The Weeping Women Hotel by Alexei Sayle Page B

stance.‘
    The
agony was just beginning to subside when he suddenly flew from the opposite
direction and kicked the shaking fat woman in the other shin.
    ‘Ow,
Christ!’ she yelped again, but quickly stepped back into her stance without
being told.
    After
he had kicked Harriet’s shins three more times Patrick said, ‘Right, follow
me.’
    In
turning to try and follow she fell heavily and awkwardly to the ground, pain
shooting into her palms. He did not wait, however, and as she lay twisted on
the floor she heard his steps descending the stairs. Harriet could have let
Patrick leave then and might have been free of him, but propelled by an
indistinct fear she thrust herself upright and followed in a rush, bashing her
shoulder on the doorway as she raced breathlessly down the stairs after him.
    The
front door was open and she could just see his feet disappearing over the road
as she slalomed down the corridor and into the street.
    Glimpsing
Patrick disappearing into the park, Harriet was forced into a waddling,
ungainly run in order to catch him up as he steadily pressed across the muddy
grass and through the dripping undergrowth towards the centre of the greenery.
Stepping straight into a laurel bush that wetly slapped her in the face she
realised they had come to the very heart of the park, a place where she had not
ventured for years.
    It was
strangely silent in this shallow bowl, the sides sloping gently down to the
ancient oak tree right at the core soaking up all noise from the outside world,
the only sound the delicate patter of rain on leaves. The edge of the bowl was
ringed in an almost impenetrable tangle of bramble, dog rose, laurel, beech
tree and scraggly pine. Looking down she saw that her stretch pants were torn
and her legs were bleeding from forcing her way unwittingly through the thorns.
    Patrick
stopped by the oak tree and waited while Harriet staggered up to him. The
first fork of the oak tree was about five feet above the ground. Patrick
pointed to it and said to her, ‘Climb up there.’
    ‘What,
where?’
    ‘Climb
up to that first branch of the tree.’
    ‘I
can’t climb.’ Despite what had just gone on between them she thought it still
seemed particularly cruel of him to expect somebody as fat as her to climb a
tree.
    ‘I’ll
give you a boost.’
    ‘No,
no, no. I’ll be too heavy.’
    ‘No,
you won’t.’
    He
cupped his hands, Harriet tried to bend her leg to fit into them but couldn’t
get her foot high enough. With a sigh Patrick bent a little lower, she put her
foot into his fingers and realised how strong he was as he more or less threw
her into the tree. Harriet clung on desperately to the flaking grey wood as it
dug into her stomach, knocking the air out of her as she hung over the branch.
    ‘Stand
up,’ Patrick ordered.
    With
great difficulty she managed to lever herself upright so that she stood swaying
unsteadily on the branch, forced to embrace the trunk of the oak tree like a
lover just to steady herself.
    Patrick’s
chest was now level with the woman’s feet as he said quietly, ‘Now jump.’
    ‘Jump?’
she squeaked.
    ‘Jump,’
he repeated quietly.
    In
Harriet’s mind there suddenly appeared an image of the shelf for tinned fish at
the supermarket: there were so many different kinds of tuna that sometimes she
stood for fifteen minutes trying to choose between tuna chunks in brine or tuna
steaks in sunflower oil or tuna chunks in olive oil. She understood there was
a sort of freedom in having no choice at all, so with her mind temporarily at
peace and without further argument she stepped off-the brittle branch and into
the empty air.
    Nothing
happened then a lot happened. She struck the ground and her legs twisted
beneath her as her body pitched forward, her glasses fell off and, stretching
out her hands to protect herself tumbling forward, her soft pink palms scraped
along the stony soil beneath the tree tearing the skin wide open, her chin hit
the ground jarring