It promises to be an interesting couple of days. This Stag Do.
Our accommodation immediately surpasses expectation and sets the standard for the whole event. It’s a cross between Fawlty Towers and the Bates Motel. But then, where else would agree to house half a dozen blokes on a weekend of last gasp bachelor high jinks? And bless them, they’d organised a reception committee.
We arrived late on account of travelling from one end of the country to the other and had expected no-one but the hotel owner to be waiting for us. But the building blazed with light. Mrs (Please Call Me Felicity) Chambers opened the door enthusiastically, gloriously back-lit from a dozen naked 100W bulbs in the hallway and looking like a disturbing mixture of Kathy Bates from Misery and ET on his homeward bound spaceship.
On the phone, Mrs Chambers had a frightfully posh accent and a manner that only lots of money, the finest schools and selective in-breeding can accomplish. In the over-powdered flesh, she was quite a woman. Mad as cheese and dangerous as a goldfish with a toaster.
“Come in! Come in! I’m Felicity!” She cried recklessly from the top of the steps, “I’ve bought you lots of cheap and very strong lager from the Cash n’ Carry.”
Remember, I’m a man who gets slightly tipsy after a bite of Steak and Ale pie so the prospect of being force-fed gallons of Kestrel was rather unsettling. Especially by an elderly woman who looked as though she was wearing a nightie.
She corralled us inside using the same kind of magnetic repulsion one sees when two north poles are put next to each other.
We jostled into the first room. It was the reception cum bar cum lounge cum flea market. Bric-a-brac crammed onto every surface. Mismatched plates stood with mistaken pride on a high shelf. Badly framed postcards of fine art filled the walls but not quite enough to cover a shabby 70s floral wallpaper. Battered sideboards carried porcelain figures and china picture frames, many of them unfilled. It was a high temple to tat.
Squeezed into every free space sat a dozen people. Nearest the door, a Rottweiler of a woman. She smiled as only killer dogs can. Three plump elephants, an ornate doll with a feather hat and a Woman with a Parasol later, sat two unshaven Polish builders, a fisherman with an unlit pipe, a couple of female corpses in matching twin sets, a tattooed mother with screaming toddler in a Chelsea kit and a hamster of a man playing with some keys (Felicity’s caretaker and love slave, it turns out). Cowering in the corner a family of holidaymakers. It looked as though they’d been there some time. Trapped. The children whimpered silently. The mother rocked, clutching an empty glass and the father held a rolled up newspaper as the final line of defence.
“Hello!” we called with as much cheer as we could muster.
The Rottweiler shook our hands, the Builders kissed us on the lips and stroked our hair, the Seaman jabbed us violently with some stick, the baby threw its empty bottle of Stella. The Corpses sighed finally. The Love Slave tried to get up but was handcuffed to a lamp stand. The Family (from Tonbridge Wells) fled for their lives. I felt immediately at home.
And then we saw him. The Man in the Hat. Nestling behind some Russian dolls. Now I have nothing against hats. Some of my best friends have hats. But this wasn’t ordinary piece of hat wearing. This wasn’t a it’s-raining-and-I-need-to-keep-my-head-dry or a I’m-a-raffish-sort-of-chap-and-I’m-jolly-well-going-to-wear-this-boater-because-I-own-half-of-Berkshire kind of hat wearing. No, this headgear statement was more like: I’m-wearing-a-hat-because-I’m-a-Psycho.
He launched into a tirade about the quality of skirting boards and the price of eggs before huffing violently into an empty can of Lucozade.
He sulked for twenty agonizing minutes before leaving us with a flourish.
“Wake me up if you’re going to arm wrestle.” Were his exact parting words.
We’re in for a good weekend.
