“I am… a Promise.”
Saturday, May 29th, 2010Wendy is the person I both delegate to and rely on. Mother and child. I don’t know why she brings me; to her, this holiday - any holiday - is an ordeal.
Oh don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate airports. In our student days, Wendy and I would drive half-way round the M25 just to hang out at Heathrow on a Sunday night because the local curry house was expensive/rowdy/closed.
No, the airport as a concept is sound. Even Gatwick, as a city, is a marked improvement on the creepy-Crawley it sits on. You get a better class of insect there.
So you’ve guessed I have a fear of flying, right? Okay, so why do I live near the sea and sometimes holiday in the Lake District when I can’t swim? I even went out in Wendy’s father’s boat, once. I was dressed top-to-toe in a sleek, snug wetsuit. She didn’t take long to convince me that if I capsized then my lifejacket would save me and I’d hardly feel a thing.
But here we are, not even on the runway yet, standing outside W H Smiths and the fear is worse than ever. And now I’m thinking of Wendy’s warm-water, reassuring pre-drowning advice and comparing it to the cold, ‘been-through-this-routine-one-hundred-times-before’ hand-signals ritual that will soon be regurgitated by the stewardess when we eventually board the plane. And it all comes down to… engine failure? Potential hijackers? General paranoia? These and other topics were certainly covered in the self-help book Wendy’s mum gave me last Christmas. Trouble is, I was too afraid to read it in case I couldn’t face confronting my emotions. So here we are again and I haven’t done the homework. I wonder what that other self-help book is all about, the one on the shelf over there?
‘Oh, that’s the famous “Black Book”,’ Wendy says, as if I should know.
‘So it’s for single studs like I was before I met you?’ I say, ‘to fill up with girls’ telephone numbers? Because if so, they’re displaying it in the wrong place. I once went to W H Smiths in Buckingham and they filed Alan Bennett’s “Talking Heads” next to the Tears for Fears biography in the rock section’.
I’m telling Wendy this story for the umpteenth time again now. I always use too many words when I’m scared.
‘No, Alan, it’s correctly placed. It’s genuine self-help,’ my wife says loftily, leaving me to protest:
‘Well, it would help me considerably if the author would at least tell us the title of the book. Oh, and if he or she would reveal their name.’
Three hours into the flight and the man sitting on the other side of me from Wendy breathes such a huge sigh of relief that I imagine he’s inflating his parachute. A quick look through the window at the eye-level landing lights and the wheels bumping on to the runway do nothing to quell my paranoia. He’s relieved and I haven’t, well, been able to relieve myself for the whole journey. I can only explain this by saying that when your bladder lets go you’ve got no other hopes to hold on to. I’ve been playing this game called Extreme Bladder Control and I wish I was still in nappies. Perhaps I’m not a baby after all?
Turns out the man in the other seat is going to the same hotel.
Now, what you have to remember is that whatever was left of my usual quiet confidence has long since been crushed during the steward’s opening mime to the standard safety DVD and so when we arrive at the Granada or Ramada or whatever it’s called - the Mail House, Wendy reminds me (though it might just as well be the Post Office for all the attention I’m paying to my surroundings) - the man has already forged ahead of me in the queue.
‘The Buck House Suite - Room Seven,’ he proclaims loudly, to the native Spanish receptionist who looks like she’s about to knock off from her very last twelve-hour shift without a leaving present (or even a reference).
‘Buck House,’ I whisper, to Wendy. And Wendy replies that this is somewhat ambiguous because this room could at once be a mini-Queen Elizabeth palace or a place where a man prepares for his stag night with his drunken, promiscuous mates. Then again, she’s saying, “Buck House” could be a euphemism for an under-the-counter prostitute-on-tap, in which case there is no Buck. Just a house. A disorderly one, like the ones she’s read about in Victorian novels.
Anyway, I drift in and out of my wife’s witty but far-from-concise observation of options and my eyes focus on the hotel ‘mission statement’ that apparently serves to take the place of a menu when the food is ‘off’ - in other words, when the chef can’t be buggered, or is being buggered. Whatever. I read it. Out loud. Then the two English people in the queue that’s rapidly forming behind me laugh at the sheer banality of the Mail House ‘Pre-stay-Statement’, as announced by me. The rest just pick up their phones.
‘I am… a Promise,’ I say, somewhat theatrically. Then I furnish the English couple with the web address but even they have opted out now, looking away, embarrassed. ‘More details at www.promises DOT COM!!’ I shout.
