by Greg Yevko
Bondje squirmed slightly, realising that this was not really helping his case to demonstrate how capable the two-legs were.
“Yes, but,” began Bondje, frantically trying to think of a positive spin he could put on this. “Look at how random acts of kindness can bond these two-legs together. Once bonded together, I go back to my previous argument of how effective these creatures can be as a survival mechanism”. Even he thought that this was a little weak.
“Hmmm,” Perun gave the equivalent of a questioning, raised single eyebrow to Bondje.
“And also,” added Bondje, suddenly remembering something he had overheard one of the two-legs saying whilst lying in a heap on the floor of what apparently was called A Pub, “… and I quote, ‘They even give us a degree at the end of this big piss up that lets us get a better job; here’s to free higher education, may it last forever’.” He finished his sentence with a semi-triumphant flourish. “That just shows how good the two-legs are at building their societies into ever more capable entities to cope with all things that come their way.” He added the last sentence to bring the link back to his argument, but even he wasn’t so sure after the latest observations.
“We’ll see, tavarisch, we’ll see. Let’s throw something a bit more challenging at him. Let’s put him somewhere in Buganda’s patch and see how he does there. There’s always loads of trouble going on in his area, there’s bound to be something that will help us sort out whether these two-legs really are any good or not. Now, whereabouts exactly shall we put him?” The pair of Gods screwed up what should have been their eyes to peer a lot more closely at the mayhem that was going on in the area that Katonda Buganda had lovingly crafted the previous weekend.
“Oh, my sweet Creator,” said Bondje after scrutinising the area from the lowest tip at the bottom through to the bulging bit at the top. “I would say we are spoilt for choice as to where we can put the two-leg; there’s carnage just about everywhere in this bit! Almost everywhere you look you can see bands of two-legs fighting each other, and where they’re not fighting there’s loads of them decaying rapidly; they don’t seem to last as long as other two-legs in other areas. And bloody hell, it’s hot! It’s like Fryday every day.”
“Indeed,” agreed Perun, then in a magnanimous gesture added, “Tell you what, tavarisch. Let’s not make it overly hard for your two-leg. This bottom bit of Buganda’s area is relatively quiet in comparison to the rest of it – emphasis being on relatively.”
Bondje knew that Perun was enjoying this more than he ought to be, confident that there was no way that the two-leg could cope with all the bad stuff that was happening down there. Bondje just had to hope that the two-leg would step up to the plate when the time came, though he wasn’t 100% sure what that actually meant, but had heard it often said in the top part of Apistotookii’s area, and most of the two-legs there seemed to be doing all right for themselves compared to a lot of the other two-legs dotted around the rest of Umhlabathi.
Umhlabathi 4.5 1979
University days settled into a disparate pattern of drinking, studying and rugby, each of those bringing varying degrees of pain and pleasure, often in a bewildering fluctuation of percentages according to the occasion. Much to Robert’s mortification, he found that there were two visits that students on his course had to attend – one being to a brewery (as it turned out, on the day before a particularly unpleasant Thermodynamics exam at the end of term) and the other being to a sewage works, which unfortunately for Robert coincided with the day after his birthday. Being slightly under the weather and his mind being a little fuggy for obvious reasons on the sewage trip, he was not sharp enough to spot the attendant’s customary jape of raising the lid of a sunken vessel near the start of the tour and asking the nearest student to, “Have a little sniff of this.” Robert, due to either some malevolent positioning by his fellow students or just pure bad luck, had found himself to be the nearest at that moment, and dutifully leaned over the opening and sniffed; he recoiled instantly and started gagging as the fumes engulfed his nasal passages.
“That, ladies and gentlemen,” said the tour guide with a grin, “is what the raw stuff smells like as it comes into the works before treatment. Remember that smell when we compare it to the one at the final outlet and you’ll see what a difference our treatment process can make.” Robert remembered the smell for a lot longer than the end of the tour.
