Under normal circumstances, I quite enjoy watching cartoons. But not at two in the morning. And not when I'm in someone else's bedroom, lying in some strange bed. With somebody else's Grandma smoking Woodbines and cackling in the bed next to me. True, these weren't the original sleeping arrangements. Martin The Manager's painful encounter with the flying bottle and other collected stab wounds saw him rushed off to Hereford Hospital's A & E Department. Earlier in the day, he was to have picked up a camp bed and blankets from his cousin to comfort me through the cold night hours. Like all the panes of glass in the Gents, that arrangement had also been punched out of the window when the afternoon's blood sports had kicked off in the Function Room. What unspeakable event was about to happen next? I crossed fingers, crossed heart, crossed legs, turned to the wall and started counting tiny flower petals marching across the fading, peeling, nineteen-seventies wallpaper. Whether I was molested during the night I will never know. I was woken with a cup of tea served in a cracked mug and once again the sound of Bugs Bunny romping around the room. Someone else's Grandma was dressed, coughing and puffing at another Woodbine. She said that if I wanted some toast, to go into the Kitchen and help myself. With that she left. Bugs Bunny morphed into Roadrunner.
To forget the horrors and nightmares of the previous night I concentrated all effort on creating a variety of murals across the various walls, beams and blackboards. I remember the sun came out and I dared to venture outside, looking anxiously around in case another invitation to die without warning was concealed around the corner. I was comforted to see Police Cars and motorized Street Cleaners just about everywhere, mopping up bottles, lager cans and bloodstains after yet another Saturday night's mindless city centre violence.
Pleased to say that this time, McDonald's stayed open without incident. I worked the whole day and around 5 o'clock, something resembling an Egyptian Mummy came to see how I was getting on. "Hello Martin! I see they patched you up."
He apologised profusely about the previous night's bed and breakfast arrangements and said that tonight, I would be sleeping on a camp bed he was placing in the First Floor Banqueting Suite (which looking at it, had probably never been used since the pub was built). Because of budgets and my intense desire to finish and get back home, I worked late. Martin, his Partner and yet another person's Grandmother all came in to say they were locking up and going somewhere else and I was on my own except for the Lodger in Room 1. What Lodger? Who cared?
It was all deathly quiet at around 12.30am, so I decided to activate the wall mounted CD Player.
Press this button, that button, some other button. Silence.
Then a crashing sound as Motorhead started. And then restarted. And restarted. And restarted. The CD player was in totally stuck mode at full volume. I tried following wires back to plugs or switches. It had a life of its own. And this was happening in the area where I was due to sleep. It restarted. And restarted. And restarted. An hour or so of this saw me take the entire camp bed to a corridor where, even behind closed doors, I could still hear the full impact of Heavy Metal with hiccups. At around 6.30am in the morning Motorhead were still restarting every few seconds. I never saw the Lodger return but miraculously the noise ceased. Between 7am and 8pm, I fell into a heavy sleep before, at 9pm, I was awoken by the wet licks of a Labrador with terrible halitosis. "Sorry about that" said someone, who called the dog, then disappeared.
Later that day I was due to collect my money from another pub owned by the same group.
On the way, I popped into Hereford Cathedral where some hours later, a verger gently shook me awake. "You all right sir" he asked. I blinked at him with bloodshot eyes. "Please tell me you're not Lemmy from Motorhead," I muttered. Hereford Cathedral is actually a rather lovely, cosy place; nice wide pews with bright, cheery blue, red, green and yellow cushions made by the Friends of the Cathedral. Here you can fall into a deep, heavenly, undisturbed slumber. It occured to me later that my pale complexion, stubble and dishevelled clothing may have frightened some visitors believing me to be a ghost taking a break from the eternal darkness of some long forgotten family tomb. I sought out the verger, thanked him, donated a generous number of coins to the Restoration Fund and said farewell to its sanctuary. A little while later, I collected my fee, ambled back to the patiently waiting Ford Orion, tuned into Radio 4, and sped away. Please God, never, ever to return.
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