Reading Nowadays, I like hotels, at any rate in small doses. But I wasn’t always so relaxed. For years, hotels and restaurants were for me theaters of humiliation. When I was little my parents didn’t have much money, and when we went into cafes the drill was for my Mum (or Dad) to order a pot of tea for two, and maybe a token cake, and my brother and me would be given sips of tea from their cups. While under the table my mother unwrapped a parcel of bread and butter that she’d brought from home, and she smuggled pieces to my brother and me, which we had to eat while the waitress wasn’t looking. The fear of discovery, exposure, and ignominious expulsion stayed with me well into my twenties, and memories of that and similar embarrassments come back whenever I stay in a hotel. I always carry my bags myself – it avoids the tip. It’s not the money. It’s a skill Ive never mastered, like my parents, who started staying in hotels when I was in my teens and at my most thin-skinned. Arrivin...
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