Festival wasps
Worker wasps and male wasps are in a strange state. Sated on over-ripe plums, disorientated by cold, they’re buzzing and irritable and at the end of their lives.
I was told to be at Cheltenham Town Hall before nine in the morning to go through technical things for my talk scheduled for ten. At the hotel I got up before seven to get ready leisurely, go through notes, have coffee. At first I thought they were flies in the small claustrophobic room. Then I realised they were cross wasps and phoned the desk. The night receptionist said he’d be right up. I wrapped a towel round me. It wasn’t the sort of hotel to provide flowing white bathrobes. He zapped three wasps with the room-service prospectus and scooped them onto hotel writing paper to show the duty manager. He kept saying he was so sorry and I kept saying it wasn’t his fault. I felt disadvantaged in this small space with him and the wasps and me without my clothes on. As he closed the door the buzzing resumed. With autumn wasp-zapping, brothers and sterile sisters go for cover until the war’s over then come out angrier than ever. I phoned again. The young man returned. I think he was from Somalia or Ethiopia. Anyway he had those tall thin serene looks. I hoped he wouldn’t think my calls a ruse by a more than middle-aged lone woman to get him into her hotel room. He zapped again. He got four more. He said he was so sorry. I said it wasn’t his fault. He closed the door. The buzzing resumed.
After his fourth visit I stopped being nice or awkward. It was getting late. I didn’t fancy going under the shower. I said I wanted another room. He said he couldn’t do anything until the duty manager arrived, but he was sure I wouldn’t be charged for my stay. I said I didn’t care about the money, it wasn’t billed to me anyway, and all I wanted was to get showered and dressed and out of the bloody room.
He came back and zapped again. His technique was very good. It was the way he kept his eye on his prey then went for it. It occurred to me Basil Fawlty would have zapped badly and I’d have streaked inconsolably through the breakfast room and Sybil would have had a thing or two to say. The young man took away more corpses on the hotel stationery. I was worse than discordant. The duty manager phoned. I said I must must must must must move into a wasp-free room. I told her I was a writer who was giving a talk and this wasn’t acceptable. It was hell on earth. She said she was very sorry but the hotel was full, but if I went down to breakfast she’d have the room fumigated by ten o’clock.
It occurred to me Basil Fawlty would have fumigated badly and I’d have arrived at the Town Hall an hour late for my event and covered in DDT. I couldn’t be bothered to tell her that not only was I a Literary Festival writer, but that my talk was at ten o’clock. What did she care about me and my art and my career and my public. Two more wasps had chosen to rage against the dying of the light in the bath. I pulled on my clothes, put on some make up and huffed off, wild, unwashed, unbreakfasted and unprepared. When I returned in the afternoon for my suitcase the wasps were quiet. The duty manager knocked twenty pounds off the bill. A pound a wasp perhaps.