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By Root 410 0

maintaining order, defining garbage, separating what is to be eventually eaten from what is to be thrown away. What is to be thrown away is lifted high and carefully deposited on that section of the plate, a growing section, which is reserved for garbage. It is only when the division is complete – most of the other plates abandoned by this time and ready for surrender – that the eating begins. This is the work of a minute; the plate is ready for surrender with the others. The waitress passes. Stiffly, dismissingly, the outstretched hands offer up their labour: a neat plate of garbage. I feel I have witnessed the first part of some early Christian ritual. For this is not all. After the plate of garbage comes the slaughter of the cheese. The big left hand arches high over the block of cheddar; thumb and middle finger find their hold and press lightly; the right hand brings down the curved, two-pronged knife. But at the last moment the hands pretend that the cheese is alive and getting away. The cheddar shifts about on the oily slaughter-board; there is a struggle; thumb and finger release their hold, but only to press down more firmly; instantly, then, the knife falls, in a strong clean stroke that continues until the cheese is truncated and still. And I almost expect to see blood.

So the time passes. There are occasional incidents. Someone objects to the way a deaf diner scrapes and taps his plate with his knife; he, unlike Garbage, likes to offer up a clean plate. The barman gets drunk; a waitress leaves after a quarrel. Sometimes I have to endure a difficult week or two when the double room next to mine is taken by male employees of a nearby factory which, I believe, ceaselessly converts American maize into glucose; then I have to listen to a constant stream of churlish chatter, pre-public house, post-public house, always vapid, always punctuated by that even, mirthless, four-beat laugh which I detest.

But such people come and go and are quickly forgotten; they form no part of the life of the hotel. When I first came here I used to think of this life as the life of the maimed. But we who belong here are neither maimed nor very old. Three-quarters of the men here are of my age; they have responsible jobs to which they go off in their motorcars every morning. We are people who for one reason or another have withdrawn, from our respective countries, from the city where we find ourselves, from our families. We have withdrawn from unnecessary responsibility and attachment. We have simplified our lives. I cannot believe that our establishment is unique. It comforts me to think that in this city alone there must be hundreds and thousands like ourselves.

We have our incidents. But we also have our events. The most important is of course Christmas. That truly separates the faithful, who stay on, from those who, steadfast throughout the year, at last reveal other, saddening loyalties. Among the faithful the event is spoken of weeks before. A subscription list circulates: we exchange presents with our lord and lady on the day, just as they exchange presents with the staff. There is much half-bantering, half-serious talk of precedence; for on the day the tables are joined together to form an E, and we eat together, lord and lady and faithful, and he who is the newest among us finds himself farthest from the centre.

I have moved up year by year, but I know I will never sit at our lady’s right hand. That position is reserved for a man who has been here twenty-three years, a shy, gentle, delicately-featured man, still quite young-looking, so unassertive in hall and bar and putting green that his eminence on the day comes as a surprise to many. It is a sincere occasion. Nothing is skimped, and no extra charge is made even for the wines and liqueurs which are liberally served. But we are grateful for more than the dinner. We are celebrating our safety, and our emotion is profound. It is intolerably moving when the kind and aged waitress who represents the staff on these occasions comes out from among her uniformed colleagues at the