Hotel Scenes from the Velvet Paw of Asquith Novels

Chapter 2

From When Fear Is Not Afraid, Chapter 8

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In which Oscar tries ordering a taxi from a hotel so dreadful that the only thing holding up its walls is a brazen determination not to draw attention to its squalor through inadvertent collapse.

It was evening, and Oscar stood in front of a large cracked mirror in a room on the fourth floor of a hotel in Liebe. He'd been standing in front of it for some time, unable to decide what pair of pantaloons might best suit an occasion of abject humilia­tion. Whenever he tried a tried a pair on and fluffed them, he envisioned himself amongst a crowd of prestigious poets, which had them deflate like a punctured tyre. Although he'd suffered humiliation at a poetry recital in the last book, this time things were different. The Me­chanics of Verse lecture would not be the inane ramblings of a pathologically self-centred cat, but the most revered gathering of poets in the world. This, however, wasn't is only concern. His own attempts at imagist poetry sustained him through the ludicrous world of curiosa: poetry was an antidote to his struggles as a Velvet Paw of Asquith. But although he might act like a Velvet Paw, he didn't feel worthy of the title, and worried that when those attending proved he wasn't one of these either, he'd be left with nothing. With a sigh, he decided upon a pair and stuffed the remaining ones back into a little suitcase. After securing a scarf, he donned a hat, refusing to face swathes of poets with the added disadvantage of being earless.

He left the room and entered a hallway which deserved noth­ing of its first syllable and little of its second. The hotel was appalling. Having decided discretion was essential, the Catacombs booked a room in one of Liebe's worst. This didn't bother Oscar, however, as Liebe's best hotels would be crammed with poets of credence in lieu of the lecture, and he was relieved not to be amongst them. The hallway's carpet was threadbare and devoid of colour except for a nondescript brown, which he doubted was part of its original hue and more an accumulation of the sort of thing vacuum cleaners had been invented for. Wallpaper, originally on the wall, had peeled and fallen over the years, having collected like autumn leaves along the skirting board. Some had caught upon ornate lamps, which jutted like withered claws from walls, but only one of them worked—up until he wandered past it, when its bulb fizzled and went pop. Not that it mattered, as there was ample light spilling in from street lamps outside; the cracks in the walls large enough to pass for windows. There was also evidence of rising damp so severe that it might be better described as reverse rain, and which, despite making the place smell like mud, nevertheless reduced the hotel's fire-risk markedly.

The lift wasn't working, so he took the stairs, which turned out to be just as broken and twice as dangerous. In the lobby, it was quiet, dark and dingy, and smelt like dead badger. It was, however, in a far better state of disrepair than upstairs as recent fire damage had gone some way to drying the place. Wallpaper, although in its more traditional location, was a collage of several patterns, including one that had been banned in more upmarket hotels for ecconomic reasons. There was a wooden door on one side of the lobby so warped, that it appeared to be solely responsible for supporting the upper floors, and beside it hung faded pictures that, although doing nothing for the lobby's ambience, did a great deal to cover up its missing masonry. In one corner were some armchairs arranged around a little table that was missing a leg, which accounted for their arrangement, and another corner housed some stools against a window overlooking the street outside—at least, it would have done, had it not been covered with several sheets of brown paper and sticky-tape. There was an aquarium also, though it had no water, and although it had some gravel, most of it was on the floor. There were some pot plants dotted around the place, one of which was in a pot, and a poor scattering of magazines that were dated shortly after the invention of the printing press.