I woke in room 272 of the West Ham United Quality Hotel faced with the usual questions. What peculiar instinct had brought me safely back when I couldn’t even remember checking in? Were my phone, wallet and car keys still with me? Had I made an exhibition of myself? Committed a crime? I leapt out of the bed and checked my pockets. My clothes were draped over the chair in an amazingly orderly manner. My wallet and phone were there — thank God — but no keys.
I tried to retrace my footsteps in my mind. It was a complete blank. Of the match I could remember nothing. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this alcoholic blackout was the worst yet, covering an entire afternoon and evening. Not the slightest impression remained of any of it. I had literally taken leave of my senses. What was happening to me? Was my liver packing up at last? And what was all this dried blood on my hands? And these bloody cuts on my fingers — how had I got those?
Breakfast on a Sunday at the West Ham Quality Hotel is served from seven till ten. At exactly seven o clock, tragically, humbly, like a penitent asking for readmission to the human race, I waited to be seated in the breakfast room. The room was empty. No guests, no staff, just Jeremy Bowen on a flat-screen TV saying in a roundabout manner that, no, he didn’t know anything about the situation in Libya, nor about the situation in Tripoli, from where he was speaking. He seemed ill at ease, as though the situation within a five-yard radius of the tree he was standing under was by no means clear to him, either.
I helped myself to three successive glasses of grapefruit juice from the breakfast bar and chose a table for two. I sat at this table hating myself and thinking unhappily about the car keys. I had no spare key. The car was 20 years old and if the maker’s records didn’t go back that far I’d have to throw the car away.
Five minutes passed. Where was everybody? I felt like a fugitive. A paranoid suspicion crossed my mind that the second floor of the West Ham Quality Hotel was now cordoned off and a team of police marksmen and a negotiator were on their way. It wouldn’t have surprised me. A Galliano-type outburst, rape, murder, smoking: I might have done anything. I pictured myself before a high court judge, telling him that ‘it all went black, your honour’.
Self-loathing was giving way to the sin of despair when the service door swung open and a man in a dark suit entered and started to wish me a formal good morning. But before he could finish it, the light of recognition came into his eyes and he took a step nearer and extended a soft, affectionate hand and warmly greeted me. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said. ‘Cuthbert!’ I said.
Cuthbert is the man who takes your room number and pours the tea or coffee in the breakfast room of the West Ham Quality Hotel. And Cuthbert is just the nicest, kindest, wisest, sanest, calmest man I have met in my life. He’s sort of the exact opposite of me. I stayed at the West Ham Quality Hotel for four nights about three years ago and I was amazed that he remembered me. ‘Of course, I remember you,’ he smiled. ‘You are not the kind of person one very easily forgets.’
He isn’t easily forgettable, either. He moves around the room toting his silver tea and coffee pots with grace and dignity and forbearance as though in a former life he was the beloved king of a self-confident nation. Knowing Cuthbert makes you feel proud to belong to the same club.
He looked into my eyes and asked sincerely after my boy and how my job was going. Then we exchanged views about the team and the manager and the move to the Olympic stadium. And he listened carefully to what I had to say, even though he knew infinitely more about the move than I did and his job was now on the line. And when I told him that I was so drunk yesterday I couldn’t remember whether I’d been to the game or not, and that I hadn’t yet heard the score, not a hint of reproach clouded that wise and sympathetic face. He was only pleased to be the first to tell me the good news. We’d won handsomely, he said, 3–0. Ba, Da Costa and Hitzelberger.
And, shallow person that I am, a chat with Cuthbert, and two cups of his coffee, and the news of another win, perked me up no end.
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