There’s something about my room

I don’t like the way people talk about my room.

‘That’s the room where…’ and then they walk off down the corridor and I don’t hear the rest. Or they ask: ‘How are you finding that room? Sleeping all right?’

There’s nothing odd about it – it looks the same as all the other rooms on the corridor: innocent.

It doesn’t have any distinguishing marks (there’s a perfectly round hole in the carpet of the room next door, where a bin caught fire; and a water stain that looks a bit like Audrey Hepburn on the ceiling of a room downstairs).

I asked the Bill the Porter, and he said not to worry about it, that it was all talk. And when I asked the cleaner, she switched on the vacuum cleaner and pretended not to hear me.

There were even tourists up here taking pictures on Saturday. I don’t know how they got in. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked the woman – the man was peering at the screen his camera.

‘Is this the room? We just had to get a picture. You wouldn’t take one of both of us, would you? Jim, this lady’s going to take a—’ The theology postgrad who has the room opposite me burst out and told them: ‘This is a place of study. You can’t take photographs.’

‘Why did they want to take a picture of my door?’

‘Something that happened last year. Or maybe the year before. I’ve got a deadline.’ And she shut the door of her room quite firmly.

And last night, I was woken by a noise in the corridor. I opened it and found an undergrad trying to unscrew the door number. He wasn’t going to be successful – he could barely stand, let alone connect a screwdriver with a screw. ‘Very sorry. Wanted the number for a… a bet.’ And he stumbled away into the night. I sat on my bed watching the numbers on my clock flip over from 2:02 to 2:03 and wondering what had happened and if I would like knowing about it.