An Affair to Remember!

Happy New Year, evereeebody!!!

Just collapsed sideways into the chair and promised my belly a two-size drop in girth before spring hits us. That gives me about (using my fingers)... nine weeks of borderline, starvation dieting. Will I make it? Nope. Same as last year – the road to hell, etcetera. Nevertheless, cokes, crisps and cakes are, from now on, banned in our house. At least for a month – or a couple of days, whichever comes first...

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Another piece of, An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa:

  

‘You can look, but no touching though, not without your shilling.’

So I looked but didn’t touch. I looked so hard it made my eyes water; a bit like looking for marbles on the bottom of a swimming pool – all blurry and fuzzy – still not really sure of what I was looking for.

‘Do you want to kiss again?’ I was bored. Gloria dropped the front of her frock and smoothed it down.

‘Okay, but not for too long and don’t bump me with your teeth.’

 So we kissed and did the flapping fish in the sink again with our tongues. Only banged against her teeth once and said I was sorry.

The light, when I first saw it, floated between the mango trees like a coloured match on bonfire night. The closer it came, the redder it flared – sometimes sparks came off of it. Gloria saw it and hurriedly undocked her mouth from mine.

‘What is it?’

‘Dunno,’ I croaked, but then, from between the trees and armoured with silver moonlight, the wraith from hell floated towards us, spirit-like. Those next ten seconds fell upon us as some screeching banshee. Okay, perhaps not quite so bad, but pretty well up there with the biggies on my Richter scale of scary experiences.

Gloria legged it. I toyed with the idea of following her, but my feet refused to move; roots of abject terror had woven in with my shoelaces.

Veiled in juniper fumes and fag smoke, my vengeful mother swooped upon our little nest of first amour like a helicopter gunship – hands outstretched for Gloria’s throat, eyes bulging from that final twenty yard sprint to save her son from supposed ‘deflowerment’.

‘Bloody little strumpet!’ she shrilled and thundered past like a protective mother rhino, crashing through shrubs, mangos and almost demolishing the greenkeeper’s shed before skidding to a standstill. Still alight, her cigarette just sort of hung there, decapitated – right-angled by a branch. She broke off the damaged end and shoved the burning bit to what was left of her Matinee. She sucked in the smoke and calmed herself.

I just stood there, a becalmed lover bathed in fear and moonlight. Gloria had disappeared. Her smell was still on my shirt and my tongue was sore, but I never saw her again. So I looked at things from the bright side, I’d had my first, brief taste of Eden’s apple and still had my shilling, as well as my flower...

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A Merry Blog on Christmas Day!

Made it! All the way through 2011 and now proudly stand (sit) within striking distance of my first Christmas blog. Remember posting my start-up attempt at communicating with real, out-there-in-the-world people; that very first, next-day’s turning on of my computer – one eye closed, the other fogged with apprehension, lips all scrunged up. The cursor blinked and laughed and whispered ‘don’t be such a wannabe plonker, who the hell would want to talk to you anyway’. Think my finger trembled into a downwards, juddery, no confidence spiral rather than purposely left-clicking the mouse button. But that was a long time ago and all you beautiful, slightly crazy people are still hanging in there. Without you, my blog would crash and burn so here’s to next year’s talking to ya!

A very, very Merry Christmas to all my readers; hope today’s posting makes you smile – slightly risqué, but in a nice sort of way. E-mailed Santa and he said it’s okay; his elves loved it. Now go get some more turkey and the hell with easing back on those roast potatoes...

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Excerpt from, An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa: (re-wrote this piece – think it’s just about right)

...The following two years flew by. They were sort of ‘settling in’ years and not a lot happened; then a girl came down to stay with her Gran for the school holidays. Gloria she was called. I liked her, made me feel sort of hot all over, but she said that was okay because she felt the same. Gloria was nearly thirteen, so quite a bit older than me. Mother said she worried about me. Heard her telling my dad – said our relationship was ‘unhealthy’. Not really sure what she meant. Anyway, Gloria was still my friend and I saw her every night if I could outfox my mother – under the mango trees, next to the Wankie Club Bowling Green. Got a bit dark sometimes, before the moon came up, but Gloria had inquisitive hands and worked hard on distracting me. I soon forgot the dark.