Due to the relatively low income that Stanley and Marlene accrued between them, Robert was fortunate enough to be the recipient of a full grant coming in each term, which meant that at the start of each term, he had a reasonable amount of money in the bank. However, as for all students, this money seemed to disappear at an alarming rate, often resulting in students going hungry as end of term approached, and for Robert, it was no different. Always looking for an opportunity, he had spotted a potentially free source of sustainment at the local coffee bar, a regular stop-off point on the way back to the Halls of Residence after a few beers in the Students Union.
“Have you noticed,” he had whispered in a conspiratorial way to the 6ft 7inch lock forward who was sat next to him, “that the relish for the rat-burgers is just left out in those big tin-foil dishes? People can just put as much as they want onto their burgers.”
Although he hadn’t actually given too much thought before to this not particularly astounding fact, the lock decided to play along with Robert to see where this conversation was going.
“And your point is, Robble-box?” he asked, using the name for his friend that he had made-up on one particularly heavy Sunday lunch-time session at the Ram Cider House.
“My point, my friend,” explained Robert in between sups of his coffee, “is that it is a well-known fact that chutney is made up of all sorts of good nutrients contained in the spices, fruits and vegetables that have been used in the making thereof.” And he gave a nod, as if to say And So There.
“What are you talking about?” said the lock, who was actually studying microbiology and probably had a far better insight into what really might be in an open tin-foil dish of cheap chutney that had been left unattended on the counter for days on end.
“I am talking about free nutritional substances,” said Robert, and, sidling up to the counter, picked up one of the tin-foil containers and casually called out to the student behind the till who was busy serving several irate customers, “Just taking this to the table to put some on my burger, Okay?”
The harassed server barely looked up and waved Robert away, so it was with a gleeful smile and a three-quarters full container of chutney that Robert sat back down to continue his coffee.
“Et voila,” he exclaimed triumphantly, “A lovely balanced dish to go with my coffee. Do you want some?”
His friend looked at him in horror. “Not bloody likely,” he shuddered.
“Oh well, your loss is my gain. Bon Appetit,” said Robert, and proceeded to finish off the entire contents of the dish.
Robert’s ability to digest things which most stomachs would quite sensibly reject, quite often became an entertaining party-piece for the group of revellers at the end of an evening in the Upper Bar. One such memorable occasion ended with most of the plastic bottle contents resting on the shelf above the sink in the corner of a neighbour’s room, being either liberally applied to the scrum-half’s head and being lathered up (not as easy to do as you might think with a mixture of shampoo, Brut splash-on and Colgate tooth-paste), or being handed to Robert to eagerly gulp down. The consequences the following morning were a slight case of diarrhoea for one, and a shiny, albeit somewhat fresh-mint-smelling head of hair for the other.
One of the key drivers for Robert’s choice of university had been the inclusion of a full industrial year as part of the course, potentially in an overseas location. He knew from his father’s stories of visiting faraway places during the war and even some tales from his early days in the Caribbean, that travel was definitely something that enabled broad development whilst giving plenty of op
portunity to have fun along the way. Fun had always been high on Robert’s list of How To Get By In Life, and doubtless had Stanley not omitted some of the fruitier episodes of his early life in St Lucia, Robert may well have seen his that his father was indeed of a similar persuasion.
“So,” his tutor informed him one morning after a particularly successful Wednesday game which had sealed the UAU regional championship for Surrey University RFC for the second year in a row. “What do you think of South Africa, Marley?”
A host of visions came to Robert’s mind; beer, barbecues, sunshine, rugby, beer, beer. “I’m sure I’ll be exposed to some great industrial year projects there for my degree,” he enthused to his tutor.
“Good stuff. How’s your politics?”
“Never better.”
“Excellent; I’ll get the paperwork going,” he said. “The job will be in Durban. Okay with that?”
“Undoubtedly one of the finest spots in the whole of South Africa,” replied Robert, not having the first idea where Durban was. Who cared anyway, it was bound to be sunny – hell, it was Africa after all.
Stanley was a little concerned when Robert mentioned his upcoming Industrial Placement.
“South Africa? Are you sure?? You do know what apartheid means, don’t you, son?”
Robert had made the effort to read up a bit on South Africa in light of his placement, and indeed had come across the term on numerous occasions in the literature, often with a side reference to the main protagonist in the fight against it who was currently serving an indeterminate sentence in a jail on somewhere called Robben Island. Everybody had agreed that, doubtless no good would become of him.
“Yeah, but Durban is pretty cosmopolitan and much more relaxed about that sort of thing compared to most of the places over there,” he countered.
Stanley did not seem very convinced. “You do realise that I am from the Caribbean which basically makes you of mixed race,” he said slowly to his son.
“Ah, ahead of you there, dad,” he replied. “I’ve checked it all out, and because your dad was white, and my mum, i.e. your wife, is white if you hadn’t noticed, and I’m born in Britain anyway with my UK passport, as far as anyone is concerned out there, I’m a “Whito” as they say.” He attempted a rather poor heavy Afrikaner accent to emphasize the word. It was true that in terms of skin colour Robert had inherited pretty much all of his mother’s paleness, so when offset by just a small percentage of Stanley’s mixed genetics anyway, the result was that he no more stood out in a crowd of white-skinned folk than anyone else. It was noticeable though that he did tan nicely when the sun did concede to shine in what was usually a fairly dull British summer.
Stanley shook his head, more out of exasperation than anything else. Sometimes, he thought to himself, Robert was just too much like a chip off the old block.
Robert’s last few weeks ahead of his industrial year were spent in an idyllic setting on the North Devon coast line working in a modest but quaint little café. The reason he was there was down to the fact that he had grinned enthusiastically and nodded in agreement when, on a particularly extra beery evening at the Union Upper Bar, the university rugby club chairman had half-drunkenly suggested that a group of them should all go down to Devon for the summer and work at his parents’ seasonal café on the beach front at Woolacombe. Robert thought it ironic that his own father and mother had met whilst she was working in a café all those years ago shortly after the war. He reasoned that it must have been very hard for them to get together, considering that they wouldn’t actually get that much time to even chat in a place like that. However, that didn’t really matter too much, since the chairman had assured everybody that there were just loads of nubile young ladies who came to the sea-side resort on holiday, sometimes with their families for a week or so, who were keen just to have some fun whilst they were there. Robert was very much looking forward to the summer to prepare him for South Africa.
Undoubtedly, the chairman had embellished somewhat the transient attractions of Woolacombe, but there was no denying the natural beauty of the place, with its magnificent, sandy beach stretching almost for three miles to Putsborough, and the waves which came crashing into its bay resulting in ideal conditions for tourists to play at surfing on ironing-board shaped pieces of wood in the summer and locals to surf on real boards most of the year round. It was one of the more local ladies rather than a tourist that had caught Robert’s eye. She had been introduced to Robert by one of the waitresses already working at the café whilst all the younger members from there were at a half-price Pernod night at the predominant hot spot of the resort, The Marisco Disco. Robert was delighted that the HPPN had turned out to be more ubiquitous than he could have possibly wished for.
“Robert,” she had started, “this is Maria.”
Robert took one look at Maria, then, in a gesture barely sustainable in his inebriated condition, he approached her as if to plant a kiss on her left cheek, put his right leg behind her left one, placed his left arm at the top of her back, right hand on her left hip, then in something vaguely resembling a badly executed judo throw, he swept her backwards, swinging her towards the floor over his extended right leg, just about catching her before she crashed to the beer stained surface.
“What the -,” was as far as she got before her left arm, which had shot out involuntarily in an attempt to correct her balance, careered into the pint glass that Robert’s friend was holding, sending a scarlet coloured torrent of liquid reeking of aniseed down the front of his previously white shirt.
“You bastard,” he called out, frantically brushing at his shirt, then quickly added, “Not you, love, that twat who just threw you over his knee.”
