When You’ve Got To Choose
In a hotel room in Covent Garden, a drama was unfolding for Max Kessler. It was a symmetrical room, decorated in beige and yellow tones and dominated by a king-size bed. This was where Max perched, the television and minibar to his left and a couple of arm-chairs and a table to his right. In front of him, a vast mirror reflected the whole scene back. He was a handsome man of twenty-nine, although he was often told he looked younger. Tonight, his body was rigid with adrenalin that would frequently reach the point of panic. Looking into the glass, Max was sure this showed on his face. He took a long draught from the miniature bottle of wine. ‘Follow your heart’, his mother had always said, but Max suspected she would feel differently if she found out his heart had led him to this expensive hotel room.
He tried to relax and watch the news for a bit but the headline had not changed all afternoon – ‘MARGARET THATCHER DEAD’. A statement from her daughter was being played for the fifteenth time and then was replaced by footage of a crowd gathering in celebration at Trafalgar Square. Alone, in the privacy of his room, he allowed himself a small smile and then reminded himself not to think ill of the dead.
Max stood up, took a 10p coin from his trouser pocket and flipped it clumsily. Heads cancel, tails do nothing, he had decided. It landed on the floor. He peered down at it – heads for the third time in a row. He was starting to feel light-headed and wondered if he should take the coin’s advice and cancel the appointment. After all, he had done nothing wrong yet. His wife knew where he was; she even knew his room number and every theatre performance he would be reviewing that week. One phone call and the guilt would be gone. He could order some dinner from room-service and watch a film. Iris would understand. His train of thought had followed this same pattern all day but whenever it came back to Iris, he knew that he would never call her. He had come too far.
Returning to the bed, Max allowed himself to think about her. Iris. Mrs Randall. Actually, he had no idea if she was a Mrs but with a little embarrassment he realised he liked the way it sounded. They had met the previous day at a party after the opening night of The Graduate. The irony was not lost on Max, of course. In fact, he wondered if it might be a sign that their meeting was meant to be. He had been struck by ‘Mrs Randall’ the moment she made her entrance. She was a small, curvy, woman of about fifty with warm, freckled skin and black hair laced with rich iron streaks. She excited Max like no other woman ever had. He felt hot and furious when he observed Richard Collins from The Times trying to lay his hand on her waist - the clown – and uncharacteristically nervous when she chose instead to join Max’s own table.
‘I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil…’
The voice of Thatcher from the television interrupted Max’s thoughts about ‘Mrs Randall’ and yanked him back to reality. As a boy growing up in the Eighties, he had known that voice as well as his own mother’s. In some of his earliest memories, he could not even tell which was which. Strangely, it was his mother’s voice that had inspired the guilt that had visited him so much in the last twenty four hours, not that of his wife. He supposed it was because, after two years of marriage, he hardly knew Karen. He was very fond of her but there was no passion. Their union and her devotion to him had been causing Max guilt and resentment every day since his mum had introduced them. He owed it to Karen to free her from the farce their relationship was.
‘She’s old enough to be your mother!’ Max’s mum would say about Iris, ‘she won’t want children at her age.’
There was a knock at the door. Max’s heart jolted. He pointed the remote at Maggie with her ‘Victorian values’ and she disappeared with a flash. There was no place for her in this room tonight. For the first time in his life, Max was going to allow himself to be happy. He opened the door and Iris stood perfect as ever, smiling. She placed a hand on his cheek and kissed him firmly on the lips. There would certainly be guilt but it would wait until the morning.
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