Breakfast at the hotel was between 8am and 8.30am. Even on a Sunday. When I had arrived yesterday the owner had asked me what time I thought I would be down and whether I wanted a cooked breakfast. I said I did want one and that given the opening hours of the dining room I would probably be down between 8am and 8.30 am.
Good to my word I got down at 8.10am. I was the only person in the small dining room. I was greeted cheerily by a woman, who I am guessing was the wife of the staring man who could not help me unless I asked him.
She asked me if I wanted a cooked breakfast, I was tempted to say that I had already given her husband that information some ten hours before, but just said "yes" instead. I didn't want to prejudice the arrival of my breakfast for the sake of being right.
As she brought me my coffee, the door opened. It was the man from the lounge last night. He shuffled into the room and did not look at me or acknowledge me again. Nor did he apologise for his rude behaviour. And it wasn't because he was mute, as he spoke to the lady who was waiting on us.
He sat at a table in the window. The woman had gone back into the kitchen. The silent tension of last night returned. I don't think it was a sexual tension. At least not on my side. If it was on his, then I'm afraid to say he'd already blown any chance with his behviour last night. I won't stand for selfishness in a lover and neither should any of you.
Anyway I only fancy lesbians so he was out of luck.
And sadly, I suppose so was I.
For some reason after about two minutes he unilaterally decided that he was going to move table. He didn't ask anyone. Of course he didn't. That's the kind of bloke he was. He moved on to the corner table next to mine. He wasn't being friendly though, that wasn't his style. He just had some problem with where he was sitting and had decided he'd rather be somewhere else.
But he was clearly happy with the jug of milk on the first table because he then went through a little pantomime where he moved the jug of milk from the first table to the second and the jug of milk from the second table to the first. God knows what was going on in his strange and anti-social mind.
I thought I was going to have to spend more time sitting in uncomfortable silence with just this strange man for company, but at about 8.25, inevitably, all the other guests arrived for their breakfast. There were so many of them and so few tables that some of them were forced to share. Maybe if the hotel was a bit more flexible over the time you had your breakfast this pile up wouldn't have occurred.
Both moustache man and me were alone on our tables. One of us could have moved on to the other's table and then the last couple in could have had a table to themselves, rather than having to share.
I wasn't about to suggest this, and naturally nor was he.
It struck me that if he had been the last person in we might have been forced together. To eat our breakfasts in silence, facing one another, but without looking at or acknowledging our foe.
Once again I think he would have won. I would have retired to my bedroom to hide from his strange unpenetrating eyes, and my breakfast would have remained uneaten.
