Free Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach Page B

Celeste, the daughter who had suddenly appeared in his life, popped up from nowhere, aged twenty-three.
    ‘You can’t mean nowhere,’ said Iris. ‘Who was her mother? Who were you with, all those years ago?’
    ‘Well, I was vaguely with Lorna,’ said Buffy.
    ‘Not that vaguely,’ said Iris, emboldened by the wine.
    ‘It was just an on–off thing, she never told me she was pregnant, and then she got a job in a show and I didn’t see her again.’
    The two women listened, wide-eyed, as he told them the story of how Celeste tracked him down, how she had got a job in his local chemist’s shop and finally revealed that she was his long-lost daughter. Frieda’s eyes filled with tears. My God he was enjoying himself! A glass of wine, an appreciative audience – what more could an old performer want?
    Voda put her head through the door. ‘Just popping out.’ It was visiting day in Shrewsbury Gaol. Glancing at the bottle, at the two women who looked settled in for the duration, she caught Buffy’s eye.
You old softie
.
    Then there were the couples. Lance and Janet Pritchard hogged the only bathroom until half past ten one morning. Giggles and splashes could be heard in the corridor where the other guest, a timid geologist, reappeared at intervals clutching his towel. Though there were two showers, one was broken and the other attached to Buffy’s bedroom. Buffy had to finally scoop up his clothes from the floor and usher the chap into his sanctuary. At eleven, an hour after the official kicking-out time, the Pritchards appeared in the dining room, smug and flushed. Word seemed to have got around that the rules were somewhat relaxed at Myrtle House; perhaps people were Facebooking or something. Buffy didn’t have the heart to make a fuss; instead, he felt a pang for the past, for creaking beds and the raised eyebrows of proprietors less tolerant than himself.
    Besides, it was raining again. In fact, a gale was blowing. Though Knockton was only a mile from the English border its weather was unmistakably Welsh. Buffy kicked Fig into the garden and shut the door with a shudder. There was no question of a constitutional that morning and, fond though he had become of his town, it offered little by the way of diversions even on a Saturday. Shopping and a gossip were unappealing prospects in the pouring rain, and the lure of a Yes You Can Sing session at the British Legion wasn’t powerful enough to get him out of the house.
    The geologist, undaunted, had disappeared for the day. The Pritchards, however, stood side by side at the dining-room window, a stance with which Buffy was only too familiar.
    ‘We could go on that tour of eco homes,’ said Janet.
    ‘In this?’ said Lance, staring at the rain.
    ‘Or that model railway museum,’ she said. ‘In that place I can’t pronounce.’ She looked at him. ‘You like model railways, don’t you?’
    ‘Yeah, when I was six.’
    She looked at the brochure. ‘There’s a Kraft Fayre in the Assembly Rooms.’
    Lance didn’t reply.
    ‘Look!’ She pointed to the page. ‘“Shiatsu for People, Dogs and Horses”! Isn’t that funny?’
    ‘Very funny.’
    There was a silence.
    ‘We could go to Aberystwyth,’ she said.
    ‘Why the hell would we want to go to Aberystwyth?’
    ‘It’s beside the sea.’
    ‘Or we could go home,’ said Lance.
    She froze. ‘What?’
    Buffy, who was squirting Pledge on the tables, paused.
    ‘This isn’t working, is it?’ said Lance. ‘I’m packing. You coming?’ He strode across the room, bumping into a table, and briefly glanced at Buffy. ‘Sorry, pal, I’ll pay for tonight.’ And he was gone.
    Janet sat down on a chair and burst into tears.
    * * *
    An hour later the three of them were in the sitting room, working their way through a second bottle of Rioja.
    ‘He’s always up a ladder doing something or other,’ said Janet. ‘He never talks to me.’
    ‘You’re the one who wanted the maisonette,’ said Lance. ‘I told