Journey's end
Jeremy Clarke
rr he Venezia Express night sleeper arrived in Budapest at midday. We took a taxi across town to the four-star theme hotel I'd booked for two nights. The receptionist handed us the key and we trooped up the stairs to find I'd booked us into yet another crummy, overpriced hotel room.
It was cramped and depressingly dark even with the shutters open and the light on. But, as I said to my boy, suicide was out of the question because it was too dark to write our wills. Worse still, from my boy's point of view, was the fact that we were looking at a double bed instead of the twin beds I'd asked for. No way, Pedro, was he going to share a bed with his old man.
I went downstairs and reminded the receptionist that we'd booked a twin. She shrugged. I told her one of the lights wasn't working and that we were groping about in the dark up there. Another shrug. 'In that case,' I said, 'I'd like to check out.' This made her reach for the phone and press a number. After a brief conspiratorial conversation, she put down the receiver and said the hotel management had agreed to install another bed in our room.
I went back upstairs to report to my boy. Moments later the door opened and in came the hotel owner, incandescent with rage, carrying a camp bed. She couldn't articulate her fury because she spoke no English. All she could do was look daggers at us. There were no chairs, so me and my boy sat on the edge of the bed and watched her make up the camp bed. Demolition was more her line, at that precise moment, than bed-making. The elasti cated sheet, far too small for the mattress, gave her all sorts of problems, but that was nothing compared with the overwhelming detestation she felt for me and my boy.
When she'd finished, she stood beside the bed and gestured at it like a conjurer's assistant inviting the applause for a trick, shot us each a murderous look, then stamped out. We sat there, stunned. Then, in my Bruce Forsyth voice, I said, 'Let's have a look at the old scoreboard?' This was lost on my boy, however. He doesn't remember Bruce's Generation Game. And in any case he was in no mood for jokes because he was trying very hard not to cry.
To shake off our gloom, we went outside and took a walk in the commercial district. My boy said he hated Budapest and wanted to leave. I said it was wrong of him to let the attitude of one hotel owner colour his impression of a whole city. She could have been angry for valid reasons unconnected with our complaints about the sleeping arrangements and the visibility, I said. For all we knew, I said, she might be about to have the painters in, for example.
But my boy had set his face against Budapest. So when we returned to the hotel, I told the receptionist we were leaving. She reached for the phone and pressed a number. Our desire to leave was reported to what felt like a brooding menace at the other end of the line. 'But if you go now, our cancellation policy is that you will lose 50 per cent of your money,' relayed the receptionist, 'which is 150 euros.' The euros weren't important, I said. We didn't want to stay where we weren't welcome. That was the thing. We were returning to Italy on the next train. We felt welcome in Italy. But not here. Tell her that, I said.
And that's what we did. We returned directly to Budapest's spectacular Keleti railway station, changed the date on our tickets, and by the skin of our teeth caught the 5.15 Venezia Express back to Trieste. In effect, we'd paid nearly £500 and taken a 24-hour train ride for a 20-minute stroll around Budapest on a rainy afternoon. I could, I know, have commanded my boy to get over himself and make the best of things for another day, hut I'm not the commanding type.
We'd spent only a day in Trieste before leaving for Budapest. Yet within ten minutes of arriving back there, we'd been recognised and greeted with no little enthusiasm by the chap who'd sold us our train tickets, by the station newsagent and by all three ladies serving behind the counter of a gelateria. We strolled along the seafront enjoying the salt breeze. The sun was out and a band was playing. A jogger said 'Ciao!' as he flashed by. The band and the flags fluttering everywhere were celebrating the 50th anniversary, last week, of Trieste being returned to Italy by the
Allies. do like Trieste, though,' said my boy as we walked along. 'So do I,' I said. 'So do 1.'
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