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Non-Fiction
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| Holiday Horror | |
| By jean.day | ||||||||||||||
| 02 January 2007 | ||||||||||||||
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Holiday Horror My bridge holiday in Sorrento had gone from an occasion of delight to one of horror. And nobody believed me. Nobody cared. I had intended to go on holiday with Pat, who had been my partner for the previous five bridge holidays, but she had declined at the last minute, so I had decided to take pot luck and go on my own. I didn't know the woman who I was assigned to share a bedroom with, but hoped we would get along well. I chose to play bridge with a woman called Barbara, who I had met on previous holidays, and knew to be a very astute player. At the airport, Barbara came to me in a real panic. She found out she had been assigned a single room, and she didn't want it. She is a very overweight lady and was frightened by the thought of getting stuck in the bathtub on her own, with nobody to help her out or call for rescue. Would I swap with her? Surely I would, as it wouldn't involve me in any extra payments, and meant I could go to bed and get up to please myself, which greatly appealed to me. It was a very posh hotel we were in - on a hillside in the outskirts of Sorrento. Most of the group were in double rooms on the second floor. My single room was quite pleasant with a French window opening out onto the terraced lawn. It suited me perfectly, and I really was pleased how things had turned out. That was until later that night. On bridge holidays we are provided with half board, and I always have a huge breakfast, and grab an extra roll and piece of ham or cheese, to make a surreptitious sandwich to avoid paying for a lunch. My friends were very clear that they felt that the perfect lunch when in Italy was to go and have a huge ice cream. I love ice cream too, but I didn't think it would be enough to sustain me from eight am until our evening meal at seven. So I had hidden my hard roll and ham in my napkin, and prepared myself for the afternoon's walk by eating it quietly in my room. The ham was rather fatty, so I pulled off the excess and put the crumbs and the fat into the napkin and placed it in my waste bin, conveniently near my bed. We played duplicate bridge each night from 8 until 11.30, so I was really quite weary when I climbed into bed. It had been a hot day, so I had left my French window open slightly before going out - no chance of any intruders as there was a chain on it restricting it from opening more than a few inches. The room was pleasantly cool when I finally got to bed, and I was exhausted, so soon fell into a deep sleep. I was awakened about two a.m. by a noise. I was confused, and wondered if I was still in some sort of dream state, but I could definitely hear a noise. I wondered if somebody was somehow peaking through a hole they'd drilled in the wall. The noise was intermittent, soft and furtive and not easily identifiable. I was very frightened. I was too scared to get out of bed to investigate. Too scared to call on the hotel telephone for help. Too scared to do anything. As I became more and more awake, I realised that the noise wasn't in the wall at all, it was under the bed. I tentatively tried bouncing on the bed, and sure enough, the noise stopped. After I was quiet, the noise started again slowly but gaining in volume as time went on. I bounced some more. It stopped. Mice, I thought, but then I thought again. This was no small animal making this noise. It probably was an animal, but the amount of commotion it was causing was much more than would be have been made by a tiny mouse. It was a sort of gnawing sound. Maybe the animal had another animal and was crunching it up under my bed. I'm not sure what I feared from the animal. I didn't really think it would bite me. I didn't expect it to jump on top of me in the bed and start gnawing at me. But I was absolutely petrified. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just bounced. All night long, I bounced until the sun finally got up, and with the relief of being able to soon go for help, I fell into an exhausted sleep. I got out of bed very gingerly when I next awoke about eight. Breakfast was served from seven to nine, so I knew I had to get a move on to get there and be able to make plans for the rest of the day with my friends. There were no more noises as I got out of bed. But I hadn't forgotten my horrific night. I was not willing to look under the bed to see what was or was not there. But what I did see were droppings. Big droppings. No doubt at all, this had not been a mouse. After breakfast, I went to the hotel desk and said I would like to report that there had been an animal in my room the night before. "Nonsense" the receptionist said. He told me they had a very thorough program for keeping pests out, and he were sure that I was wrong. "Please, then," I said, "at least come and see the droppings on my floor." He was very sure I was making a huge fuss out of nothing, but found out which room it was and said he would send someone to check. I was relieved to see the droppings were still there when I got back to my room - and that it hadn't just been a horrible nightmare. I told Pauline, our holiday organiser about it, and she too said, "Don't be so silly and whatever you do, don't go getting everyone else worried". But of course I did tell them but nobody would believe me. And when we came back to our rooms after walking around the town and our usual lunch of ice cream - my only food at lunch that day - my room had been cleaned and there wasn't a dropping in sight. I expected an apology of explanation from the hotel staff, but they said nothing. I knew whoever cleared it up was aware that there was something - but they probably had not been prepared to admit it to the management, for fear that somehow it would reflect on them. You can be sure I suffered in the heat without the window open in the evenings from then on, and I must admit that there were no more noises in the night. Whether it was a rat or a possum or a skunk or whatever I'll never know. But I shall never forget that holiday and my worst nightmare come true.
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