I’m not really on a jolly excursion!
But it was just odd. It seemed strange to put me in some out of the way dive. Or maybe that was exactly the right move to make. Jesus – I was ungrateful anyway. I should just have been glad not to be in prison and or to be the one who was dead.
“If you need fresh towels tomorrow, just ring down to reception. The continental breakfast is served from seven to eight.”
I thanked the young girl on the desk and walked up the stairs to find the room by myself. No bus boy and no lift either. She said that it had just broken down yesterday. She looked like she had just finished school yesterday. As I climbed the staircase with a faded red carpet, I focused on playing a role. It would be the best way to get through this. Little hurdles, one step at a time. I was just a calm, ordinary holidaymaker.
“I get to dress up and play the assassin again, it’s my favourite.” I said to myself.
It was my favourite lyric from The Afghan Whigs. A smile slipped out. I let the melody enter my head and swirl around some. I did have to dress up and play a role, or at least try to.
I turned the key to my room, when I eventually located it down a poorly lit hall on the second floor. The once white papered walls inside, bubbled with either poor taste in finish or were just damp. Maybe it was both. The room was basic and small but actually quite homely. And it was clean. The bed looked decent too.
Fuck it.
This would do rightly.
Wise up Vicky.
There was an ashtray on the small coffee table and an absence of a no smoking sign. I smiled and rolled myself a cig.
‘Continental breakfast,’ I smiled to myself – just code for a bit of bread and fruit salad. I lit up and tried to remain cheerful. I could keep a handle on this. Couldn’t I?
What the fuck am I doing here?
It’s fine, just focus on the next step.
This isn’t how the holiday was meant to play out.
Then I collapsed in on myself.
I thought of the normal life I had enjoyed only a few days before. I love the run in the car to Hillsborough. This was just two days before the trip. I had filled up my ten-year old Ford Focus with a half tank and hit the road the next day after lunch. It was another dry and warm afternoon – in Northern Ireland this could now be classified as a heat wave. If we had three dry and mild days in July it would hit headlines in the papers.
I had sped up the motorway towards Belfast, window half down, some Blue Note Herbie Hancock on the stereo. I had on a denim skirt and a light green top, and was enjoying feeling the breeze creeping into the car. I whizzed past the Applegreen Services, briefly considering a cheeky Burger King, after passing by the ‘Falls Balls’. The aforementioned ‘balls’ is a largemodern sculpture that drivers pass on their way out of Belfast, close to the intersect between the flash points of The Falls and The Shankill. It is not the most popular of creations, but at least gives us the opportunity to still look at things with a laugh. Inner city Belfast isn’t especially known for its love of esoteric modern art sculptures. That was the only thing that got us through the Troubles; the ability to take the piss. I say us – but I was only eight when The Good Friday Agreement was signed. Growing up in Bangor, County Down, I was all but totally sheltered from the violence – it only occasionally spilling over, like when a car bomb put a big hole in the town centre. Thankfully nobody was killed that day.
My dad used to tell a story about his buddy Maurice who owned a bar down in Bingham Arcade. The police had alerted them to a bomb scare – but this was nothing new and there had never been anything but hoaxes before. Maurice sauntered down the alley whistling, the police having asked him to pull the shutter to the alleyway down. He had it got it just below his face whenever the bomb exploded behind it on Main Street. He was blown up to the other end of the alleyway, but got away with only minor injuries and new reverence for the boy that cried wolf.
I made good time, bypassing Lisburn, then turning off toward Hillsborough. I parked on the main road – across from Hillsborough Castle – the official royal residence whenever any of them are over. I kept my sunglasses on, picked up a cardigan and ambled down the road. I love it there – it’s all Georgian buildings, flowerbeds, coffee shops and gastro-pubs. I walked down by the old church, a tree-lined walk leading to it with immaculately trimmed branches, and not a pick of litter anywhere to be seen.
I almost jumped out of my skin as an Alsatian suddenly barked loudly at me, straining at his lead.
“He won’t touch ye’,” said the elderly owner nonchalantly. He looked at me flatly.
The dog continued to growl and I stepped back further, forcing a smile.
“That’s okay,” I said, attempting to hide my fluster.
The man nodded his head as he walked on, pulling at the animal, as if I had done something amiss.
“Miserable old bastard,” I said to myself under my breath.
I headed on up to The Humble Pie café for a coffee and caramel square. It had become a ritual most times I went to visit my
