The Servants by Michael Marshall Smith

the news that some parts of the country had snow, but of course it didn’t snow in Brighton. It had to get really, really cold to snow by the sea, David said, even though Mark had not asked him for his opinion on the matter. Instead of snow there was sleet, and rain, and freezing winds. Despite this, Mark dutifully trudged out to the promenade with his board and endured forty minutes of falling over again. After some deliberation, he also broke David’s prohibition on going farther than the line of houses painted in Brunswick Cream.
    He walked past the rusty metal columns on the beach, stranded supports from a portion of the old West Pier, cut off
    from the tangled wreckage of the rest of its remains, which started fifty yards out in the water. Before the fires that had destroyed the pier, it had been possible to take tours on its remnants, small groups of people in hard hats being shown how it had once been—the ballroom, the tea shops, the viewing platforms. Mark’s mother and father had done this, once. Mark had stayed in the playground with his dad’s sister, who was visiting. Going on a broken old pier hadn’t seemed interesting at the time. Now it was no longer possible, and never would be again. He wished he’d properly understood the difference between these two states of affairs at the time.
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    t h e s e r va n t s
    He walked on past the bars and cafés, all closed, which had been fitted into the old arches underneath the raised road level. He walked past the area where a few small, old boats lay on the pebbles, a kind of museum of the fishing that had used to be done here, many years ago; and past a large piece of machinery wrapped in canvas, the base of the carousel that was there in the summer season.
    He kept on walking, illicitly, all the way along the seafront until he was level with the big, modern hotel. Mark looked up at it and realized that there was no one there to stop him. He was eleven years old. He knew what was what. David couldn’t make him stay where he wanted him to. It was stupid, and it wasn’t fair.
    He walked across the promenade and up the stairs and over the road. Pushed his way in through the swing door and went up another small flight of stairs, and then he was in the big hotel’s atrium.
    Music was playing quietly. It was nice and warm and, of course, it was not raining—though if you tilted your head right back you could see the dark clouds through the glass roof, four floors above. Small groups of grown-ups sat at the tables, men and women dressed in black and white bringing them coffee and tea. Kind of like servants, Mark supposed, though he doubted any of them had to sleep in cupboards in the basement, but were probably allowed to go to their own homes at night. He sat down at one of the tables, on a wide couch that was covered in a fabric that looked exactly like the carpet. After a while, a thin man wearing an apron came over.
    “I’d like a cup of tea, please,” Mark said.
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    m i c h a e l m a r s h a l l s m i t h
    “Are you staying in the hotel?”
    “No. Do I have to be?”
    The waiter stared down at him, one eyebrow raised. “Are your mother or father around?”
    “I’ve got money,” Mark said, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a handful of change. “How much is it?”
    The man just looked at Mark and then walked away. At first Mark thought he’d gone to fetch his tea, but after fifteen minutes it became clear that he had not. Mark held his position, getting more and more furious. He wasn’t staying in the hotel, but what difference did that make? He’d stayed here before, with his mum and dad. Why couldn’t he be here now?
    Who said he couldn’t be?
    Then he noticed the thin waiter talking to someone behind reception. Both he and the woman looked over at Mark. Mark got up and walked away, pushing his way back out through the revolving door and into the cold. By the time he got back to the house, it was raining again and he wasn’t