Roald Dahl (Llandaff, South Glamorgon, Wales, 1916 – London, 1990) was an English writer whose exquisite humour for children stories is transformed into a ghastly irony in romances for adults. “The Landlady” is a short story first published in 1959, in “The New Yorker” magazine. In 1960, it appeared in “Kiss Kiss”, a book with a collection of thriller short stories by Roald Dahl.
A great example of the old street war between the naïve and the wicked, this story about a 17-year-old boy named Billy Weaver, to whom all kind of “queer things” happen, brings us to a place of mystery, since nothing is directly stated, like in all of Dahl’s stories.
So, this young man arrives in Bath for business and looks for a place to spend the night. He is recommended to the Bell and Dragon, a pub, but while headed there, he comes across a window with a BED AND BREAKFAST sign. And the mystery begins: somehow, he is completely hypnotized by it and however reluctant, he is “hold”, “compelled”, “forced” to ring the bell. The door opens so fast that we, readers, become immediately suspicious. Now Roald Dahl introduces us to the landlady, this middle-aged woman who is “terribly nice” to Billy. She is so generous that she gives him a whole floor of his own to stay on for much less money than he would be willing to pay. As it was not enough, she constantly repeats she was waiting and had everything ready for him.
As we wander between tantalizing details sow by the author, spookiness is the law: though apparently Billy doesn’t notice, the landlady macabre intentions appear quite evident to the reader. Each one of them has the most defined personality, spiced with little details, like the way they move or the way they talk, especially by the use of some unique expressions. The landlady is always lovely. I would say, even so much, since from the beginning she constantly calls Billy “dear” and mistakes his name for others.
The really odd part is when Billy goes to sign the guest-book – at her request – and notices hat only two other men had ever signed that book. But that’s not all: they had signed more than two years before his visit. Even stranger is that he remembers the names from the headlines of the newspapers and when he asks about them, after a short conversation, the landlady declares that there hadn’t been any more guests since then and that they never left the inn. However, she talks about them longingly in the past tense.
Creepy, is when Billy notices that both of her pets – the dachshund and the parrot – are dead and stuffed. She tells him, “I stuff all my pets myself” and offers him more tea. Billy, who keeps on trusting the women, proposing motives for her strange behaviour and finding her extremely sweet even though she smells like a hospital, refuses the tea, because it “tasted faintly of bitter almonds”.
Now, in every thriller the taste of bitter almonds is associated to potassium cyanide, a powerful poison and obviously, since she stuffs her dead pets, the smell that emanated from her reminds the reader of formaldehyde, which is often used in the preservation of bodies. Well, the author, master of this kind of stories, gives us the clues we need to connect the dots and draw a delicate horrifying outcome.
Part of the author style is to end the story in its climax, leaving only hints about the development of the narrative. Although, I do not believe it’s a question of allowing the reader to decide what happens to the characters. As I see it, this short story is so well written that it doesn’t need an end. All the mysterious questions are answered by the little subtleties the author puts there. If you ask me, she kills, he dies and the landlady and her stuffed pets live happily ever after. Sheer genius.
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