The aphorism “home is where the heart is” might sometimes
more accurately be stated as home is where the heart should be. For 15 years, I spent more time travelling
than at home and I once calculated that it was over twelve months since I’d
slept more than three consecutive nights in my own bed. It is a common conceit of consultants, stated
in a regretful tone but with implicit pride, that Heathrow is their real home.
For the road warrior, hotels become second homes, and one
becomes highly attuned to their nuances and imperfections. Occasionally during my travels I suffered the intruded hotel room. Not
the scenario beloved of romcoms where a fey beauty inadvertently enters the
wrong room (same number, different floor) with predictable results. Less dramatically, after checking in and
interrogating reception to ensure that the allocated room meets my requirements
(no smoking, high floor, away from the elevators) I open the door to find the
room, although empty, has not been serviced.
Used towels on the floor, bedclothes rumpled, chairs askew, I retreat in
horror. The disjunction between the
expectation and the squalid reality jangles more than is justified merely by
the sight of an unmade bed. Such a scene
in a friend’s flat would elicit no reaction beyond the silent observation that
their domestic habits betray divergence from their public persona. But the success of a hotel depends upon sustaining
the illusion that what is essentially a public place has all the attributes of
a private space, so that it is acceptable to perform there the intimate
behaviours normally confined to home.
The recreation of a pristine environment is an essential component in
constructing the fantasy that you are the first and only person ever to occupy
your room and it must be flawlessly executed to mask the knowledge that you are,
in fact, a passing guest, that someone else slept there last night and that there
will be a new incumbent tomorrow. Any evidence
of previous occupation punctures this facade and even erodes faith in the wider
competency of the institution. This is
why hotels have rigorous inspection regimes to detect cleaning transgressions,
trivial in themselves, such as the odd hair in the shower. Canny travellers know how to milk any shortcomings
in their experience. Managers keen to
retain the goodwill of regular guests are empowered to rectify disappointments
by offering minor privileges normally reserved for more distinguished clients:
a complimentary bottle of wine, a room upgrade or access to the executive
lounge. Lubricated by a top tier loyalty card, I was once offered a free
weekend at a Hilton in Brussels. On
redeeming the offer, I was shown to a tiny room which could have passed for a
converted broom cupboard. After I pointed
out that this exacerbated, rather than compensated for, the previous
disappointment, I was immediately moved to the best suite.
When my business travel days ceased, the status of my London
flat subtly changed. Instead of being a fleeting
stopover to collect mail and do laundry, it became my permanent residence,
punctuated only by holidays and occasional visits to friends’ houses. In other
words, the normal position for most of the population. With no early morning flights, my body clock
gradually recovered equilibrium. I no
longer routinely carried a passport and my suitcases were relegated to the
loft. Successive letters from hotel
chains and airlines signalled my demotion down the ranks of valued customer. Eventually they gave up completely; for the
purveyors of travel facilities I might just as well have died.
As a transit lounge, my flat was ideally located: midway
between the office and London City Airport.
But as David Lodge remarks in Changing
Places, praising a location because it’s easy to get away from is at best a
backhanded compliment. Minor inconveniences
in the flat, which I hadn’t noticed or simply overlooked during my itinerant
days, erupted into irritations. Why were the legs on that chair perpetually
falling out, how come all my plates were scratched or chipped? Even the furniture seemed to be in the wrong
place to make the most of the flat’s only substantial asset, the river view. The
outside environment came under scrutiny too.
Certainly the flat’s location guaranteed relative peace and my regular
three mile evening walk around the deserted docks was an enduring pleasure, but
otherwise the neighbourhood had severe limitations. Where were the pavement cafes and street
markets which enliven most European cities, and even other parts of
London?
Learning to live in a flat which had been selected primarily
to function as a pied a terre has been a voyage of discovery. Now I lounge by the window in the newly positioned
chair, sip my coffee and watch the aircraft arriving and leaving London City, the ascending
planes rising in tandem with those landing, as though linked by an invisible
thread passing along the runway. The
Thames is corrugated by a quickening wind and the horizon is defined by the
breast of Shooters Hill, nippled by the disused water tower at its summit, its
profile uninterrupted since the demolition of the Tate refinery.
Anchored in Docklands, it seems the heart has tentatively
taken up residence in the home.
© David Thompson 2014
© David Thompson 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment