Sisters Under the Skin

Youth Hostels are great; a huge advance from the boarding houses of a century ago, but working on the same, simple idea. Cheap accommodation for a variety of travellers, all bunked up together – only today the beds are clean and not lice-ridden.

I come into the bunk room and see the window has been opened although it is bitter winter weather outside. I see another bed has been taken. I close the window and chat to my room-mate who is from Germany, over for a National Trust working holiday. Her friends think she’s mad to pay to come to the UK; to work, and eat bad food in bad weather, but she smiles and says she loves everything about England, and that they don’t understand.

I bump into another woman in the kitchen. I look twice to make sure, but it is a woman. Her hair is close cropped; she’s thick set, wearing a round necked black tee-shirt and black straight leg trousers. Her voice is deep, her manner brusque and bluff. I realize that this is the window-opener.

I feel wary because she reminds me of some tough teacher or something from my early teens, and I skip lightly out of the kitchen, strangely aware of my body and my long hair swinging.

I talk with her later that evening and I’m partly right in my assessment of toughness; she thinks clearly, has strong and intelligent opinions; she is forthright and uncompromising. I’m not interested in her private life but I am interested in why my initial reaction is a hurdle that has to be jumped before we can interact as human beings, mindless of each other’s sexuality. When laid aside and a conversation enjoyed, who cares?

A shallow, disappointingly superficial part of me feels nervously aware that I was seen walking with her into the kitchen – because as we walked in, glances were exchanged.

Now please, these people have made assumptions. I could see it. I’m now the woman-woman and she’s been cast as the man-woman. Look. We’re not together. Really. We’re just sleeping together tonight. It’s a hostel thing.

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