Ross McQueen
Hotel on Kinkerstraat
The rain had not stopped since they’d reached Amsterdam. It lashed the pretty gabled houses. It churned the waters of the canals. They might as well have stayed in England for the weather!
Their hotel was on Kinkerstraat, a short tram-ride from Leidseplein. They had taken the tram to Leidseplein, where the cafes were, and now they sat inside at a window looking out at the rain.
It rattled on the striped parasols and the tables on the square, and they watched it and glumly drank their Heineken.
‘Isn’t it funny,’ said John, ‘how Heineken tastes better in Holland?’
But she thought it tasted like every other beer, and she wasn’t a beer drinker anyway, and being in Holland did not make it taste less like beer.
Their guidebook lay closed on the table before them. On the plane from London they’d pored over its recommendations: a walk in the Vondelpark; a boat tour of the canals… But none of these sounded appealing in the rain.
In fact, Amsterdam had been grey and disappointing since they’d landed at Schiphol. It was their first trip in almost a year. They’d hoped it might bring them closer together…But so far, the city had inspired none of the romance they’d been longing for.
‘The weather was much better five years ago,’ John said. ‘Strange, because it was the same time of year. It must be climate change.’
‘Oh, drop it, John,’ she said. And in fact she was thinking of her own last trip to Amsterdam, back in her early twenties, before she and John had known each other. And for several reasons she’d never told John about that trip. Possibly because she’d had more fun on that trip than she’d ever had with John in the three years they’d been together.
The café was warm and dry and when they finished their drinks John wanted another. But Jen wanted to go back to the hotel. She felt a longing to walk the rainy streets alone.
But she knew he’d insist on taking her back, afraid she’d get angry at him for leaving her alone. And so they went back to the hotel together, which was really what neither of them wanted to do.
Now she lay on the bed with a book while John flicked through the TV.
There were channels in Dutch and German and French and English. He settled on an English channel. How like him to come to Amsterdam and watch English TV. What could he possibly have done on his previous trip here?
She pictured him and his friends drinking Heineken and ogling the women in the Red Light District, each too nervous to go in. When they talked about it now, they probably considered that trip legendary.
‘Look at that, we can watch any English show we want,’ John said.
‘Why don’t you put on a Dutch channel?’
‘What for?’
‘For the local flavour.’
‘We won’t understand it.’
‘That’s the point.’
‘But we won’t understand it.’
She was too weary to argue.
She went back to her book. She wouldn’t have cared about not understanding the Dutch channels. That was part of the enjoyment. With the rain and the English TV, what evidence was there that they were really even abroad? She thought about trying to explain this to John, about telling him that she didn’t want to understand the Dutch TV shows, she just wanted to feel like she was somewhere else. But he wouldn’t have followed. He’d have found it silly and annoying. It would have led to a souring of the air.
And so John watched TV and she read her book and the rain pattered down on the balcony of their little hotel on Kinkerstraat.
‘Where shall we eat tonight?’ John said.
‘Somewhere Dutch,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it all Dutch?’
‘Somewhere not touristy.’
‘Will the waiters speak English?’
‘Of course they’ll speak English.’
‘It’ll be tricky if they don’t speak English.’
‘Everyone speaks English, John. Have you met anyone in Amsterdam who didn’t speak English?’
‘What’s Dutch food like?’
‘I suppose we’ll find out.’
‘I hope they do chips.’
She was finding it hard to focus on her book.
Usually she was good at shutting out John and the TV. But today the words on the page weren’t linking up properly. She had to reread everything. Over the rain she could hear the noise of the street down below: the hum of a tram, the trill of the cyclists’ bells, the rumble of cars, the music of voices speaking a language she didn’t understand but which was foreign and exotic and full of mystery.
She heard the trams ringing their bells as they set off. Then the whirr of the tracks, the crackle of the overhead lines… She pretended to read her book, but really she was listening to the trams.
Finally she could take it no more. She wanted a drink.
She was drinking more often in the evenings–not excessively, but enough. It was a habit she’d formed. She and John would have a drink and watch TV, and that would save them having to say anything to each other. And between the dulling effects of the drink and the images on the TV she could imagine that she was somewhere else entirely, and she’d be able to put some distance between herself and her drab London flat and the life she lived in it.
‘Do you fancy a drink?’ she said.
He looked at his watch. She had already checked. It was just after five.
‘Yeah, why not,’ he said.
‘There’s a supermarket on the other side of the street,’ she said. ‘Across the tramlines. Can you go down and get a bottle of wine and whatever you want?’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Shall I leave the TV on?’