The foreigners furiously tap away at their mobiles again and I wait for the probable arrival of the police.
‘Name, Sir?’
On the basis of crowd reaction to my recent performance I really don’t feel like sharing this information with a Spanish stranger and so I quiz the reception girl about theirs.
‘In England,’ I explain, ‘there used to be this hotel chain called the Post House before it became the Holiday Inn. Now that made a lot of sense. But “Mail House”?’
‘You are the one making no sense now. We tired. We in exciting city and we want early night to enjoy tomorrow and you holding us up.’
I don’t answer them, but I give the Spanish guests’ elected English Language representative a look that says, I thought that foreigners no speak-ee zee English. The foreigners respond by dialling furiously again on their phones and so I continue my monologue about the Mail House’s allegedly inappropriate and deliriously derivative name.
‘Post is where you tie your horse up,’ I try to explain to the reception girl. ‘So, as names go, “Post House” may be old fashioned but at least it makes sense. But “Mail House”? Pah-leeze!’
‘People used to book by post and now they do it by e-mail,’ says the Spanish girl, in matter-of-fact perfect English. The foreigners behind me may not have understood what she said but now they are all giving her a round of applause. This is a clear victory for her. ‘So, name, please, Sir?’
‘Oh, Mister Self-Help,’ I tease, looking at the title-less black book for inspiration. Wendy bought me the stupid book at the airport but I was too frightened to read it on the plane in case it crashed while I was halfway through the advice. How ironic would that be? I’d probably have my biography published posthumously for having suffered that. As I continue to skirt around the issue of my identity the Spanish girl looks right through me in the anonymous way that hotel staff do and we’re back to Square One.
‘Language travels but humour stays at home,’ I observe succinctly to Wendy with a whisper but she’s had enough of me now and is taking over as usual.
‘Forgive my husband but he has had a bad experience. He’s afraid of flying,’ my wife explains to the girl. ‘The room was booked in my name. It’s Wendy Hillier…’
The girl appears relieved at Wendy’s adept, proficient use of clear, universal, un-patronising English (and at not having to deal with me).
‘Ah, Ms Hillier. A double room, paid for by your company I see. And you are entitled to one guest.’
‘I can tell you his name if you like.’
‘No need, Madam.’
‘He’ll probably be sent home before the end of the night,’ I chip in, talking about myself in the third person as if I know I’ve been a naughty child. And I must be, because my ‘mother’ gives me a look of instant disgust. Then I say, ‘Excuse me, Miss Receptionist, but what does “I am… a Promise” actually mean?’
‘It means that if we don’t meet the customer’s expectations then you tell us and we try to improve,’ explains the girl.
‘I’ll remember that,’ I say, happy that I’ve found a potential scapegoat for bad behaviour that isn’t me.
*********************
‘It was just awful!’ I’m telling the woman who is my real mother all about the so-called holiday now I’m safely back in England. ‘Still, what d’you expect? For Wendy, it was just another business trip. And the fact that I had nothing to do but see the same boring old sights made me feel even more useless than usual. Even more of an appendage than ever.’
‘And you hate flying, don’t you, darling?’
‘Sorry Mum, must fly. Another call coming through.’
‘You didn’t tell me whether the Mail House kept their “I am… a promise”, did you?’ she says, not wanting me to hang up.
‘Mum, can I please call you back? My solicitor’s trying to get through.’
‘You’re not divorcing her, are you Son?’
That was Dad, who’s eavesdropping on the other phone. The sudden appearance of his voice confuses me for a moment, making me say, ‘Divorcing who?’
‘WENDY!” he says. “That’s your wife’s name. Or at least it was last time your mother and I looked.’
Then: ‘We think you are losing your mind!’
Mum and Dad are talking at me in chorus, now. Two retired lawyers, one accusation. My own parents are unsettling me out of court. I often think divorce is the only thing that still keeps them together.
‘Mum, Dad - I’m not changing my wife.’ Mum and Dad both realise there’s a “but” coming along in a minute. I can hear them stealing themselves for the revelation - like their thirty-two-year-old son announcing he’s gay or something. ‘What I’m doing is…’
‘Spit it out, boy.’
‘Yes, darling. Spit it out!’
‘Well, if you must know, I’m changing my name.’
‘Oh.’ ‘Oh.’
