Life's Fare

by Greg Yevko

  Although Marlene considered herself to be of a fairly liberal disposition, and indeed it was often argued that she must have been to take on Stanley with his somewhat chequered history, there was most certainly an issue with alcoholic beverages as far as she was concerned. It was only much later in life that she confessed to the younger Marleys that this had been down to incidents she had observed as a child. As was common practice shortly after The Great War, the men of the village would often disappear into the local hostelry of an evening and frequently partake of a little too much ale, inevitably resulting in rowdy renditions of old barrack room songs with subsequent collapsing in beer-sodden heaps on the floor. At the end of such nights, in a semi-conscious drunken slumber, her father would then be thrown over his horse, followed by a slap on the behind (of the horse, not her father), and he would be taken home on the equine equivalent of automatic pilot, as the horse knew the route between the pub and home only too well. On arrival at the house, Marlene’s mother would have the unenviable task of getting him down from the beast, securing it for the night (again, the horse, not Marlene’s father), drag him semi-comatose inside (this time the father, not the horse), undress her husband and heave him into their bed where he would snore solidly until he arose in the morning.

  Though you couldn’t be booked for being drunk in charge of a horse in the 1920s, Stanley himself had flirted with the law, having been drunk in charge of his bicycle on a few occasions, not helped as far as he was concerned by the introduction of the dastardly breathalyser in 1967.

  Umhlabathi 4.4 1977/81

  In spite of Marlene’s tears, Robert had not felt the same level of sadness as the train pulled out of Hereford railway station.

  He stuffed the over-sized suitcase and large carry-all as best he could into the luggage holding racks at the entrance to the carriage, then proceeded to walk between the rows of tired and slightly stained seats until he found two together that were unoccupied. He took off his ruck-sack, which contained the marginally more valuable things that he possessed, and threw it onto the aisle seat. He then collapsed down with a sigh into the one nearest the window. The portly man in the suit opposite him briefly looked up from his paper, gave an involuntary small snort of contempt when he saw the young student now sitting opposite and instinctively brought his feet in from where they had previously been out-stretched. Robert smiled back. The man shook his paper in a straightening motion and raised it so that his face could not be seen; Robert thought he heard the word “scavenging” muttered as part of something the man was saying quietly to himself under his breath, though he couldn’t be sure.

  Having changed trains once, which involved an ‘accidental’ clip of the man’s newspaper when Robert swung his rucksack onto his back as he departed from his seat, eventually he heard the tantalising words over the train tannoy system, “Guildford, this is Guildford.” Having carefully checked the small map showing the footpath from the station to the Campus for the seventh time since leaving home earlier, he started winding his way up the steep slope towards the red-brick cathedral, pulling the huge suitcase teetering unstably along on its two wheels behind him, carry-all grasped firmly in his left hand, and ruck-sack straining at his shoulders. The ruck-sack had been made noticeably less manageable by the late addition of a huge jar which in a previous life had held a mixture of penny-farthing Black-Jacks and chewy Fruit-Salads in some sweet shop, but now held 42 hardboiled eggs in pickling vinegar, a favourite of Robert’s that Marlene had lovingly prepared herself as a going-away gift for her son; in her usual way, Marlene had scored high on sentiment, low on practicality.

  After having been greeted at the entrance to the Halls of Residence and shown where to get the room keys by still relatively fresh-faced students who had themselves been in the same position a year ago, Robert threw himself onto the bed of the single room that was to be his home for the next nine months. He looked up at the ceiling, let out a huge fart, and exclaimed at the top of his voice, “Fucking made it!”

  There was a knock on the door followed immediately by a tousled head appearing round its edge before Robert had a chance to say anything.

  “Christ it stinks in here! Hi, I’m Pete Twelve-Weetabix – let me show you the Lower Bar.”

  Robert had heard a lot about Freshers’ Week, but of course had never attended one before.