‘If you like.’
Taking some euros from their envelope of holiday money, John went out.
When he was gone, she picked up the remote and found a Dutch channel.
She lay back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. Her last trip to Amsterdam had been so different. So different indeed! She’d been seven years younger for a start.
She was still young. But you noticed a difference between 22 and 29. At 22 your twenties are ahead of you; at 29 they are behind you, and 30 doesn’t feel so far away. And that had always seemed like the end for her, 30. If you hadn’t made it by 30, you hadn’t made it. You were meant to have your life sorted by then. She and John had been together for three years now and shared a flat. Did that make her life sorted?
Her last trip to Amsterdam had been different. She’d been fresh out of university and into her first real job – a stupid tech start-up which had since folded, but a job nonetheless. For the first time she’d actually had money. She’d come here with different people, of course. She’d come here with friends, and with that guy she’d been seeing at the time, Simon, who’d wanted to be an artist.
That had folded too, of course. She’d had her job and he wanted to move abroad, and in the end, she’d kept her job and he’d moved abroad and after a while she’d met John.
But she’d always wondered what would’ve happened if she’d moved abroad with Simon.
He was doing fine now, of course. Not successful, but fine. His art career was taking longer than expected to get off the ground.
She knew he was doing fine because she’d met him a month ago, when he’d been passing through London–‘a duty jaunt to see the parents,’ he’d called it. Nothing had happened, of course. Nothing at all. It had just been a drink, just for old time’s sake. He’d walked her back to the Underground and they’d made a few off-hand remarks about keeping in touch, even though it was difficult under the circumstances. But as she’d sat on the Underground home, and as she’d got to the flat and found John sprawled on the sofa watching TV, a part of her had wished that something had happened with Simon that evening.
He was living in France now – in Paris, where artists were meant to live. Simon had always had his head in the 1920s. He thought walking the same streets as Picasso might turn him into Picasso. And she pictured herself living modestly in Paris with Simon, in a bright studio filled with easels and oil paints and bottles of wine and cognac, which of course was a fantasy since it was impossible to live modestly as an artist in Paris. Still, a part of her wished she had at least tried…
She took out her phone and scrolled through her contacts. Simon’s number was there. The sight of his name sent a painful thrill through her. If it wasn’t for John she could go and see him, perhaps try again with him. What would happen if she just phoned him now and told him she was coming to Paris? From their drink back in London she could tell he still liked her. He wouldn’t have got in touch with her otherwise. Should she call him?
And she wanted so badly for someone else to take charge of her life. Someone to tell her what choices to make, to tell her which of these men she’d be happiest with.
How much easier if some higher power reached down and took the decision away from her…
Out in the street came the noise of a tram. The ‘ping’ of its bell as it slid through the rain. It just didn’t stop raining here. And she thought then…
No, it was too awful. It was terrible. She was ashamed to think it.
But she thought just then how much easier, how much less hassle it would all be, if on the way back from the supermarket John were to be hit and killed by that tram…
The thought was so dreadful that she rolled over and put her face in the pillow. How could she think like that? This was John – the same John that she shared a flat with in London, the same John that she’d introduced to her parents, the same John that she’d spent the last two Christmases with. The John who she mechanically said ‘I love you’ to once every couple of days, for the sake of appearances, and who reliably said it back.
One traffic accident and it would all go away…
The trams whirred down Kinkerstraat and in her mind’s eye she saw the accident happen, the noise and the shouts, the sound of the rain.
When John entered with a bottle of wine and a sixpack of Heineken he looked at her in surprise.
‘Have you been crying, Jen?’ he said.
‘Yes – no. There was something sad on the telly. I’m fine now.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll pour you a drink.’
There were no wine glasses so he poured the wine into a bathroom tumbler. She took a big gulp.
They watched the English TV shows and drank their wine and Heineken. And out in the street the sound of the rain lessened. And she heard the trams more clearly–heard the electric whirr as they glided down the tracks, heard the ‘ping’ of their bells as they set off.
And each time a tram went by she was reminded of what she’d thought, of what she’d wished might happen to John, and she’d look over at him just to make sure he was still there, and feel the shame rise up inside her like a hot wave.
And, of course, he was still there. The same John she owned a flat with. The same John she’d said ‘I love you’ to for the last three years.
When the two of them went out for dinner that night, John asked for a side order of chips with his meal, and was puzzled when they came with mayonnaise. She watched him scraping the mayonnaise off his chips, and felt her heart breaking. AQ