ I scoffed. ‘I might find the accommodating business a little morbid, Gill, a little trying, but it is nothing to turn your nose up at. Nothing to exaggerate about. It’s an honest living, Gill.’

‘It is anything but a living.’

‍Gillian got up then. She left her soup and slice of bread behind. She did not take the stairs. She simply floated straight through the wall and up to the first floor and off to sweep the carpets and fold the bedding and whatever it was she did at half-past seven. I tutted.

‘Don’t start, Sal.’

‘Me?’ I shook my head. ‘I spent all day trying to find that bloody hat, you know.’

‘All day, Salvadore?’ asked Clarissa, ‘You mean all night, you goose. Look out the window. Almost 8 o’clock it is, and the sun is growing brighter not darker.’

I would not be so easily deceived.

‘Don’t you vex me, Clary. It was your husband’s hat I was looking for.’

‘What are you on about, Sal?’

‍‘George S. Larson,’ I said, ‘His Panama hat. The one with Delilah’s feather in it. I will admit, I had some trouble remembering, but that can’t be held against me. I have been on this earth seventy-five years, after all.’

‍‘Have you, Sal?’

‍There was a thud beyond. Then, Gill called out. I saw her ghostly figure flit past the kitchen door and then came the voice of the clumsy lad who had trodden mud across the rug. We listened, Clarissa and I. A tea tray had been dropped. The lad blithered, ‘Mrs Keyes, I’m sorry!’

‍Keyes? I knew that name.

‍Clarissa watched me sadly.

‍‘What?’ I said, ‘What nonsense is it now?’

‘Salvadore,’ said Clarissa with a pained kind of patience. ‘My husband’s name was Earnest. He died in a tram accident in Adelaide. Back in the late Twenties. He went to an accommodation over there. I miss him so much, Sal. I really wish you wouldn’t—’

‍‘Early Twenties, don’t you mean, Clary? Quit pulling my leg. I can see the calendar right over there. I can see the year, if I squint. Clear as day, it says Twenty-five.’

‘Not these Twenties, Sal. The last Twenties. Our Twenties.’

‍‘Ridiculous,’ I said, and I rose from the table. Now, I was fairly fed up. I took my bowl and plate to the sink and promptly washed them both. I climbed the stairs and went, at last, in search of that pesky Panama hat.

‍However, upon finally making it to the twelfth floor I found myself halted beside the window.

The sky was, indeed, turning pink, and through the thin glass of the old hotel windows, I heard the swallows begin to sing. Clary was right—it was eight o’clock now, but not in the evening. In the morning.

‍And I remembered, keenly, picking strawberries with her when she was just a small thing. I remembered the pond, and how my sister never did let her change her name, and so Clary’s daughter, my grandniece, had been the one to be called Wendy, in the end. It was such a new name, then.

‘My,’ I said, and saw how my breath did not form fog upon the glass. ‘I have been doing the night shift and did not notice.’

‍No matter. Silly mistake. Those happen with old age. Those happen with young age, sometimes, too. I never was good with dates or times or lefts or rights, or betting on horses, or finding hats. That has always been my way. Nothing to think on. I left the window, and trotted down the hallway, although a little slowly. I used to have arthritic knees.

I wandered, glumly, through the hotel, the windows chugging past like a train carriage, inverted. I heard a crow caw and spotted the shadowy figure of it skirt along the dank, rooftops. It laughed. The laugh of a creature who knows you have forgotten something.

I passed room twelve-hundred-and-six, five, four.

There at last was twelve-hundred-and-three.

‍‘Sal!’

‍That young receptionist who had scuffed the rugs trotted toward me.

‘I’ve been looking all over for you. Mrs Keyes gave me a walloping for dropping the tea tray.’

‍‘Mrs Keyes?’

‍‘Oh,’ said the lad, ‘Gill. Feels wrong for me to call her that, though, so Mrs Keyes it is. But don’t worry, the walloping wasn’t a real walloping. I’d have to be properly corporeal for that.’ The young man snuffled laughter through his nose. What was his name?

‍‘Lad,’ I said, staring at the handle of room twelve-hundred-and-three, ‘What year did Remember Me lose the cup?’

‍‘What are you talking about?’

‍‘The horse racing. She was a beautiful creature. Not a winner, of course. She came second, or third.’

