BRYONY MAILER WAS QUITE possibly the most inquisitive human alive on Earth at that time, which was 11.26 a.m. on 2 June 1978. She was a slim but wiry 24-year-old female human with a great sense of humour, huge reserves of ingenuity and a degree in European History. None of these things was helping her enjoy what she had once hoped was a temporary position as Junior Day Receptionist at the Fetch Brothers Golf Spa Hotel. There wasn’t a Senior Day Receptionist, because that would have involved Mr Mangold, the hotel’s manager, in paying Senior kind of rates. So Bryony was Junior and would stay that way for as long as she was here, stuck in perhaps the most tedious place on Earth. Lately, a couple of guests had even checked in and then simply given up on the place, leaving their luggage and running away. Their accommodation had been paid for in advance – it wasn’t as if they were trying to dodge their bills – and she could only assume the sheer boredom of the Fetch had driven them out. And the wallpaper in the bedrooms was quite offensive – she didn’t think she’d want to sleep inside it, either.
When Bryony wasn’t folding away other people’s abandoned pyjamas and storing their unwanted spongebags (in the unlikely event of their coming back for them), she was dealing with the health and beauty requirements of golfers’ bored wives, coordinating the coaching and playing and post-game massage and bar lunch requirements of the golfers and generally fielding every bizarre request and complaint that an old hotel full of petulant people can generate on any given day. She didn’t get a lot of down time.
But she’d been having a quiet spell lately. For as long as six minutes, she’d been able to ponder whether she’d have her tea with or without a biscuit and whether the biscuit would be a Mint Yo Yo or an Abbey Crunch. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d been able to tease apart all the convolutions of French foreign policy under Cardinal Richelieu, but now even a choice between two biscuits was likely to give her a headache. And Mangold would probably have eaten them in the meantime, even though they were her biscuits…
And, now that she thought of it, she was getting a lot of headaches and that was probably Mangold’s fault, too.
She decided to take the risk of leaving the slightly scuffed reception desk unattended and propped a small handwritten card next to the brass counter bell – PLEASE RING – ADVICE & ASSISTANCE OBTAINABLE IMMEDIATELY – before she slipped off through the door next to the scruffy room-key pigeonholes and along the narrow passageway that led to the Staff Office.
Bryony had never liked this passageway. It was too narrow and its wallpaper was dreadful – worse than in the bedrooms – a claustrophobic pattern of purple and red swirls which almost seemed to wriggle when you looked at them. And it was always either overly cold in here or – like today – much hotter than was pleasant. She tended to rush the journey.
As she rushed – it wasn’t far and would take less than a minute – she wasn’t aware that behind her the wallpaper not only wriggled, but swelled in two places, heaving and stretching until it seemed there were two figures caught behind it and fighting to get out. Had she turned and seen this happening, it would have made her very frightened and also slightly nauseous, but she kept on walking, hurrying, simply aware of an odd taste in her mouth, as if she’d been sucking pennies.
When Bryony reached the office doorway, she saw that both her packets of biscuits had disappeared and there was a little gathering of crumbs on the shelf where she’d left them.
She didn’t see – because her back was turned and anyway why on earth should anyone be on the alert for such a thing? – that two figures had detached themselves stickily from the nasty wallpaper and were now padding along towards her. Each of them seemed unfinished, like rough models of small human beings made out of purple and red meat. Their outlines shifted and rippled horribly. Eyes and teeth emerged to the front of the two rudimentary heads, they showed white and shining and clever against the shifting masses of glistening flesh.
And there was no way out for Bryony. The Staff Office was a dead end in every sense, as she’d often told herself.
‘Oh, bum.’ Bryony sighed. This was going to be another awful day. And she had the very distinct feeling she was being watched. There was a tingling against her neck. She was filled with an impulse to turn round and also an idea that if she did she might not like what she discovered.
As they walked – now very close to Bryony – the figures kept altering, their outlines firming, features coming into focus and solidifying. Then four arms stretched out towards her and, as they lifted, were sheathed in fresh skin. Four hands became completely hand-like, with four thumbs and sixteen fingers and twenty fingernails, just as they reached out to clutch her.
As Bryony finally did begin to spin round, she felt herself being held by both her wrists and heard the word, ‘Boo!’ being shouted by two very similar voices.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ It was the Fetch twins, Honor and Xavier, looking up at her and giggling while they squeezed her wrists. ‘You two nearly scared the life out of me.’
‘That would be bad. Your life should be in you,’ said Xavier, the boy twin. The Fetch twins weren’t absolutely identical, as they liked to tell everyone. They were a boy and a girl, very alike, but not the same. ‘We’re very sorry.’ Xavier didn’t currently look sorry at all.
Neither did Honor. ‘We didn’t want to scare you…only sort of worry you a bit. To be exciting.’ She smiled and looked very sweet. ‘Excitement is nice, isn’t it?’
Bryony forgave the little girl, as she always did. She always forgave both twins – they were just extremely…forgivable. Even though they did seem to turn up suddenly more often than not, as if they were creeping about and planning something only they understood. And it wasn’t as if Bryony didn’t need some excitement. She longed for it, in fact.
Xavier squeezed her hand between his, tugging. ‘Grandmother says she would like you to come and visit her for tea.’
This was sort of good news – the twins’ grandmother was the millionaire Julia Fetch, the reclusive widow who owned the hotel. If she had decided to like Bryony, that might make life much easier for the Permanently Junior Receptionist and maybe even mean Mangold didn’t eat Bryony’s biscuits. Then again, she really didn’t want to work here for much longer. Possibly it would mean she got a good reference when she resigned, though…
The twins peered up at her, identically expectant and cute with their willowy limbs, perfect complexions and sun-bleached hair, Xavier in a blue and white striped T-shirt and blue shorts, Honor in a red and white striped T-shirt and red shorts. They were both barefoot, as usual. Bryony thought maybe she might mention to Mrs Fetch that running around with no shoes on wasn’t terribly hygienic. Then again, maybe Mrs Fetch ran around in bare feet, too. No one ever saw her and she was incredibly wealthy – she could do whatever she liked. She could just not wear anything at all, ever, if she felt like it, or dress as a pirate. Of the two choices, Bryony was strongly in favour of the pirate option.
Honor squeezed Bryony’s hand this time. ‘Do say yes. We’d be ever so pleased and have cucumber sandwiches.’ Both twins spoke like children out of an old-fashioned story book. ‘Truly we would.’ And maybe incredibly wealthy people talked like that all the time – Bryony had no idea, being what she might have called incredibly not wealthy, if it wouldn’t have depressed her to do so.
Bryony nodded at the twins – while thinking pleasepiratecostumepleasepiratecostume – and both kids gave a cheer. ‘Thank your grandmother very much. When I have a break I will come over.’
‘This afternoon! This afternoon!’ The twins skipped and chanted as they scampered away up the passage and out of sight.
‘Weird little people.’ Bryony shook her head and, in the absence of biscuits, pottered back out to the reception desk. There was no sign of the twins and the grandfather clock was, as usual, not ticking. As far as Bryony was concerned, life was dusty and hot and dull, dull, dull.