Strange Folk

When I was younger – I did lots of silly things. More so than most people I guess but then I don’t know what sort of crap you did when you were my age. Who know perhaps you ran away to join the circus, became a groupie or roadie for a not so famous band, joined a sex cult, was a trapeze artist or learnt how to juggle (I too did some of those things, ok, maybe just one of those thing but you get the picture) I use to be quite good at it, doing dumb things that made no matter. I think it has become part of the tapestry of my life, my personal white noise and the reason why I really know a lot of crap trivia, like why Sheamus on WWE is as white as the driven snow, why there should never be a floor 13 or room 13 in a hotel, where the best coffee shops in Amsterdam are, the difference single and double glazing and how to read palms the ancient Chinese way. One of the stupid things I was very very good at was meeting new people.

Not just ordinary people you met – let’s say at church, but crazy people, those you met after pulling an all nighter clubbing in a foreign city. People who tell you their most intimate secrets, people you never ever see again, people who get to know what you really think and feel but never contact or meet again.

One such person is a girl I met in Brighton. I was not alone; I was with Nthabi and Jay. I was dating Jay at the time and Nthabi, well she had a huge crush on me but had become a good friend and truth be told, I liked being the center of attraction. It’s a strange feeling to be wanted by two people who openly admit this to be true.

Jay and I lived on a little farm in Maidstone, he went to work in the city and I – for my sins, was left home to read and listen to music. No TV no internet and miles from anyone else. My company was the farmer, who had a slight glint in his eye, his wife, bongo the Vietnamese potbelly pig and few horses, ducks and other farm animals. I would cook and bake for Jay and wait for him to come home. During the cold winter months I would heat up the conservatory to almost 30degrees, collect him from the train station, grab a few bottles of Chiante and insist he take all his clothes off in that front room. We would dine naked and play board games, read to each other and write poetry. We dared each other to run around the bush in our garden – naked in the snow – run back into the 30 degree conservatory, drunk on wine and love.

On the weekend we might take a trip to Brighton, London, Paris, the Midlands or visit our friend Larry in Aberdeen.

Life was swell. On one such trip, Nthabi joined us. Her driver dropped her there on the Friday and she booked us into a 5 star on the beach front. It was a luxury for us, we would normally book into an 80pound a night – mauve – gay/uest house. As you might know Brighton is like Cape Town in that regard. We went dancing, Jay and I each took an e and waited for it to kick in, once it did, you would start spotting all the other people doing the same thing you did. Your smile would extend way past you and your friends and eventually swallow the whole room, glump! Sometimes it felt like you were smiling for humanity. Walking up and down, now hot then cold, skin tingling, twitching with stimulation, thinking you had a purpose but – really there was no purpose at all. You were just milking every last ounce of pleasure out of every single millisecond.

At some point in the evening, I would start dancing, it’s a special kind of dance when you know the whole room is watching, and by the whole room you mean only one person. Him, the guy you will be with tonight. That same night we met the girl, she was a lesbian and totally into Nthabi. She was pretty, typically English, rosy cheeks, blue eyes, a little stocky; I just now and very suddenly remember the colour of her pubes (ginger!!! Yuck). She came home with the three of us. The first thing we did was light a spliff, and then Jay and myself sat on the couch, drinking Jack watching ebony and ivory – the two girls getting acquainted. It was interesting but not exciting. (Nthabi was about 15 years older than me – I was 24 at the time- she was a hot shot corporate in a big firm very straight laced but a private, unapologetic freak).

We left them to their devices and retired to our chambers. The Saturday was spent walking around the streets, sampling cultural and culinary delights. It was summer in the UK and as you know – white people go nuts when the sun shines. Then quite by chance we wandered into a restaurant, a group of jolly English folk occupied most of the sunny side of the place and guess what…right there in full view was thingy (with the ginger pubes), sitting with her steady girlfriend Caroline – the one she was supposedly going to leave for Nthabi. Well Nthabi was not going to be ignored, she walked right up to Ginger and kissed it on the mouth, apologised to Caroline and said thanks to Ginger for a wonderful night. The rest of the table was so liquored up they could not muster a response.

The thing though is Nthabi said it so casually that no one ever suspected that she meant anything else. Ginger was squirming, and Caroline became suspicious as Nthabi lavished compliments on Ginger and just about bought the bar.

We promptly ordered a bottle of wine, sat back and watched the whole thing unravel. It was comic. The drunker Nthabi got the more insistent she became that Ginger was the most beautiful thing on the planet, much to Caroline’s annoyance. Lucky for all, lesbian relationships are things of such novelty (bullshit – I know), a little covert, very subdue not blatantly Jerry Jerry Jerry as this was turning into, Nthabi also had a vocabulary to die for, at that time she was fixated on become the next South African president and made a practise speech standing on one of the tables, everyone cheered – all except Caroline, whose only response was to leave the place sulking.

Eventually we all went back to someone’s house (someone we just met, yes) and ate and cooked and did all sorts of naughty things (not that naughty though). Sunday morning arrived and with it a four piece quartet, oysters and a brand new dress from a second hand store that I adored. I put on my wide brim white hat and pretended I was in Morocco – Casablanca to be exact. I totally ignored the fact the Nthabi was going to pieces at the thought of never seeing Ginger again. Her car came, she was off and shortly after dinner Jay and I left for the solace of Maidstone, our little cottage with the conservatory and 30 degree loving.

I know what you are thinking…strange folk indeed.