Breakfast at the Pembroke St. B. & B., Oxford.

    I had spent some time in Wales and the southern part of England and was now slowly making my way back to London where I was to catch a flight to Singapore in a week or so. On this particular evening I found myself once again, after dark, in a strange city looking for lodgings for the night. I was near the historic centre of town, wandering around looking for the usual dimly lit signs that advertised tourist accommodations. I was, as always, scouting out the less prosperous inn or the home fallen on hard times and now taking in visitors as a way to pay off the killing taxes or to supplement a small pension. I happened upon Pembroke Street and it caught my eye, as it was the name of the town of my birth. I looked along a narrow, cobbled street, wet from a recent rain and decided to walk down it just to see where it led. About mid way down the street there it was, the sign that I had been looking for, a weathered shingle, advertising a bed and breakfast and in the type of house I knew that I could afford. It was an old one on a street of ancient row houses that leaned against each other for support. The windows were dark and a dim light inside the front door was the only indication that it was at all inhabited. I rang the bell and waited, rang it again and eventually an old man in a mauve and grey, moth eaten cardigan slowly opened the door, looked at me and asked the question. “Yes?” I explained that I was looking for a room and asked if he had one for rent. It turned out there were several and I was led up two narrow, slanting flights of stairs to a room in the attic. There beneath a sloping ceiling was a room, probably furnished in some distant time of middle class prosperity and now had taken on the look of a faded and failed attempt at some sort of elegance. The bed, which occupied the majority of the room, was an old four-poster, piled high with patchwork quilts that were now themselves patched and torn. It had a definite hump in the middle and I could see that getting into it was going to pose a bit of a problem as the hump was about chest high on me. There was a wood veneer dressing table with a pitted and yellowing mirror and a chair with the frayed remains of a padded seat. The walls and the sloping part of the ceiling were wallpapered in a pattern of large, unrecognizable flowers coloured in a way that was reminiscent of old postcards. A dim bulb with a cracked shade protruded from the wall above the bed. It was perfect. It was run down, down at the heels, musty, light shone through cracks in the wall of the adjoining room and it was cheap. I took it! I was given two keys, one for the front door, one for the room and was told that I had to be in by midnight and that breakfast was served in the basement at seven o’clock.

    I spent the evening wandering about the town, having a bite to eat and as the evening wore on and it began to rain I took in a movie. It was I believe, Hawaii with Charlton Heston. This was the first time I had been to a movie outside of Canada and was surprised that after the playing of the national anthem that there were quite a few minutes of adds on the screen. This hadn’t become part of the movie going experience in Canada yet where it was still felt that if you paid to see a movie then it would be free of advertisements for non-movie stuff. Even snacks weren’t  advertised except in the most general of terms inviting you to have a drink and a candy bar or popcorn in the lobby. There was an intermission as the movie was a long one and I later found out that there was always a break so that young, uniformed girls could walk the aisles selling treats from great trays hung around the neck like the type usually seen on cigarette girls in movies that featured swank night clubs. I spoke briefly to a young man on my right who struck up a conversation with me and we talked of the movie, the town and my recent travels. 

     It was a pleasant way to spend an evening and when the movie ended I walked back to the boarding house and trudged up the stairs to my room. I had begun to unpack things for bed when the door to the adjacent room opened and voices were heard. The old man who had showed me my room was now showing a couple the room next door. It looked as if I might have neighbours and I was hoping that they were going to be quiet as I was looking forward to a good night’s rest. A few moments later I could hear them talking in the hall, thanking the man for showing them the room but deciding against taking it. They were obviously made of more delicate stuff than I. Now ready for sleep I managed to get up onto the bed, which went from a convex shape to concave. I was now sleeping in a hollow, the outer edges of the bed ballooned up around me and I could see a struggle in the morning just to get out of it. I pulled the comforter over me and was pushed farther down into the bed from the weight of it. The thing was about triple the poundage of any blanket I had ever used and I thought that it was probably filled with decades of accumulated dust mite droppings and other assorted debris. Never the less I fell asleep and only awoke to the sound of my alarm in the morning.

