They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

81 Autumn 2011

The worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in and times by ten. That’s the Gasthaus & Hotel Seehaus, on Elbestrasse in Frankfurt. The best thing anyone had said about it on TripAdvisor — and the only person to give it a review as high as three stars — was that their room was clean. The rest of the reviews were two- or one-star. Someone gave it two stars for its central location. Another person gave it two stars for it having laundry facilities. Someone leaving a one-star review said they’d seen the largest rat ever in their bedroom one night.

But it did have an amiable day-time receptionist, called Maria, fifty-five going on twenty, who had a black fringe like the 1950s American model Bettie Page and told me she had written a novel, which she was trying to get published. And if I ever needed anyone to babysit Bruno, she would always be up for earning extra cash when she was off duty.

At 6 p.m. every evening, except Sundays when there weren’t any staff at all, Maria was relieved by a surly, heavily bearded goblin, who chain-smoked until midnight, then locked the front door and buggered off. The only other staff member was a cleaner as shy as a nervous sparrow. I tried to engage with her a few times but she made it clear she spoke no English and I don’t think she spoke any German, either.

The bedroom, with one solitary bare lightbulb, had a single bed for me that felt as if I was at an angle all the time like a boat keeled over in the mud at low tide, and a bunk bed for Bruno that he said was fine. The view from the window was down onto a street populated by hookers, drug addicts and a fair percentage of Frankfurt’s down-and-out population. But, hey, it was just forty-nine euros a night, breakfast not included. I saw the breakfast on our first morning, a sad display of nothing I would ever want to put in my or Bruno’s mouth, and was glad it wasn’t included, in case of the temptation to eat it.

Something that was included was an unusual line in gift toiletries. A bar of partially used soap on which nestled a small, curly hair. It lurked on a shelf behind the plastic curtain — with four rings missing — in the shower cubicle, where there was black mould in each of the four corners of the tray that looked like lurking spiders. There was a part-used mini tube of toothpaste with the top off, left over from a previous guest, that made me think of Roy.

He was pretty fastidious about tidiness in the bathroom, whereas honestly I was less fussed. Few things pissed him off more than when I squeezed the toothpaste from the middle of the tube and left the top off. Now in these years since I’d left Roy, I could do it to my heart’s content, a small symbol of my new freedom!

Roy had a thing about an orderly bathroom. He was forever tidying it, but then, ironically, leaving clutter, including his vinyl collection, all over the rest of the house. Whereas I obsessed about keeping our minimalist home clutter-free, and didn’t really care about the bathroom so long as the towels were clean and soft.

What I didn’t know as I checked us in, on the first day of our new life, was just what a handy location this was going to prove to be. All I thought, gloomily, on that warm October morning as I stripped all the bedding to take it down to the row of washing machines in the basement, so that we would know it was clean at least, was that this was going to be a longer road to recovery than I’d first imagined.

And I was remembering a gloomy quote from King Lear: The worst is not, so long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’

I countered it with John Lennon’s words. He said so many smart things. I had always particularly loved, Everything will be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end.

Except it was the end for him and it wasn’t OK.

Shit.

I felt so badly in need of a hit that first night, after getting takeaway burgers and fries for Bruno and myself. I needed something stronger than the Espranor. I knew I couldn’t go back to that life, so I worked hard to resist the temptation. But it was hard. A constant battle and an easy one to give in to if I let myself.

I also desperately needed some adult company or I would go crazy. But I couldn’t risk leaving Bruno, especially if there were rats around, so that wasn’t going to happen, not tonight anyway.

He had his first appointment with Dr Ramsden tomorrow at midday. It was now 7 p.m. There was an ancient television in the room that only seemed able to get German channels. The Wi-Fi did at least work — most of the time — three euros extra per day. And the electricity in the room, I discovered, when it plunged into darkness at 9.30 p.m., was on a meter. Luckily, Old Smokestack downstairs, as I nicknamed him, had a stash of coins he was able to give me in exchange for notes.

I went back up to my room, popped a euro in the meter, then stared down at the street below. It wasn’t wide but the traffic was solid, lit by the glare of neon lights from the strip clubs and sex shops. The blare of music, some from a nearby bar, some from the stereos of the passing cars with deaf drivers. A large sign, directly across the road, flashed orange, blue and yellow, CABARET. PIK-DAME.

I realized I’d only viewed this room in daytime. I hadn’t reckoned on a ringside view of the seediest aspect of Frankfurt’s night-time economy.

I stared down at a row of small, beat-up cars parked one-wheel on the pavement. A couple of down-and-outs were leaning against one, seemingly sharing a joint.

I drew the curtain, a flimsy piece of cheap fabric that was about as useful at keeping out the flashing neon light as the proverbial chocolate teapot, and turned to Bruno. He was on the top bunk, his head in a book, oblivious to all around him.

And at that moment, I envied him that so much.

Oh God.

I looked at the flashing lights against the curtain. Heard the sound of rap music booming out from a passing car in the street below. A siren somewhere in the distance. My bag with all the money I had in the world sat on the floor beside me. There wasn’t even a safe in this room. I would have to hide it somewhere, but I had no idea where, and under the mattress seemed the only place at the moment. But not great.

Then when I stacked my coins into neat piles beside the meter, I realized that Smokestack downstairs had short-changed me by one euro. Deliberately or a mistake? I decided to swallow it for now rather than go down and confront him, but I would be wary of him in the future. Not great to feel ripped off, even by a tiny amount.

It really wasn’t great being here at all.

What actually had been great since leaving Roy, I was thinking with a tinge of nostalgia?

Leaving the home I loved and had put so much love into.

Leaving the man who had never judged me. The man who if I’d given him the chance would have supported me in embarking in a career of my choice.

The man who had rarely raised his voice in anger at me, and never, ever, in a million years would have hit me.

A decent, honest human being who would have made a great and caring dad for Bruno, whether he was actually his biological father or not. Hell, he’d never have known.

I’d exchanged him for Nicos, a violent bully and a criminal.

Then for Hans-Jürgen Waldinger, utterly charming but now celibate and on another planet to mine.

I was here trying my best in an awful part of a strange city. Strung out, with my son, in a country where I didn’t speak the language. With a past that was a train crash and a future that looked like an even bigger one. Leaving my home was my only option at the time; it wouldn’t have taken Albazi long to find me and kill me, I had to escape from that. But was leaving Roy the biggest mistake I’d ever made?