Bath at Night

I'm sitting in my tiny hotel room just off of Great Pulteney Street in Bath. The hotel is in a Georgian townhouse, which like almost every other building here is about four stories tall, with a basement. Dwellings here are deep but narrow, like big books on a shelf, all bound in honey-colored Bath stone. This means stairs, and lots of them. I'm lying on my bed with the laptop keeping my thighs nice and toasty warm, and about a foot beyond my headboard I can hear pretty much everything happening on the street below through the single-pane window.

The noise isn't bad most of the time. Everybody wants to go up and down Great Pulteney Street, not this branch-off, since there aren't any shops along this road. Bath is pretty quiet by 10 pm anyway. The stillness is what makes the noise there is stand out a bit.

For example, for the past two nights between 11 and midnight, a lady wearing high heels marches up the street. I don't know who she is or where exactly she's going, but I can hear the clop of her shoes practically from Pulteney Bridge. The sharp staccato slowly crescendos as she walks right under my window until I'm wincing a little with each CLOP (it's the Chinese heel torture!), and then it finally begins to fade.

Last night it reminded me of the clopping noise I used to make with my mouth when playing Barbies with my little sisters. Even at the tender age of whatever age I was, I knew that it's not a high heel if it doesn't have the clopping noise.

Last night was also X and Y's big breakup. X took it harder, screaming out, "WE'RE #$%@#%$ OVER! WE'RE @$#%@^ OVER, Y!" from the doorway of her house, I guess, which was down the street from my hotel from the sound of it. I could hear the exiting Y calling out jeers in a teasing voice as he walked away past my window, provoking X each time into another round of "WE'RE #%@#%^ OVER!" (The lady doth protest too much, methinks.)

Just a moment ago, a fellow walked down the street, sounding like he was talking to someone. "It's a lovely color, though," he said. I guess the person he was talking to didn't hear, because the man got progressively louder. "I said, 'It's a lovely color.' I said, 'It's a lovely color!' I SAID, 'IT'S A LOVELY @#%@$ COLOR!' IT'S A LOVELY @#$%@# COLOR!!"

I have to admit that part of my amusement at hearing these kinds of things comes from the fact that they're not Americans. We don't have a monopoly on dysfunctional relationships or anger management issues! Woohoo! Otherwise, the noise doesn't bother me. I'm too tired at night from going up and down so many flights of stairs to do anything more than laugh to myself and go to sleep. Tomorrow I'll be back in the quiet countryside again.