    I washed and shaved and finally made my way to the basement dining area where I was surprised to find the place packed with men, mostly of my own age or a bit older and one or two couples, all crowded around a few long tables. From a window at the far end of the room came the sounds of the kitchen, dishes rattling, water running and orders being called. A woman and the same elderly man that had shown me the room the night before were shuttling back and forth between the service window and the tables. There was much bustle and a few of the people had already began to eat their breakfast of fried eggs, a couple of sausages, toast and that English favourite, broiled tomatoes.  It was sunny outside and rays of sunlight streamed in through the windows set high in the basement wall. Motes of dust showed in the cool air and coffee mugs steamed in the sunshine but what most of the eyes were focused on was the old man serving the plates of food. He still wore the same clothes from the night before, the same aged cardigan now looking even worse for wear in the light of day. His balding head was head was bowed as he walked from kitchen window to table bearing plates of food. He shuffled and seemed over worked and harried as he struggled to keep up with the influx of people that had descended to the basement. Those not eating watched only him as they waited for their food to be cooked and served. The middle aged and stout woman that was also serving seemed to be ignored as she went about her business.

    The old man now shuffled back to the window to load up with more plates of food, one plate balanced on each forearm and a plate in each hand. All eyes turned to watch him and at first I thought it was just hungry boarders eager for their food, each hoping to be the next served that kept their attention fixed on him. But as he passed through a ray of sun and turned to show his profile I saw the reason for all the attention paid him. His head was bent over the food, his face directly above one or the other plate on each forearm as he wavered among the tables. Wispy strands of grey hair shone in the light but what now drew my attention was his nose. It was an old mans nose, the prominent feature on his face, long and slightly hooked and in the chill of the morning, held what seemed to be a gleaming jewel at the very end. It was this jewel, this prism that everyone watched. It shone in the light, it wavered with each step and seemed to expand and retreat with each breath, it held the colours of the rainbow and no diamond has ever sparkled with such clarity in the light of the sun. No diamond hung on the neck of a movie star has ever demanded such rapt attention, has ever evoked such interest in a group of hungry diners. The man had a serious case of nasal drip and now with both hands occupied was unable to deal with it. The problem was now beyond the help of a good sniff, it needed a wipe and a blow but until the plates were deposited the large drop of shimmering mucus hung suspended over the plates of our food. We all waited for the thing to take on a bit more weight, to overcome the moment of inertia and fall, to make the trip from comedy to tragedy. As he passed by each table to make his way to the far end of the room all eyes watched the progress of the drip on the end of his nose. The same thought was in each of our minds, whose plate would it land on when it finally fell? Who would be the one that would have to do without his or her breakfast that day? Who would sit, nursing a coffee, looking at the plate before him, hungry but unable to reach for the utensils and dig in to the mornings repast? Which one of us would sit and be mocked by what seemed to be a perfectly good plate of food waiting to be eaten but harbouring a barely perceptible gift that prevented the taking of it? Each of us hoped that it would be another that our breakfast would be spared, that someone else would be the recipient of the tainted meal. But I am also sure that each of us secretly hoped that it would fall, that someone other than us would be the star in this play. We wanted it to fall, we wanted that release that would come in a burst of shared laughter when it sailed through the air and hit the plate. We wanted someone to be the fool, for the old man and the woman to look up and wonder what the laughter was all about, for someone to try and explain why they wanted a new plate of food.

    Or it could have gotten even better. Someone unaware of the drama taking place in front of them might receive the object of our attention and heartily dig in, not knowing the part they were playing in the mornings farce. Sausages would be devoured, eggs eaten and the yolk wiped up with toast, perhaps even the tomato would be eaten and any hope or fear that the drip was avoided would be put to rest. We would watch in fascination this meal being eaten even as we ate our own. We would be thankful it wasn’t us being the unconscious eater of an old mans nasal discharge.

    The plates now deposited, a cloth handkerchief was brought out and the offending drip was wiped away. He again returned to the window for more plates and once his hands were full the drip reappeared and again the drama ensued for yet another round of servings. I don’t know if the drip ever actually fell. Once your meal arrived safe to eat you turned your attention to it and left the watching to those yet to be served. I don’t think it ever fell, ever made the trip from nose to plate. There was never any outburst of laughter but for the moments before your meal was brought to the table the comedic suspense filled the room and all were brought together in the shared moment. 

    Breakfast over I wandered the town, visited the university, explored shops, took in the sights. But all of that is now part of my forgotten past and only the memory of that rundown guesthouse and the breakfasts served there remain. The town is just another pretty town out of hundreds I have visited but that old man and his problem are a rarer memory than ivy covered walls and the pretty streets of old Oxford.