I had to wait for mother to fall asleep in her chair with her third gin and tonic before I could sneak out. Once her eyes were closed I was over the fence and away; by this stage, totally besotted with Gloria.

Gloria always waved her arms about so I could find her in the dark. She always wore white and her hair was long, the colour of corn and smelled of flowers. She went to boarding school in Bulawayo. When she stood up her head was higher than mine and the top of her dress was really tight at the front; sort of pushed out.

Mother often scrutinised me from across the dinner table.

‘This Gloria girl, Jeffrey – she looks a lot older than you?’

‘Just a bit. She’s nice, though – I really like her.’

Mother huffed and puffed into her coffee cup and lit up another Matinee. I think she was angry about something because her eyes were thin.

‘She’s down from Bulawayo?’

I nodded. ‘Staying with her Gran; going back home tomorrow morning.’

Mother visibly relaxed and her eyes went back to normal; not like a lizard’s anymore. The matinee flared.

‘We’ll be going to the club tonight.’

Saturday night, movie night, or as everyone in Africa called it – bioscope night. Gloria’s Gran said she could go. Once the interval lights went down we would still have more than an hour before anyone missed us.

The moon was full that night. Our last night. When the moonlight came through the mango trees the buttons on Gloria’s blouse turned silver. Her eyes were big – glittering – bright as the buttons on her blouse. I could smell the sweet aroma of a Sunga Springs, cream soda on her breath.

‘You can touch them if you like.’

I’d never touched a boob before, nor did I understand why I felt so good when I did. My breath shook more than my fingers, Gloria’s breath was hot on my face, but her hands were steady – she knew a lot more than me about girl/boy stuff.

‘Can you kiss with your mouth open?’

I did it – I mean, kissed like she said. Her tongue flicked up and down like a goldfish tipped in the sink.

‘I’ve done this lots of times,’ she said. Strangely enough, I believed her, then, face-on to the moonlight she lifted the front of her frock. ‘Lots of boys have touched me here as well. For a shilling I let them see my pussy.’ I squinted into the gloom.

‘I had one as well,’ I told her, ‘but I left it behind in England. My Grandma’s got it now because hers was getting old and didn’t do much anymore.’

‘This one, silly.’ She pointed down below her waist – knickerwards. ‘Have you brought your shilling?’

I shook my head. I’d forgotten my money, but Gloria didn’t seem to mind...

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England's Christmas Car Parks - Any Driver's Nightmare!

Hi. Weekend again and our Christmas countdown has really started in earnest; time for last minute shoppers to have their tail lights vaporised by irate, car park escapees – a phenomenon that makes Cannon Ball Run appear positively docile. Whose bright idea was it to position the bays at ninety degrees anyway?

Drivers, more often than not, now wave at one another with single, festive, raised fingers – or two. Then there’s the ultimate rebuke, the clenched fist ‘up and down you-should-be-polishing a pole’ wave for the more adventurous. A last resort, though as this may well result in loss of blood and hefty fines. However, freeing one’s car from most high street supermarket car parks takes nerves of steel and firm control of the road rage syndrome. If common sense had prevailed from day one and our mastermind, line painters had thought the job through before unleashing their paint brushes, all our frustrations and insurance claims would, to this day, remain virtually nonexistent.

Why then, (sticking out neck time) weren’t the lines painted at an angle? How much easier it would be to glide in or out of a car park space without fear of hospitalisation. Perhaps we could borrow some line painters from so called third world countries? They seem to have got it right – fifty years ago...