  As far as he could tell, the general idea was to drink as much alcohol as was physically possible without a) throwing it all back up [too often, anyway], and b) without actually dying; he managed pretty damned well with a) and easily with b).

  The other thing to do in Freshers’ Week was to sign up for a range of bizarre clubs and societies, most of which you would never even show up once for, but some of which could well end up being a lifelong source of enjoyment, or at least keep you vaguely sane amongst the never-ending onslaught of alcohol and study which encapsulated university life. Although Robert was not particularly big of stature, his pleasure in life was rugby. Sure enough, there was a rugby club at Surrey University so Robert dutifully put his name down for the team trials, cruelly set for the Friday afternoon on the last day of Freshers’ Week.

  It was six o’clock on Thursday evening, and the previous four days had already been spent in a drunken haze of pub-crawling, Lower Bar discoing, Upper Bar Half-Price nighting, and Halls of Residence Floor-Warming welcome sessions. Robert had decided that, to be at his best at the trials, he would have a slightly easier night tonight and had already politely declined the offer of a lift to the cider house in the nearby town of Godalming.

  “I know you buggers,” he had said to Pete Twelve Weetabix, “you don’t know when to come home!” and had felt quite sanctimonious as Pete had laughed and turned away with a friendly, “Ah, you big pansy.”

  Ten minutes later there was another knock on the door. “Hey, Robert. Come to the Union; we’re just going to have a quick couple of pints then get an early night ‘cus of tomorrow.” It was the big guy that Robert had got chatting to when they had both been looking at the sheet of paper pinned up with all the names listed to do the trials on Friday; they had just added their own names to the bottom of the list. There was no doubt about it, this big guy looked like a real Monster. Robert later found out that he had played prop for Devonshire Schoolboys and had “kept in shape” during the summer by lugging huge slabs of cheese on both shoulders at the same time from one side of the cheese factory to the other during the summer vacation job that he had, a fact that was to make Robert’s life in the front row a lot more enjoyable in the years to come. It also helped explain why any mouse incursions into the Halls of Residence where he stayed were generally traced back to his room.

  Robert thought for the briefest of moments, then acquiesced with, “Yeah, sounds a good plan”. After all, this guy looked to be pretty serious about his rugby, so would be sure to be looking for a relatively quiet evening and early night.

  Six hours later, shortly after midnight, Robert and a fresh-faced young lady, highly intoxicated and soon to be a fully-fledged first year Philosophy, Psychology and Economics undergraduate, were gently swaying to a slow song that Robert vaguely remembered from somewhere, but the title of which he couldn’t for the life of him recall. He stifled a gaseous burp, brought on by half a dozen or so pints of Pernod, Cider and Blackcurrant concoctions, one of the favourite discoveries of Freshers’ Week due to apparently never-ending promotions of half-price Pernod nights. He swallowed hard several times as he felt the acid back-burn as some of his stomach contents attempted to come up with the gas expulsion. He looked at his watch over the girl’s shoulder, then closed one eye to try and improve the clarity of what he saw. “Shit, look at the time!” he exclaimed, “I do really need to get back and get some sleep for tomorrow.”

  The girl clung to him tightly, “Please don’t go” she whispered with a slur into his ear, her arms hanging onto his neck in an effort to show some passion at the same time as trying to ensure her stability. “I’d really like you to come b
ack to my room.”

  Robert was a little startled since tonight was the first time he had even seen let alone spoken to this girl since arriving at Surrey, though to be fair they had been getting on pretty well together since the first dance earlier. The six lads, who had coincidentally all signed up for the trial, had decided that a quick pop down to the Lower Bar disco at 9 o’clock would be a good idea, just to see what was going on before they would then go back to their respective rooms for an early night. Robert weighed up the options he was now presented with in his alcohol-infused brain – go back to his own room and at least get some sleep before the trials tomorrow, or…

  Robert and his new friend weaved their way back towards her halls of residence, he taking the opportunity to demonstrate the noble art of bush-diving as they passed a particularly pristine piece of hedgerow, she taking the opportunity to sit down whilst pretending to be interested and wishing she could focus a little more. They eventually got to the block and carefully ascended the stairs, holding the hand-rail tightly. Robert held her waist tightly as she fumbled with her key to her room.