Robert was laughing uncontrollably, then realised that they were both in danger of toppling over completely, so quickly brought Maria back to the vertical.
“Kev, I am so sorry,” he said in between his giggles, then to Maria, with a very slight slur, “I am indeed very sorry; that was my attempt at a Clark Gable-style romantic look into your eyes; ooops, almost came off. Let me get you a drink, and I’ll refill yours too, Kev. So, one pint of cider-Pernod-and-blackcurrant, and for you…?” and he looked at Maria expectantly.
Maria looked back at him, trying desperately to feel annoyed, but there was something there that was somehow quite appealing to her.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll have a brandy and Babycham please,” she replied with a half-smile. Shit, thought Robert to himself, this last two weeks of my summer is going to be expensive.
Robert and Maria saw each other for twelve out of the next fourteen days. What had started off as a typical holiday romance had gradually developed into something that seemed to be going deeper as the days ticked over. Whether it was eating large portions of some very synthetic Black Forest Gateau, a very popular treat in the summer of ‘79, or walking along the golden sand dunes which lined the beaches, Robert and Maria spent as much of their free time together as they could. It helped that, walking in the sand dunes allowed them the opportunity to discover some very discreet, private areas where an adventurous young couple could test their limits of daring as they attempted things in the sunshine that they knew they could not possibly get away with in full-view on the main beach.
However they both realised that nothing too serious was going to come of this, as Robert had explained that he was due to go off to South Africa for a year (he had tried to make it sound as dangerous and exciting as he could to gain some macho points one afternoon as they lay together in the cramped confines of the caravan that had been his home for the summer period), following which he would be back in Surrey for his final year at uni.
“Still, we can make the most of the time we’ve got together now,” he had suggested, “and of course, we’ll write to each other whilst I’m out of the country.”
“Yes, of course,” Maria had agreed enthusiastically, though Robert had a sneaky suspicion that the fun and passion they were experiencing now would be hard to pick
up again after being apart for so long. Still, he thought, be positive, we should always be hopeful, and who knows what might happen.
With their discarded clothes laying in a crumpled, tangled heap on the floor, they then returned to the task in hand, ignoring the discomfort of the gritty sand amongst the sheets, brought back from their earlier beach explorations.
Whilst things were looking if not exactly up, then certainly sideways with a slight incline, in Robert’s world, things weren’t looking quite so ‘up’ in Stanley’s world. The occasional twinges he had been getting in his stomach for the past several years had lately become more intrusive. On what should have been a bright and cheerful sunny Wednesday afternoon in May, he was in more pain than usual.
“Marlene,” he called out with a small grimace, “have we got any more of that Milk of Magnesia stuff?”
“Oh Stanley,” she chided distantly from the kitchen, “surely you don’t need more of that, do you? Have you got through that last bottle I bought already? It was only a couple of weeks ago when I popped into Timothy White’s for it.”
Stanley crossed his arms over his stomach, bent forward slightly, and pushed out a long breath through pursed lips; the pain subsided a little.
“Okay,” he called back. “No problem. Maybe though, could you get some more next time you’re up town?”
Marlene came back into the small living room, drying her hands on the tea-towel she was still clutching, and looked carefully at her husband. He attempted a watery smile, but she knew that something must be wrong. He had been far more irritable than usual lately, and they had argued even more than they normally did, the smallest thing seeming to set him off into the darkest of moods. It had not helped that there had been redundancies at the metal pickling plant where Stanley worked. It had originally sounded a wonderful idea to both Marlene and Stanley to accept an early retirement package, and the lump sum payment that had accompanied his somewhat reduced pension still seemed to be an inordinate amount of money to their eager eyes. Unfortunately, the not-quite-pot of gold diminished very rapidly, though he was able to top up with a few small cleaning jobs to help pay the ever-present bills. But even the money side of things was not the real issue; Stanley had started to feel less valuable in himself without the natural call of the work-place, and at times it drove Marlene crazy to find him at home nearly all of the time, poring over the racing pages of the paper each day.