John Butleron the downside of the high life
I have these notions about modern life that can be traced back to the works of Aaron Spelling. Despite my experience I remain convinced that super-rich couples, like the one in Hart to Hart, are clearly identifiable by matching velour tracksuits, that they enjoy solving crimes rather than committing them and that they entrust the running of their households to gravel-voiced menservants with yappy dogs.
The same goes for cruise ships. Until I board one myself and see with my own eyes the decrepit carpet, the sad croupier at the roulette wheel with the nicotine finger, and the lounge singer with the inevitable ladder in her tights, I will continue to believe that they represent the height of old-world glitz and polish above deck (and intrigue below) - just like aboard The Love Boat.
I used to harbour fantasies about living in a hotel, too, thanks to Hotel, but I have been disabused of that notion, big time. There's a difference between staying in a hotel and living in one. When you are away you stay in a hotel, but when you're at home you're really living there.
As a teenager I was taking a shower at home one Sunday morning when I thought I heard a loud pop. Then, as I washed soap from my ears, there was a rapping on the bathroom door, and I heard my sister calling my name. The knocking was so persistent - the calling of my name so insistent - that I decided it may be important after all. I wrapped a towel around my modesty and opened the door.
My sister had heard the noise too. She had traced the source of the sound and found a little fire starting in our fuse box. One of the fuses had exploded like a party popper at a leaving do, and now thick smoke was seeping through the insulation on the walls behind it, under the carpet below it, and under the door, into the hall. I was dragged down the stairs by the arm.
We escaped to the front garden and took it all in, stunned by the speed with which the fire had caught. We never even saw flames, just a lot of smoke. It was clear that we had been lucky: it could have been far, far worse. When the fire engine arrived, drama levels rose briefly to the pitch of a soap opera and were then quenched, leaving me shivering in my towel, my sister and I without a home, and her in charge of calling the house's owners - our folks - in the US. The whole thing had taken five minutes, from soup to nuts.
That's how I came to live at a hotel for a month, a hotel by a main road - a hotel of the kind that serves only instant coffee and club sandwiches. I recommend taking a room in a hometown hotel at least once. It can be much odder to have your world view shifted by one degree than to have it spun on its axis, and if you take away the excitement of being on holiday, and the variety that rewards you when you leave a hotel abroad, you are left with your own little room, in limbo.
At the time I was studying for end-of-year college exams. Had I been less constrained by circumstance - unemployed, obscenely wealthy - I could have turned my stay into a raucous party, but if you're unemployed and obscenely wealthy you don't stay in my hotel. My life at the time had to be kept on an even keel, so that first night I sat atop a stool in the three-year-old traditional Irish bar adjoining the hotel, ordered a club sandwich and a rock shandy, and signed it to my room.
The next morning I walked to college on an uncharted course, past a cluster of Japanese tourists in Gore-Tex blocking the elevator, past the staff of a company that provided fire alarms (ironically) gathered outside a conference room, past a Dutch coach driver explaining international speed limits to a tired receptionist. During my lectures at college I briefly forgot where I now lived, but when it came to lunch I remembered again. Back at the hotel I ate in the restaurant - a club sandwich and a rock shandy.
There was nothing going on in the restaurant, nothing to do in the lobby. Upstairs, in the room, the choice was clear: sit in the chair or lie down. I sat in the chair until that became uncomfortable, and then I lay in bed, though I wasn't remotely tired. I woke up two hours later with the fragrance of previous tenants rising from the bed cover.
I stripped the cover from the bed and piled it in the corner; I then sat on the side of the bed.
I decided to make a cup of tea, to lift my spirits. I filled the kettle from the sink and plugged it in. I put the only tea bag in a plastic cup and waited for the kettle to boil. Looking out of the window, past the drizzle, I could see cars whizzing by, being driven . . . home. It was 5pm on day two. I noticed the room filling with steam. The kettle was of the kind that doesn't switch off when it boils. I couldn't see Jonathan or Jennifer Hart having to contend with that.
I walked down to the lobby to take my mind off my tongue, which was burnt from drinking the tea (there had been no milk). I saw the Japanese tourists returning from their day out exploring my hometown, and I could see the thrill of a different culture playing on their happy faces.
I opted to take my dinner now, in the restaurant, where I sat near them, hoping for a contact high. I ordered a club sandwich. I had never even been there, but I found myself missing Tokyo almost as much as home.
John Butler blogs at http://lozenge.wordpress.com