The water from the shower feels softer, lighter than usual. It always does when I’m by the coast. I know there’s likely no rhyme or reason for it. I don’t know if it’s something to do with hard-water and soft-water areas – I don’t even know whether I live in a hard-water or a soft-water area anyway. Water’s just water, surely? It’s probably all in my mind. But it’s got to be said – showers feel better in Herne Bay than they do in East Grinstead. As a matter of fact, most things feel better in Herne Bay than they do in East Grinstead. The women certainly do.
I rinse the lather from my body, switch off the shower and towel myself down. It’s weird – showering’s such a private thing, yet I wonder how many people have had a shower in here, how many have used this towel, slept in that bed, sat on that toilet. People could have even died in here, for all I know. If you think about how many rooms are in a hotel and how many people stay there each week, it must happen pretty regularly. It’s one of those odd unspoken truths about hotels, and for some reason none of us seem to mind. It’s a case of having to deal with it, I think. You play the hand you’re dealt. It’s all you can do. Another job, another hotel. That’s the way it is in this industry.
We’ve been working on the set of a period drama. A few big names, but it’s still a load of bollocks. These things always are. Junk-viewing for the masses. If you starve people for long enough, they’ll happily eat shit. Seven days here, then we’re done and back to sunny Sussex. It’s easy enough work – very early starts, but then we’re usually off the set by 2 p.m. I say that, but in reality I’m barely on it other than when a rig needs moving or taking down. It’s almost like being on a paid holiday, except you do need to do a few hours’ work every now and again. Not that I can really call it work. There’s a lot of standing around, followed by a lot of frantic construction and dismantling, followed by a lot more standing around. They say working in TV is glamorous, but it’s actually really very boring.
One of the big benefits is being able to see a lot of the country, and other countries too from time to time. The production company I work for tends to do UK-based dramas, but on the rare occasion when I get to go abroad, it’s always an extra bonus. There aren’t many jobs where you get to sit in a deckchair in Marrakech, for example, watching some of TV’s biggest stars do their thing. To be perfectly honest, it’s far from being the worst job in the world. But the grass is always greener, isn’t it?
Herne Bay’s not quite Marrakech, I must admit. It’s a pretty little coastal town, not somewhere I’ve been before, but there are certainly some very nice sights around. And yes, Jessica’s one of them. The beauty of it all is that she knows nothing long-term’s going to happen. She’s a receptionist at a hotel, and I live seventy miles away – when I’m even home – with my wife. Okay, so she doesn’t know about that last bit, but why should she? It’d do no-one any good to start rocking the boat now. It’s not an act of deception. Not really. Lisa knows I’m an independent sort of person. She knows I’ve got history and that it’s no use trying to put shackles on me because then I fight harder. I’m not the perfect husband, but who is? We’ve all got our faults and our weaknesses. Mine is other women. It could certainly be much worse.
Lisa and I are very different people. We live almost completely separate lives, apart from the odd few days a month when I’m actually home for any decent period of time. She’s always been into physical jobs, too, from farm work to delivery driving. That’s not to say she hasn’t got an academic brain – she certainly has – but she gets far more pleasure out of physical work, which I can appreciate. It’s one of the only similarities we have, apart from the unspoken truth that we’re never going to have kids. It’s never something that’s been mentioned, but we both know the other doesn’t want them and we’re both fine with that. I guess deep down we’re both free spirits trapped in the same rat race and faceless world as everyone else.
These are the sorts of things that tend to go through my mind while I take a shower. Other people sing; I philosophise. Usually about the strange disconnect I have between my two deep desires: firstly, to pack in all this travelling around anonymous and impersonal hotels and stay at home; secondly, to just up sticks and disappear somewhere, embracing my inner being. I think that’s the constant state of suspension most people are in at some point in their lives. It’s human nature at its very simplest level. It’s fight or flight.
Although I don’t mind being away from home, I miss my creature comforts. After what I went through in my childhood, I don’t take anything for granted. I’m perfectly used to not having them most of the time – I went for years with nothing but my own company – but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss life’s little luxuries. Things like food. I like my own cooking, and always have. I wouldn’t say I’m fussy about food, but I know what I like and I know what I don’t like. Unfortunately, as glamorous as working in television might sound, the truth is you’re usually put up in the same bland orange chain hotels with the same bland orange walls and the same bland orange food. ‘You always know what you’re getting’ is their big selling point. For me, that’s half the problem.
I prefer charm, personality. I like something a bit different and out of the ordinary. I guess that’s one of the things that attracted me to Jess. Her slightly alternative look is something that appeals. It speaks of a woman who can control herself, who knows what she likes and isn’t afraid to go out there and get it. I think most men would find it hard not to be turned on by those qualities in a woman.
You need a bit of variety and spice when you’re working in a job like this. It’s far more boring than people think, but it’s all I know. It didn’t require any fancy degrees or A Levels – just a keen eye for detail and the ability to work really strange hours whilst drinking your body weight in coffee every day. All things I excel at.
When I come to think of it, this job is just as faceless as the hotel they’ve put me up in. Far too many people are pretending they like each other and telling everyone how talented they are, when really they’re just in it for themselves. I’m not going to lie – I’m exactly the same. That’s the truth. Only the truth hurts sometimes.
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