Leaving London Quietly - NOT!

My departure from London this last year was actually the cheeriest part of my whole visit there. I met “one of my most memorable characters” then. She was Lila, the housekeeper at the hostel-like place where I stayed. It was a bare-bones cubicle of a room that I'd rented. I had initially found good reviews of the place on the Internet. But then after I had booked, I looked further and found a batch of much less flattering reviews – with some people calling the place a “hell-hole, rat's nest, roach motel,” and more.

Oh dear. Also, some people said they had experienced odd prejudice when they'd checked in. One individual reported that he'd been asked his nationality. When he said he was “English,” the apparently Middle Eastern proprietors had yelled at him and said, “You're lying! You're Turkish!”

Well, this was discouraging, but as I say, I had already booked and felt committed. Actually, I wasn't too worried about the fact that the owners might be from the Middle East. Middle Eastern men usually like me because I wear long skirts, am modest, old-fashioned, and sturdily built. One man from Egypt had proposed marriage to me after only a short acquaintance because he said, “You strong! You look like you can lift a goat!”

So I went ahead. And all was well. The Middle Eastern man who greeted me was friendly enough. And the room was clean in all the ways that counted – that is, clean sheet, clean toilet, etc. And there was a TV! (There hadn't been one in the hostel where I stayed in Scotland.) The cable package they chose was an odd, apparently budget one though. I couldn't get any news. Most of the channels carried nothing but 10-year-old Judge Judy episodes.

There wasn't much housekeeping to be done in this little room. Whoever came in daily only pulled the one cover sheet and the one blanket up into place, and that was about it. I didn't get to actually meet this housekeeper until I was leaving. She was up and about, and waited with me at 7:30 in the morning for the bargain cab that the proprietors had arranged to take me to the Airport. As we were waiting, we started talking.

The woman was a small, slim, impish character with appealingly missing/skewed teeth. She told me that she was from the Philippines, but likely would never have enough money to go back there. So here she was, sort of “stuck” in London.

She identified with the fact that I had no cell phone. She said that she really didn't have one either. She jabbered on, telling me how her son had tried to instruct her in the use of a SmartPhone, but his lectures just didn't take. She had tried this and that – but had never gotten anywhere.

I was getting a little nervous standing there with her on the ground floor of this old building. (The English call that “Floor 0” – not “the First Floor). We were standing right in front of a guest room – and the woman was talking on and on quite loudly.

Sure enough – just as I was beginning to wonder if we should be doing this – the guest door opened and a tousled man stuck out his head. He rather angrily said, “Can you please keep quiet out there? Some of us are trying to sleep!”

Lila was surprisingly unapologetic. She nodded at him noncommittally, then when he closed the door, she picked up right where she had left off. She went on jabbering at the same volume.

It was hard to really think of the woman as being inconsiderate or mean. She did it with such a childlike persistence, a naif's innocent conviction of her own right-of-way. However, I very slowly backed us toward the open front door and onto the outside stairway. But even when I finally got her standing on the outside landing by the ubiquitous wrought iron fencing that lines so many London streets – I was sure her voice was still carrying back through the hotel's open door. She didn't seem to have a care in the world.

After she had finished telling me about her trials with a SmartPhone, she did acknowledge the fact that she had been asked to pipe down. But she blamed the guest. Speaking in her Philippine accent, she said, “Why he complain? It past 7:30. He should be up by now! And anyway, all night, till late, his children yelling, yelling, screaming – keeping everyone awake. It not his place to tell anyone to keep quiet. Nya, nya, nya. Keep quiet, keep quiet. It's him should keep quiet!”

Then Lila resumed talking about herself and her life, still in stentorian tones that must have carried back into the hallway and through the paper thin guest door. But the man didn't rise to complain again. And soon enough, my cab came.

By this time, Lila and I had formed quite a rapport. We hugged and kissed good-bye, hoping that our paths would cross again someday. I thanked her for her good service in my room (however much or little work that had entailed). More kissing and hugging as the cab driver helped load my luggage into the body of the cab. (They don't seem to often use the trunks or “boots” there.)

Then as I was getting in the cab, Lila called after me in imitative glee, “And remember – Keep Quiet!”

She laughed merrily, showing her slightly tangled teeth. And I laughed merrily, resonating her jolly mockery. We waved at each other one last time – and I was off, probably never to see London or Lila again.

That will be my last impression of the place – merry, impish Lila standing inside the grill-work gate on Collingham Place, poking good-natured fun at all those sticks-in-the-mud who have such a lack of joie de vivre that they still want to be sleeping at 7:30. Really – when there's a whole world out there waiting for them, waiting for us all.