Free How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland Page B

I’m from. Everybody else does.
    ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘that’s a terrific bargain. I’d better take two.’
    Suddenly she is suspicious and she squints at my face. I get ready to leave, worried that I might collapse or vomit.
    There is a menacing burst of laughter from the corner full of boys.
    ‘Damned kids,’ says the shopkeeper.
    She looks back at me one last time then swings around. With her back to me, and one hand reaching up for the bottle of gin, she says, ‘One bottle per customer only.’
    I say, ‘One bottle’s fine.’
    I sit in a nearby park and drink enough gin to feel soft. I stand once or twice to see how I am on my feet and I am fine. I wrap the bottle inside a jacket in my backpack and head back to the cinema. I buy a bottle of water and wait in the foyer.
    Margaret comes out of the cinema looking angry. ‘It’s bad manners to walk out of a film. It makes the other people feel awkward. Where did you go?’
    ‘Nowhere,’ I say. ‘I just didn’t like the film and I thought I’d go for a walk around the block a few times.’
    Margaret has strong feelings about this, which is rather strange. I walk out of films all the time, especially when actors continually don’t know what to do with their hands and have only got parts because they’re handsome or pretty.
    ‘You should always finish what’s on your plate,’ she says. ‘When you start something you should finish it.’
    All along I expected her to be cross about me being on my own in the dark, in a strange town, but this doesn’t seem to be her concern.
    ‘You should apologise to Bridget,’ she says as we walk out.
    ‘Let’s hit the road,’ says Henry when he catches up with us a few minutes later. For once, he isn’t trying to hide the fact that he’s having a boring time. I wink at him, but he doesn’t wink back.
    In the back of the van I tell Bridget I’m sorry. ‘What for?’ she says.
    ‘For walking out of the film.’
    She rolls her eyes and looks away from me. ‘ Whatever . I don’t care. You can do whatever you want.’
        
    Our motel for the night is down-market; neon sign busted, a skip of overflowing garbage near the manager’s door and brickwork the colour of shit.
    Margaret comes back from the manager’s office with only one key. I notice this right away. James and Bridget are swimming in the pool.
    ‘There’s only one room left,’ she says.
    ‘Couldn’t we go somewhere else?’ I say.
    ‘It won’t kill you,’ she says.
    Henry gives her a look, as though he’d like to argue with her, but can’t find the courage. She always gets her own way.
    ‘I’ll walk up to the motel further back that way,’ I say. ‘I’ll ask if they have three rooms.’
    Henry shakes his head and makes his favourite tsk, tsk sound.
    ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ he says. ‘Just relax.’
    There’s no airconditioning in the small room, not even a kettle or small basket of plastic-wrapped biscuits. Worse still, there is only one double bed and that’s where Margaret and Henry will sleep. There’s no other room or beds and I am desperate for some privacy.
    James, Bridget and I collapse on the couch and sulk about the prospect of having to sleep on the floor. Margaret puts her hands on her hips and says, ‘It won’t kill any of you.’
    Bridget keeps on protesting, and saying that it isn’t fair, and when she looks at me I’m suddenly aware that this is my punishment for trying to intervene when that woman was beating her child, or for walking out of the film; or both. It’s obviously not an economic necessity.
    We put our blankets on the floor and lie down under sheets with two pillows each under our heads.
    Bridget and I are in the middle of the room, and James lies away from us, nearer to the wall. We have agreed that none of us will sleep on the couch, for the sake of fairness, but I wonder if James plans to move there once Bridget and I are asleep.
    The window is open but there is no breeze. For