I love being on the road. Hate leaving. I pack at the last minute and hope for some disaster that means I can’t go. My heart pounds in my chest for days in advance, with every worst case scenario playing on a loop and invading my dreams. Once I’m on my way, I know that the anxiety will subside. As the tarmac rolls away underneath me, the train click clacks out of the station, all those silly worries just fade away. I know this. Yet, those days before I leave are always filled with dread. Fearful nights, tossing and turning as I wait for the nightmares to come.
So it is that I set out in the road again, with my heap of suitcases and my stomach in knots.
The way down to Torquay is grey. Grey towns. Grey people queuing, huddled under greyer umbrellas. Thick clouds roll in to cover the view. Green trees on one side, grey road on the other. I clamber out at Torquay, down steps, up steps, and along a street lined with boarded up shops and quiet bars. Tired-looking girls in tracksuit bottoms and puffer jackets push their babies in cheap prams, making a beeline for McDonald’s. This is off season at the seaside. This is the death of the high street. Half the windows are filled with flyers for knock off couches and circuses that never came to town. On the corner, machines flash and shout, ping and bong, in the empty arcades.
I’m not quite sure what I expected. I had visions of Agatha Christie’s Torquay: a simultaneously grand and quaint, Golden Era seaside. White townhouses, a Victorian pier, and old ladies knitting cardigans over their fish and chips. My hopes were always destined to be dashed. Whatever was pleasant about this place was lost a long time ago.
The front is pretty enough, lit up in the twilight with strings of flourescent pink and blue. The reflections of boats bobbing in the harbour. My hotel is all 1930s splendor on the outside, institutional carpet and cream walls inside. I’m tired, my bags are heavy, and I am unexpectedly weighed down by my day. A sad, plastic snowman stands to attention by the lift and the receptionist has forgotten how to smile.
I’ve often mentally castigated travel writers for allowing their mood to colour their reflections. But, the truth is, I had some bad news on the way down and spent the last hour or so of the trip stewing in a pot of my own misery. my mood is as grey as the journey and I find little cheer on arrival. I just find this place dispiriting.
I check in and head to my room. It’s plain: two, white beds with military corners, lavender walls and brown carpet, a shower but but no bath. I have a view of the neon harbour. Outside, the soothing ssh of cars as they rush passed the window.
The restaurant is closed so I drop my bags and head back out. There’s an Italian place a few yards up the road, where I console myself with meatballs and cheap red wine. The waitress is friendly and the food is good.
Afterwards, it being much too early for bed, I walk along the front for a while. Strings of fairy lights shimmer against the dark sky, boats gently shift in the water, and the golden glow of windows flicker on the hillside. The wide arch of a bridge, lit with fat white bulbs, links the mainland and the water. Two girls on longboards skitter by, tick tick tick over the cracks in the concrete. Couples promenade hand in hand. Dog walkers wrapped in winter coats hurry by, oblivious to the view and eager to get this last chore over with so they can get back to Sunday night TV. A boy on a bicycle comes up behind me and burps in my ear. When I turn around, he shouts, “what you saying?”, in an aggressive tone. I pretend I haven’t seen him and silently hope that he falls off and hurts himself.
Back at the hotel, a flock of old ladies have congregated at the bar. No one is knitting. They look perfectly satisfied and comfortable – I wonder what they see in this place that I’ve missed. Sometimes, the best you can say is that tomorrow is a new day.