  They fell into each other’s arms as soon as the door closed behind them and collapsed onto the single bed, Robert clumsily pulling at her buttons, hoping desperately that his breath wasn’t tasting as bad to her as it was to him as their mouths locked together.

  I’d heard that this sort of thing could happen in Freshers’ Week, but never imagined it was actually true, he thought to himself as he prepared excitedly for what he hoped would be a night to remember. Suddenly, he thought he heard muffled crying. He stopped tugging at the belt of the jeans that she was wearing. “Are you okay?” he asked her, feeling the front of his own jeans relax slightly. She stifled a sniff. “Yes, yes, of course,” she said, and buried her face in his neck. Robert hesitantly went back to the tricky job of trying to unbuckle her belt with one hand whilst the other was occupied under her shirt. This time he definitely heard crying and felt her head shaking against his neck as she tried to keep any noises that she was making inaudible to him. He retracted both his hands from their respective activities and gently took her face in his hands; she had tears in her eyes.

  “Blimey,” he said, “am I that bad at this?”

  This time she made no attempt to hide her tears and blurted out, “No it’s not you at all, it’s just that I am so lonely since coming away from home, and I don’t know anybody here, and I get scared sometimes on my own at night, and I don’t know what to do, and I’m scared I’m going to mess up my degree, and nobody likes me, and …”

  “Whoa, whoa,” interrupted Robert, amazed at how a change in situation could suddenly sober up an individual who a short while ago had been most pleasantly inebriated. “Look, don’t worry, you’re a great looking girl who’s been fantastic to be with since we met up earlier, and I’ve had a great night with you,” he said, as softly-soberly as he could manage.

  She looked at him through her tear-filled eyes, then promptly started wailing again. Robert held her tightly and pulled her head into his shoulder, stroking her hair gently and made what he thought were appropriate consoling noises. After a little while her sobbing subsided, and she said quietly, “I’d really love it if you stayed with me tonight.” With that, and the stroking of her hair and the warmth of her breath into his neck, Robert felt the tightness starting to creep back into the front of his jeans once again. “But please will you just hold my hand whilst I sleep,” she said, raising her head and looking at him with soulful eyes.

  “Of course,” he said to her with a smile, feeling the tightness slip away once again.

  He spent the rest of the night trying to get comfortable on the hard floor, all the while holding her hand as she drifted in and out of a hazy sleep, alone in her bed under the standard issue university duvet. How the hell am I going to explain this to my mates? he wondered to himself, they’ll never believe me for one minute. Then he suddenly remembered the trials, due to start in not that many hours from now. “Bollocks,” he said out loud, though not so loud as to wake his new friend.

  Although it may be hard for anyone born after 1990 to believe it, back in the 70s, the government gave students money to go to university. Robert’s Cockney brother-in-law, Roy, took great pleasure in pointing this out at every opportunity that presented itself.

  “You do realise that it’s my bleedin’ taxes that are payin’ for your piss-ups,” he used to remind Robert when he came home in between terms, armed with the regular tales of what had been going on, and of course, the obligatory black bagful of dirty washing.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, and for that we are eternally grateful,” Robert would reply in mock gratitude, and his brother-in-law would grin in a good-natured fashion and get in yet another round. “I’ll be able to pay you back one day when I’m earning a fortune,” he had informed him, at the same time hoping for all the world that Roy wasn’t actually keeping a count of all the beers that he had bought Robert over the years; it was going to be an expensive pay-back one day, he thought to himself.

  He had always had a soft spot for Roy, as it was Roy who, at the same time and with the same care-free attitude, had both corrupted and educated a young Robert at the tender age of fifteen; these were the days when land-lords were more inclined to turn a blind eye as long as there was no trouble and the person having a drink looked vaguely seventeenish.

