It was September of 2005. George Bush was President. Hurricane Katrina had just devastated New Orleans. I had just checked into St. John’s Croft, a Queen Anne era B&B in Winchester, England, and turned on the BBC in my room, where I heard an interview in which Bush claimed to have seen the devastation for himself from a helicopter. “I can see that it is worth more than one day’s attention.” More video of New Orleans under water. Reports of bodies floating in the streets. Mayhem in the Superdome.
I can’t find corroboration for that quote. I just remember hearing it, either first hand or reported. It made me furious. I stomped up and down in my lovely bedroom, with its glorious Queen Anne bow window, comfortable chairs, and a Queen (Anne?) size bed waiting for me. I remember opening the door, hoping to see someone just as incensed as I was, but all I could hear was a TV from down the hall, evidently tuned to a game show. Lots of laughter. I wasn’t laughing.
It was the only time in England that I wished for a moment that I was home.
I left the B&B then to walk down to the pub I had selected for supper, hoping to find others there who were just as outraged as I was. But no. The Bishop on the Bridge was a lovely pub built along the Itchen River which burbled along beside me as I walked as if it didn’t have a care in the world. The Bish did serve up a lovely bowl of mushroom soup and some chunks of crusty bread, which I ate alone, glancing around now and then for signs of others with whom I could vent, but no. England remained calm and carried on as if one of the most iconic cities in the world were not underwater. If it were London, I thought bitterly, I’d care.
Still, I couldn’t stay mad at the whole country. Not on a balmy September evening with lights glowing along the Itchen where a pair of swans swam in solitary elegance. Back in my elegant room, I finally read myself to sleep. I would find an internet café in the morning, I thought. Somewhere I could type my vengeance to my friends and wait for what I knew would be satisfying responses.
I was saved by a knight at the breakfast table.
Breakfast was served in a huge kitchen reminiscent of that occupied by the cooks of Downton Abbey, complete with long trestle table at which the guests seated themselves. Our hostess worked her magic at what looked like a wall of cast iron and stainless steel – big black stove and a gleaming fridge. I didn’t take much time sussing it all out, however. I was getting to know my fellow guests, a honeymooning couple. I had to wonder what bedroom they were given, when I had what looked to me like the bee’s knees of B&B bedrooms, But never mind that, either. Since the husband, finding me to be an American, immediately referenced Hurricane Katrina, and I launched into a little rant.
I wish I could reconstruct it for you, but it’s lost in the mists of time. Insert any rant you may remember having about Hurricane Katrina and George Bush’s responses to it and you probably have it down. I just hope I didn’t hit a sore spot in their marriage.
As her husband began to respond to my little rant, the new bride interrupted:
“Oh, no. No politics!”
Her husband hesitated, and I answered:
“I’m sorry, but I need to borrow your husband for a few minutes. I really need to vent.”
And we did. Both hubby and I. All through the eggs and sausage, pork & beans, tomatoes and mushrooms of a British Breakfast
And then it was over and we went our separate ways, them into marriage, me to Winchester Cathedral and a huge black floor plaque marking the grave of Jane Austen. But I remember most vividly that morning in the kitchen at St. John’s Croft, that beautifully elegant Queen Anne cottage, when a young man interrupted his honeymoon to grant an old woman a bit of solace. I hope his bride forgave him.