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Chapter Four Groping around in the Los Angeles darkness, my hand hit on something I recognised. A remote control. I knew the television wouldn't work. The electricity was always switched off after midnight in hotel rooms - earlier in homes, of course, to make up for the streetlights that needed to remain lit. But the object felt so familiar in my hands, like the touch of my own fingers against my cheek, comforting and tender. My fingers roamed over the buttons. I counted four in each of the seven rows, the one at the top the largest. It was the power button and in the darkness I pressed it. A surge of electricity hit the screen, the soft swoosh of power, followed by the click of the television wires kicking into life. In the darkness I stilled myself and looked worriedly at Lucy who was still sleeping soundly beside me. Lights flooded the room - they were coming from the television screen. Squeezing the remote tightly, I pressed the wrong button and the channel skipped forward twice. A news report was running, a bearded American man was smiling out at me, telling me that traffic was running fine on some freeway or another. Panicking that the noise would wake Lucy, I hammered down on the volume button and plunged the room into a silent light. A worried glance at Lucy informed that she was still sleeping, uninterrupted by the flashing pictures or the beaming reporter's excited chatter. I pressed the channel button down twice, taking me back to the first again. An American sitcom. A black family sat around a kitchen table. I couldn't hear what they were saying but their expressions told me that they were acting in a comedy. There were lots of pauses for the audience to laugh and applaud. The head of the family reminded me of Lucy's father. He had the same strong jaw and soft eyes; his smile was nearly identical. A surge of homesickness hit my belly and I flicked the channel. I did that repeatedly for the next three hours. American television was a wonder to me. So many different channels, hundreds of programmes ranging from well-scripted sitcoms to awful fly-on-the-wall documentaries. What I noticed was just how old these programmes were. They were reruns that were over two decades old. The American |
government had not cut back so severely on electricity as the British government had but they had certainly made other cuts. The production of new television programmes was obviously low on their list of agendas so the old, popular ones were churned out. I thought it was a waste. Who would be watching the reruns at that time of morning? Just how many jet-lagged passengers was the government catering for?
At six o'clock Lucy woke. We lay in bed for a further hour before Lucy took a shower and I surfed through the television channels again - finding three news programmes running simultaneously. When Lucy re-emerged, smelling sweet and looking beautiful, if a little tired around the eyes, I showed her the numerous channels. She wasn't impressed. Shrugging her shoulders, she went to stand by the balcony windows to brush her hair. "Things are different here," she said. "I just wasn't expecting them to have television like this," I said, flicking the channels again, unable to drag my eyes away. How did the American citizens leave their homes? I would have been glued to the set all day. "It's amazing." Lucy didn't answer. I looked up and found her pouting into a mirror as she plucked at the stray hairs around her eyebrows. Discussion was over for now. Lucy could not be interrupted while beautifying herself. Finally dragging my eyes away from the television set, I flicked the remote button to off. Old habits die hard, I thought. America clearly didn't mind wasted electricity pouring from their television sets but a British upbringing made my fingers instinctively turn off when I was no longer watching. I showered quickly, washing my hair with Lucy's coconut-smelling shampoo. Dressed in my jeans and a white vest-top that showed off just how skinny I was, I re-appeared before Lucy. She ran an appraising eye over my attire. "You look good," she said. The compliment startled me. "Thanks," I said; it came out sounding like too much of a question.
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