  Robert had been staying with Alvita and Roy in London for a week during the school holidays, and had been helping Roy and his work mates to renovate a property in a downbeat row of terraced houses.

  “Here, Robert, do us a favour, mate, go to the van and fetch us a Sky Hook and a Glass Hammer please, would ya?” Roy had asked him in a sincere voice one morning; Robert hadn’t noticed the other guys turning away to hide their stifled sniggers.

  “Sure,” said Robert, eager to help. “What were they again?”

  “A Sky Hook and the Glass Hammer please; they should be at the back of the van, somewhere behind the bags of sand and cement in there,” Roy had replied with a dead-pan delivery.

  “Uh, okay,” said Robert, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. “So, what do they sort of look like?” asked Robert, trying to clarify in his own mind what he was seeking.

  “Well the Sky Hook is like a big, S-shaped thing, and the Glass Hammer is like an ordinary hammer, but the head is made of glass rather than the typical metal head,” was Roy’s straight response.

  Being the new boy in the renovation team, Robert had not wanted to appear dumb nor unwilling, so he trotted off to the van and started ferreting through the bags of sand and cement, slowly getting hotter and more bothered as puffs of cement dust settled everywhere each time he heaved a bag from one position to another. After several minutes, he heard a big cheer and a round of applause from the work gang amidst much laughter, as Roy came up to him, holding out a peace-offering of a can of coke.

  “Here you go, mate, looks like you need this. Have you found them yet?” he asked with a big grin.

  “You bastard!” Robert exclaimed, grinning himself, now definitely sure of the wind up. “I bloody well thought you were having me on, but I wasn’t 100% sure. I thought maybe there might be some weird circumstance where a specialist hammer might be required.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you that if you hit anything with a glass hammer, the glass hammer itself might actually shatter?” queried Roy, smiling.

  “Fair point,” admitted Robert, feeling just a teensy bit stupid. “And Sky Hook? I genuinely thought there might be something S-shaped that you might hang one end over, say a pipe, enabling something else to then be hooked onto the other.”

  “The clue’s in the name,” said Roy, “Don’t over-think it. It’s just something that all new apprentices have to go through, part of the drill, as they say. Anyway, consider yourself in,” and he put a friendly arm around Robert’s shoulders. “Besides, tonight, you me and Al will go to a real London Boozer with a Joanna in the corner for a good old sing along; yes, we r
eally still do that sort of thing around here!”

  True to his word, later that day after they had all freshened up from the day’s toils, Roy led the three of them into a traditional pub on the corner of a nearby street, and to Robert’s delight there really was a little old lady sat on the stool of a well-used upright piano, who banged out well-known, old-fashioned tunes which all the pub regulars would heartily sing along with. The modern bar a bit further down the street that they went into a couple of hours later was not what Robert would have really described as traditional, but that was more than made up for in Robert’s young mind by the topless dancers who were giving their all to the strains of Gloria Gaynor, B.T. Express and The Three Degrees.

  Robert could definitely see the attractions of London, the freedom of which had enticed his sisters away from the much more sedentary life styles of their home town. Maybe one day, he thought to himself.

  Golland 4.2 Woesday, bit later on

  “Wow, tavarisch,” Perun could hardly contain his bewilderment.

  “I have never really looked that closely before at these two-legs doing – what do they call it down there?”

  “I believe it is called Higher Education,” answered Bondje, though he too had had what would have been his eyes thoroughly opened wide by the in-depth studying of a typical Freshers’ Week at a typical university.

  “So,” Perun continued, “They take on board lots of liquid that basically makes them first of all less capable of thinking and acting clearly, then if they continue, they eventually disgorge it all again, though not in the same way as they disgorge new two-legs fortunately, then eventually just stop working altogether until they come around much later feeling like shit; is that what you took away from our observations too?”