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An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa; an excerpt:

... Apart from that, things went pretty normally and from my shadowy den amongst the bougainvillaea I got on with my education. The pattern was always the same – ten sun-crazed, semi-inebriated adults sitting under a tin umbrella in some far-flung tropic – all of them talking at once. Then everyone went quiet and my father managed half of ‘Nellie Deen’ before mother got back from the ladies room. She gave my dad a hard stare, scowled about for more insects and then re-took her place at the water hole. No one mentioned the insect and my father never finished his Nellie Deen.

Sometimes I went treasure hunting round the beer garden; people dropped money and couldn’t find it in that sort of half dark. If you crouched down and looked at an angle the money showed up between the fag-ends and chip packets, but you had to be careful picking things up because there were scorpions and spiders; ‘big hairy bastards’, dad called them. Aunt Ann said they were baboon spiders – big as side plates with nippers big enough to have a dogs leg off at the knee. Found one by mistake when I reached under a table for what looked like a sixpenny piece and moved a chip packet. Stood up like a fox terrier and looked me in the eye, never forget it; long hairs all over it, bit like an upside down armpit. When they get angry they sort of do press-ups and wave their front legs at you. Uncle Ron said to my dad that was time for you to ‘fuck off smart-like.’ Anyway, the best I ever did without getting bitten was two bob – two shillings in posh money.

The waiter came back to our table; twice because his tray wasn’t big enough. Always the same – six, quart bombers and four gins with lemon and ice and tonic water – the latter to stop you getting malaria, aunt Ann always said. A coke with a straw and a packet of chips for me, if they remembered, otherwise dad would shove a shilling in my hand for me to get my own.

I think the bar closed at half past ten, but that didn’t matter because everyone bought two drinks and carried on talking; leaning on the table, cigarettes all pointing inwards like red eyes moving about in the dark. When the drinks were finished everyone stood up at the same time and in a murk of Lancashire dialects, Geordie twang and other accents foreign to Africa, said things like, that’s it ‘til next Friday then or bloody hell is that what the time is, and then teetered off like bemused penguins for the car park. Everyone walked like their legs were broken and when they got to their cars it always took forever for them to find their keys. Uncle Ron usually dropped his and said rude words when he knelt on a thorn or a stone. We were always first to leave. Let the others go, mother would tell my dad, but he never listened because we had a Morris Minor now with red insulation tape on the steering wheel where the sun had cracked it; and anyway, in Africa, men were always the boss – that’s what my dad said...

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Scented Candles & Global Warming!

Hi – Sunday morning seems to have established itself as my favoured blogging window. Watched the debate on global warming last night and re the subject of air pollution have just found out why my eyes are streaming. Thought I had suddenly developed hay fever brought on by lurking clouds of volcanic dust or weird pet allergies via our three, over-hairy dogs, but their guilt-slates have all been wiped clean – ‘twas the dreaded scented candles that caused my malaise! Packing them off as Christmas presents to my least favourite people (the candles, not the dogs).

Talk more about global warming next time – got to go turn the heating on and bag up more candles ready for posting...

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An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa; an extract:

... Friday night was ‘club night’, a gathering of the clans, a pouring out of immigrant pomms and never missed. Almost every die-hard ex pat mine employee and their families converged lemming-like on Wankie Colliery Club. While the kids all played in the pool or just ran around, their parents got drunk. That was the norm.

Unbreakable metal chairs, metal tables and metal umbrellas were clumped al fresco-esque across the beer garden. Almost Parisian-like, dressed in yellows, whites and blues, people gathered for their weekend working class soiree amongst ornate goldfish ponds and miles of terraced bougainvillaea. White-suited waiters rushed about with trays of bombers and gins and the kids all sucked up cokes and cream sodas and crammed their bellies with potato chips and foot-long chunks of dried meat called biltong. That’s what happened on Friday nights. Because we were living in Africa and in Africa, everyone went to their clubs on Friday nights and forgot about work and school time. I heard my mother say, ‘shit it’s hot’ and everyone agreed and ordered more bombers and gins, and if we were in hailing distance, cool-drinks for the kids.