‍‘Couldn’t tell you,’ said the lad. ‘Been a long time since horse racing’s been in vogue. Bit cruel, isn’t it? My sister used to call it a spectical of animal abu—’

‍‘What year, lad?’

‍The young man shook his head.

‘I would Google it for you, if I still had a phone.’

‘A what?’ I said to him.

‘Never mind,’ said the young man, ‘Grandma Clary—Mrs Deuville—sent me up here to help you into your room. I brought you these.’

He revealed from the bag on his shoulder a pink box, and I knew immediately what they were. Ginger nut biscuits. My very favourite.

And that was when my door opened, and a young family skirted out. A mother with her twins, the lot of them dragging suitcases, hungry for breakfast, anxious for their travels.

‘Come on, Shaun. The Uber’s waiting.’

‘Mum, I’m doing my best. I lost my hat.’

‘It’s in your hand.’

‘It is now.’

‘Seriously,’ said the girl twin. ‘This place is haunted as hell.’

‘Sweetie, don’t swear.’

‘Haunted as heck, then. It’s still bloody haunted.’

‘Sophie.’

The girl giggled.

What accent was that? Australian? New Zealand? What were those bright things in their hands, shaped like large playing cards? The young receptionist and I watched them tug their bags down the hallway, which now warmed under the soft winter sunlight.

‘Come on, Salvadore.’

The lad led me into my room and quickly he made up the space for me, and I realised now how when he touched objects, they moved. The box of ginger nut biscuits. It was an empty box. Still, he set it beside me and as soon as I imagined them, they appeared.

‘Do you still remember the recipe?’

‘Of course, I bloody do,’ I said. ‘Earnest brought it back on one of his trips.’

‘Strange what the mind lets us keep,’ said the young man, although now that I looked at him longer, I saw that he was not so young at all. Perhaps, a man of fifty. His eyes were antique green. Same as Clarissa’s. Same as mine.  

‘I don’t need help, lad. I get on easily enough,’ I said, though I ambled into the bed anyway and let him fluff the pillows. ‘I was looking for a Panama hat.’  

‘Ah,’ said the lad, and he took up the desk chair and trotted to the edge of the room. Stood upon it, he opened the highest of the wardrobe doors. He took down a photo album and a Panama hat: asphodel white, with a ruby band around the brim from which poked the feather of a crow. These he handed over. He opened the first page for me. Property of George Salvadore Larson.

 I asked him at last: ‘What was your name, lad?’

He smiled, patiently.

‍‘You know you ask me that every morning, Uncle Sal. Ever since Grandma Clary gave me the job.’

‘Gave you the job, lad?’

‍‘Your niece, Clarissa. She’s my great gran, Salvadore. I’m George. I don’t know why the hotel let her give me a contract; I don’t know why the hotel didn’t let her give you one. I mean, why do some people get to meet their great grandchildren and others don’t? I’m only fifty-three. Grandma Clary is only seventy. Mrs Keyes is only eighty-eight. So, we help. We comfort. The dead are so hungry—food, love, what have you. I’ve got a lot to learn, I know, Sal, but I’ll do my best. I want to be here, still, when my kids pass. I want to see them again. I got to meet you, Grandma Clary’s favourite Uncle Sal. I named my daughter Wendy, you know.’

‘Did I used to work here?’

‍‘No, Uncle Sal. You were a baker. You made ginger nut biscuits—they still make them now at the bakery. They remember you, even if they don’t know your name.’

And in that kind of way I let George regale my life to me: my pet crow, Delilah, my wife, Maggie, my bakery behind Salisbury Street, the baker’s lung that took me, my residency at the hotel, the kindly way my niece lets me help because I was the one who picked strawberries with her. He chatted to me until the sun was high beyond the windows and my eyes were closed and I was quite ready to drift away to sleep.

‍‘I’m not ready to go yet, lad.’

‍‘I know, Uncle Sal. So long as you’ve a purpose, you won’t cross over.’

‍‘Hide my hat, then. Do not let them tell me where it is. I will keep looking for it. I will go after it, that’s my way, like a horse on derby day. Even if I forget, I will keep after the Panama hat with Delilah’s feather in it. Have them remind me, lad, and I will keep looking. You just go on and hide it.’

‍‘I always do, Uncle Sal.’ ‍ ‍