****************************
Two weeks later and there are still no e-mails from the Spanish Hotel.
Wendy is still in Spain doing the holiday bit at the end of her fated Marbella business trip and I’m lying alone in what used to be our bed in Buckinghamshire.
I wake abruptly to several letters thudding on to the floor.
I run down the stairs and crouch semi-naked by the letterbox, sifting the prize notifications and the loan invitations deftly - like a Fifties TV card-trick performer.
Then it jumps out at me - visually at first, then literally as my hands jerk spontaneously in response to the familiar logo. “Mail House Complaints Division - I am… a Promise”, the envelope says. And when I open it the promise continues:
Dear Wendy’s Guest.
Thank you for completing the e-mail form at www.promises.com.
We at the Mail House take such complaints very seriously indeed.
As our name suggests, Mail House will always deal with your complaint in writing personally.
We are sorry, Wendy’s Guest, for everything that was not to your satisfaction during her stay.
We broke our promise when you asked for the vegetarian option and the meal contained offal.
We broke our promise when you asked for an ironing board and you received a trouser press instead.
We broke our promise when we didn’t listen to your views.
We broke our promise when we interrupted your views…
Oh, that’ll be when I complained about my seaside view being obstructed by an unscheduled construction team, then.
And finally, we broke our promise when we sent our resident masseuse to the wrong room.
That’ll be Wendy’s room.
They sent a prostitute when my wife was out doing business. Okay, Kandi had left by the time Wendy returned. But how was I to know she’d left her calling card on the bathroom floor, along with an aura of scent that I must have become accustomed to while digging a huge linguistic trench for myself by searching a useless Spanish phrase book for words that might make the hooker leave? And now Wendy has no use for me. I’m so fed up with being “Mister Wendy” on all these business trips - people asking me my name and then forgetting it again - that I’ve changed my name to… hang on a minute, let me open the only other letter that isn’t junk mail…
Dear Nameless,
Thank you for applying to increase your loan, but Mortgages-On-Line cannot process your application because you have not completed our on-line Form.
Please visit us at www.mortgages_on_line.co.uk and complete the field marked…
Name.
Yours faithfully,
(Squiggle)
pp
(Another illegible, alleged signature)
As I’m reading this letter from two people who apparently have no name, crouched in my lonely, vulnerable position in front of the letterbox, someone opens my front door without permission. It turns out to be one of the only two people who are allowed to do this.
‘You nearly ploughed into me,’ I say, to the presence that is my ageing but still very formidable father.
‘We were just curious, your mother and I. She wants to know why you were getting in touch with your brief. Can’t bring herself to ask, but can’t sleep, you see. We don’t buy this name-change thing. So if it’s not that, and it’s not divorce, then it must be worse, she thinks. It’s the way of the female mind - a lawyers mind, perhaps. So go on, Son, tell us. You’ve made a Will because you’ve got some terminal disease, is that it? It can’t be worse than that.’
‘I changed my name by deed poll, Dad,’ I confess, rising awkwardly to my feet to face him head-on. ‘That’s why I called the lawyer. I was fed up with people wanting to know my name and every other irrelevant detail when all I am to them is Mister Bloody Wendy. Oh, and Wendy’s divorcing me, if you must know. But you can represent me on that one.’
‘How did this happen, Alan? So suddenly, I mean.’
‘On holiday. Something really clicked. It was when I clicked on www.promises.com, if you must know. They couldn’t deliver on their promises and I couldn’t complain because, well, I was just Mr. Anonymous sharing a room with a customer. I couldn’t even give them my name. So now Mister Wendy is buying Mrs. Wendy out. And I don’t see what difference it makes, this compulsory name thing. You see, I have a new identity. I’m empowered, Dad - that’s the word. I’m no longer going to be just somebody’s bloody hen-pecked husband or even some lawyer’s under-achieving son. No offence.’
‘None taken. So what have you actually changed your name to, Alan? Whatever it is, you must know your mother will be upset!’
‘I’ve changed my name to “I Have No Name”. Brilliant, isn’t it? Whoever you deal with from now on gives you a form that asks your name and you can legally write “I Have No Name”. Sorts the men out from the boys - those companies that can get their heads around the concept and those that can’t. I’m only dealing with real people from now on. People who can see beyond the Alan. Oh, and by the way Dad, can you lend me thirty grand?’
‘Why, Son?’
‘Because I no longer have a wife and I can’t get a mortgage.’
