He claimed that none of them would have tried to mislead by giving the impression of wanting to keep in touch. He also asked after Darren, and I said he had had a terrible time with someone who picked him up, and that he had been in real danger, but had managed to escape without coming to permanent harm.
'We were all worried about him on the train home. He's a clever lad, he'll learn how to look after himself. We've all got ourselves into dodgy situations when we were younger. I'm sorry if we let you down there.'
That chance meeting at the hotel was the beginning of a relationship between Darren and Cheung. A couple of weeks later they arrived together at the Beckford Arms on a Friday night. I was late, having been delayed by unexpected arrivals at the hotel, and found them laughing and joking with Tom at the bar. We all returned together and Darren took Cheung up to his room, the first time, to my knowledge, he had taken a lover up with him. Perhaps, after all, some good might have come from his visit to the Geordies' favourite club.
***
Following Darren's weekend escapade in Tottenham, for a few weeks life at the hotel settled reassuringly into steady profitable business. Goodmans Hotel had, so far, escaped any of the horrors of which my friend at Housmans Hotel had warned me; there had been no fraudulent payments, nobody had suffered a heart attack, there had been no fights and no vandalism. Then one morning a guest on the first floor came looking for me in the kitchen to complain he had been woken by a disturbance in the room above. He said someone up there must have gone berserk. There had been an almighty crash, followed by scraping sounds and thuds and bangs that went on for half an hour or more. The noise stopped eventually and he went back to sleep.
I leapt up the stairs to the second floor, fearing that taking in two men who had arrived without a booking had been a dreadful mistake. The door to their room was ajar. A loud knock produced no response, and when I tried to push it open it would not move. Lifting it up by the handle with difficulty I eased it open inch by inch. A toilet stink hit me as I entered the room. The upper hinge had been wrenched away from the door frame, and carefully leaning the door against the wall I turned around to face a scene of devastation.
The twin beds had been thrown onto their sides and the mattresses and bedding were strewn higgledy-piggledy across the floor. The dressing table was leaning acutely, its once square angles now grossly distorted, the drawers tossed about the room, the mirror broken, half of it lying in pieces on the floor. The television lay face down, the tube shattered and the back dashed into splinters; the kettle, tea and coffee-making things had been flung down on top of it.