Shroud by John Banville Page A

him with her gaze fixed straight ahead and her back arched, trying to look as if she had a perfect right to be there. She had never understood exactly how hotels work, or what the rules of hotel living are. For instance, how would paying guests be distinguished from the other people who would drift in and out here during the day, casual visitors, people coming for lunch, or for assignations in the bar, suchlike? Would that young man at the reception desk know she was not staying here? She had not asked him for a key, but she might have one, all the same, might have got it earlier from one of his colleagues, before he came on duty, and taken it with her when she went out. There was her bag, of course, but it was not very big, and might be a shopping bag, for all he knew. But why would she have gone out with a shopping bag at dawn, when no shops were open, and how could she be coming back now with it full?
    The lobby was all gleaming marble surfaces, with hidden lighting and a low ceiling. There was a sort of pond in the middle where water splashed among ferns, soothingly. She took off her coat and sat down at one end of an uncomfortable leather couch that she knew the backs of her legs would stick to even through her dress. A large, indifferent silence hung about her. She wondered if the ferns in the pond were real or made of plastic; they looked suspiciously genuine. She was trying not to think of the voices; often, just thinking of them was enough to set them going. The young man from the reception desk came and asked, in English, with cool politeness, if she wished for anything, some coffee, perhaps, or tea? She shook her head; she did not know what the procedure for paying would be; she imagined herself offering him money only to be met with an offended stare. He was handsome, like a film actor, dark and smooth and poised. He smiled again, this time with a shadow of irony, she thought. As he was turning away he glanced at her bag and lifted an eyebrow, in a way that told her he knew she was not a guest. She wondered enviously how he had decided. Perhaps everyone checking in was photographed in secret, and the pictures were kept in a file under the desk, and he had gone through it and not found hers. More likely he had known just by the look of her, the way she was sitting, so straight, with her knees together and her hands folded in her lap; that, and the fact that she had not gone up in the lift, to her room, the room that she did not have. She looked at her watch and sighed. A single, gloating voice began whispering in her head.
    Here I am, asleep again, and dreaming. In the dream I am in an aeroplane, or on it, rather, for the cabin is open to the sky, with a metal floor and a rounded metal canopy above supported on thin steel struts. There are other passengers on board but I cannot see them, the headrests of the seats are set too high. The air is gushing against my face, wonderfully cool and mild. Far below, through breaks in the cloud, I can see fields and rivers, little puffs of green that must be trees, and houses, and highways, a whole toy world laid out and stretching off to the curved horizon on all sides. As I fly along, feather-light and free, I am myself and also someone else, and this is all right, and natural. A stewardess comes and leans over me, telling me something, but when I look up at her I see that she has a bearded, pained face, the face of a man, gentle but not effeminate, the eyes lightly closed as in death, the lids stretched like paper or silk over the bulging orbs beneath. She is handing me something, a folded sheet of paper, a letter, perhaps, which I try not to accept, but she insists, still with that gentle, kindly, suffering expression. Signore, she is saying, with soft urgency, pointing to her bearded face, signore, signore. I push at her to make her stand aside, the paper crackling in my hand, and try to rise from my seat, but cannot, my leg will not let me. I know that the plane is going