When the lights were turned on, every able-winged insect within a hundred yard radius revved up its engine and homed in on the beer garden.  Swarms of clickety-clackety bugs and scratchy, creepy creatures dropped in drinks and down cleavages; most of them harmless, though some were armed with stings and nippers large enough to fell a buffalo. One such beast found its way to mother’s hair; half the size of a T-Rex, this six-legged, airborne catamaran crash landed somewhere between her right ear and back of her neck. This provoked a scream, a vertical uplifting of her entire body and a vicious, round-house sort of a slap at the offending insect. Unfortunately, having already been mentally disarmed by six gin and tonics, mother forgot about her cigarette, stabbed herself in the neck with the hot bits, swore she had been ‘invenomated’ and ran off to find a mirror...

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The Art of Staying Afloat!

Hi – just finished reading the reviews on Amazon for Sons of Africa; my thanks to those of you who took the time to comment – long may the interest continue. Marketing a book without the clout of a major publishing house behind you really takes some doing; contrary to the negativity of one well-known London literary agency, good ‘old fashioned’ story telling does sell...

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An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa – (an older piece and more):

‘You’re going to learn how to swim, Jeffrey.’

‘Why?’

My mother lit a cigarette. When she sucked in the smoke her eyelids trembled.

‘Because drowning won’t be good, Jeffrey; people will stare.’

She bought me a fluorescent yellow costume; I would have preferred a blue one and a size smaller. Sometimes my willy stuck out through the leg hole. Took a month for me to rid myself of the nickname, ‘three-legs mango-arse’. Once the yellow had faded and mother boil-shrunk my cozzi, going to the pool wasn’t so bad.

‘Out one – two to the side,’ my mother warbled. ‘Out one – two to the side.’

All my friends were watching. The pool bottom looked good; peaceful, enfolding. I could drown down there quite comfortably with the decomposing frogs and dead ants.

‘Breaststroke, Jeffrey! For God’s sakes stop waving your arms! Out one – two to the side!’

Apparently, my father realised I wasn’t floating anymore and jumped in with his clothes on. From then on mother was sent to sit with her gin and tonic and Matinee cigarettes in the beer garden. My dad took over my swimming tuition and eventually, I mastered the art of staying afloat. Now, every day after school I thundered down to the pool with my faded yellow cozzi strung on a towel, draped round my neck like the other kids. I was almost one of them; the sun had burnt me brown and my hair had turned a gold colour. ‘The colour of sunlight,’ my mother cooed.

A week later and I plucked up courage enough to climb up to the ‘top board’. The platform itself was covered in ropey stuff to stop you slipping; the board stuck out into nothingness – over the abyss – thirty feet above the water, but it looked further because I could see down to the tiles, another twelve feet or so to the bottom – it was a long, long way down.

‘If you’re not a chicken you’ll jump!’ a kid shouted up to me. A big kid from two classes up from mine, I wished I’d stayed on the ground. Every kid in the pool was watching me; all of them with evil, malicious grins strapped to their faces. ‘Chicken!’ the big kid wouldn’t let go and flapped his elbows out at right-angles. ‘Squawk chicken, squawk chicken, squawk squawk!’

I came off the board like a startled gecko; arms and legs stuck out and flailing for whatever help I could grab a hold of. Wind rushed up my nose and pulled my eyelids back so I was forced into watching my descent, then, miraculously, feet first I hit the water. Engulfed by the deep, gratefully, I slipped from view. My tormentors were gone.

There were leaves on the bottom; I felt them with my toes, leaves from a syringa-berry tree that grew by the wall. They’d turned all slimy and puffed out clouds of wet dust when I shoved my feet at them. A dead scorpion rose up wraith-like through the floating bits and I kicked it away and pushed off for the surface.

When I came back up the big kid was waiting for me, his hand outstretched to pull me out.

‘You were great!’ he told me. All the other kids went quiet and from then on they called me ‘Jeff’ instead of ‘three-legs mango arse.’ Life was getting better. Africa ruled...

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