Ablutions

It is a beautiful morning on the camp site. I am at the washbasins, in the shower block, brushing my teeth. On my left is a large German man with a walrus moustache which he is trimming with a pair of long-nosed scissors. Actually, everything about him is walrus, from the snorting as he clears his throat to his enormous tremulous body in singlet and shorts. To his left is an uncouth Englishman I met yesterday, loud-mouthed and opinionated, in a string vest, smirking at his reflection as he shaves. To my right is another Englishmen of the unworldly, slightly genteel and rather pale kind, brushing the few strands of lank hair on his head, and beyond him is a Dutchman who is bent low over the basin and irrigating his nose with a plastic device like a miniature upside-down snorkel, pouring water in and making gagging noises. A Belgian is putting his shaving kit into his washbag. Someone in the showers is quietly humming a tune from opera, possibly La Traviata.

It is a blissfully peaceful atmosphere, heady with the perfume of after shave, shower gel and toothpaste. The washroom is a temple to the goddess of chemical obliteration of all traces of male pheromones along with general body odours, leaving us smelling like cheap air freshener. As we shave, brush, snip and irrigate we contemplate our images reflected in the long mirror with admiration, despair or indifference.

We are a veritable cornucopia of body types, mostly of the running to fat variety. For my part, I regard my upper torso with a certain amount of satisfaction – exercise and a low-alcohol intake has made me lean and muscled and yet when I lean forward over the washbasin, two small breasts appear dangling from my chest. I straighten up. Where did they come from? There's no trace of them when I am upright shoulders back, stomach in. I lean forward again more slowly this time and, sure enough, they appear gradually with a slight swinging motion, mocking my vanity. I glance from side to side and am reassured to see that others have the same problem, albeit they seem unaware or not bothered by it.

We are all getting on with the various tasks of our ablutions wrapped in our thoughts and respectful of each other's personal space when someone breaks wind suddenly and very loudly. We are all startled out of our reverie. The walrus snorts and sticks the point of the scissors in the soft part of a nostril. He swears in the uniquely rich and serious way Germans do, as if invoking the wrath of ancient northern gods. It is low and guttural and sounds like: Gerstinkenerdasblastendamm! It is a rip snorter of a swear word. I snigger and glance round. The uncouth man says “Nice one, Cyril” and the genteel Englishman blushes. It is probably not him, but maybe he thinks he should apologise on behalf of all humanity. Two small Spanish boys being washed by their father in a shower cubicle giggle uncontrollably. The Dutchman splutters, in danger of drowning in his irrigating water. and blows a spout from the end of the snorkel.

To a man, we glance along the mirror to spot the desecrator of our tranquility. To my mind one face betrays the perpetrator by its false air of innocence. It belongs to the Belgian who turns, with a beatific smile and ambles away, towel casually slung over his ample shoulder. There is much tut-tutting in mock indignity as the rest of us get down again to the various tasks in hand. The walrus turns to me with a serious face and sums up: “I think he has no manners.” I smile and nod: “ It's not much of a country, Belgium,” I say, unaccountably as I have nothing against the place. The walrus nods now. He raises his eyebrows, dabs his nostril and leans to the mirror. I turn to leave. We are men of the world, he and I, united by mutual understanding. We have damned a fellow member of the European Union for no good reason. We are set up for the day.