Life's Fare

by Greg Yevko

  “Stupid arse,” she chided Robert, and gave him a playful squeeze between the legs. They laughed for a moment, then the laughing slowly subsided as they caught a meaningful look in each other’s eyes, the same thought coming to each of them at the same time. Ten minutes later they lay exhausted side by side on top of their bed, their naked, sweating bodies potentially exposed to all by the lack of curtains at the window.

  “Tell you what, Maria. Essex isn’t as garish as I thought it was going to be.”

  Maria raised her eyebrows and gave Robert a quizzical look. “Are we talking about the same Essex where just last night there was a group of totally pissed-up young women clutching at each other’s arms whilst wobbling down the High Street in ridiculously over high heels and wearing only marginally more that I would feel was pushing the limit on a hot day at Durban beach-front?” she queried.

  “Ah, they’re only having a bit of fun,” countered Robert, though he did have to admit that the phrase Essex Girl which had crept into everyday vocabulary since the onset of the money-centric early eighties did conjure up a certain image which seemed to be borne out come a typical Friday or Saturday evening down at TOTS night club along the Southend sea front.

  Maria was quiet for a moment, then decided that this would be a good time to broach an idea that she had been harbouring since their return to England.

  “Robberrt,” she said slowly, drawing out the two-syllable name for a full two seconds longer than it really needed.

  “Uh oh,” said Robert with some trepidation; he had encountered this elongated pronunciation of his name before, usually prior to either a confession of some sort or a request – he braced himself.

  “I was thinking of going back to student nursing,” she mused, idly running her fingers over his chest.

  Robert let out an involuntary sigh of relief. “Shit,” he exclaimed, “that would be brilliant,” his mind racing back to illicit days and nights being smuggled in and out of the student nurses block that Maria had been living in prior to them going out to South Africa.

  The hospital in Southend had a good reputation for both quality teaching and practical experience for training those wishing to be State Registered Nurses, and Maria quickly immersed herself into her studies alongside the shift work that all student nurses had to endure. On occasions she would come home in a distraught state, bemoaning the situations that she had been put into, as qualified nursing resources continued to dwindle as the training progressed. “It just isn’t right,” she would say, “They expect far too much of us student nurses before we’re really fully trained to do it properly.” Unbeknown to her, it was a situation that was not destined to improve much over the decades to come. The lowest point came when Robert was doing supervision shift work as part of his broadening assignments at the refinery at the same time as Maria was doing diametrically opposed shifts covering wards at the hospital. The running joke was that the bed was always warm since, as one was getting out of it, the other would soon be coming home and getting into it; this, thought Robert, is not exactly what I had in mind when I envisaged your return to nursing. The Gods are against me.

  The situation eventually wore Maria down and she decided to talk to her Nursing Tutor. She wasn’t sure how best to broach the topic of giving up on all her training so far completed, so in the end she decided that honesty would be the best policy.

  Having agreed to see her tutor following one particular Monday afternoon class-based session, Maria took a deep breath and looked her tutor straight in the eyes. “Uh, I think I’m going to jack in the course,” she opened with, expecting to get a torrent of persuasive arguments trying to convince her to stay.

  “Don’t blame you,” came back the blunt response, much to Maria’s astonishment. “I’m going to hand in my notice myself tomorrow,” and with that Maria had rushed out of the office with mixed feelings of happiness, sadness, guilt, but most of all, relief.

  Not long afterwards, Maria started working at the Abbey National; not only were the hours far more sociable and another salary was coming into the Marley household, the building society staff-rate mortgage freed up more of their hard-earned cash. Things were looking good for these Marleys.

  “Do you know what” said Robert one evening as they sat in front of the television watching Michael Palin in a new style travel program in which he planned to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days, “I would really love to go to the Caribbean Islands. Specifically, I’d love to go and see where dad was born. How do you fancy going to St Lucia one day for a holiday?”

  “Don’t be daft,” replied Maria, initially slightly scornfully, but then, seeing the look in Robert’s eyes, she realised that there was more to this than just going on holiday. “Actually, I reckon we could do that,” and she added in a much softer voice, “it’d be fun.” Robert looked at his wife with deep love, and grinned widely. “I’ll get the tickets booked,” he said, barely able to conceal his enthusiasm.

  The 737 landed at Hewanorra International Airport on the morning of Saturday January 6th, and the Marleys stepped out of the aircraft into the 24-degree C warmth.

  “Luvverly,” exclaimed Robert in his best, exaggerated Sarf- East accent as he used to call it, much to his wife’s annoyance. He held his arms wide with his face pointing up to the sunshine, eyes shut, firmly closed. “This beats the crap out of winter in Essex.”

  Maria smiled her agreement and the pair headed towards the coach that would take them the fifty-five kilometres to their all-inclusive Halcyon Beach Hotel on the turquoise sea front.

  Stanley had regaled Robert with stories of his early days in St Lucia, and had given him lists of numerous places he must go and see, and of course, to look up his old friend Leroy if he was still around, though as he reluctantly admitted, Stanley himself had not really been in touch with him for over twenty-five years now.

  “Dad,” said Robert in exasperation, “if he is still around, he’d be, what, in his late seventies by now, and what would I say to him when you yourself have completely lost touch?”

  Stanley had grudgingly agreed that it was probably not such a good idea after all, but still insisted that if Robert could manage a visit to the suburbs of Castries to where his old house used to be (and hopefully still was), that would be at worst just interesting, and at best, a real hoot to see his earlier haunts.

  “You’ll see the sort of place your old man was brought up in; you young ones don’t know you’re born these days,” he had told Robert with a faraway look in his eyes. So, Robert had assured his father that he would try and get around as much of Castries as he possibly could, secretly inside feeling quite excited at the prospect of digging around in the areas where his father had had his inner attitudes formed and had honed his unique outlook on others.

  The hotel itself was exactly like the picture paradise that the brochure had promised, and Robert and Maria looked out of the coach window in awe as they approached the complex along avenues that were lined with majestic palm trees, through which they could see the sparkling of the clear blue water, edged with talcum powder beaches.

  “Oh my God,” exhaled Maria, taking long pauses between each word. “It’s beautiful.”

  It very much appeared to live up to its description in the holiday literature as A True Garden Of Eden, and indeed the claim to be in the midst of a tropical utopia was not out of place. Most pleasing of all, and to Robert’s great delight, as everyone climbed down the coach steps and made their way towards the hotel reception to check in and collect their respective room keys, they were presented with the most delicious Pina Coladas, served in hollowed-out pineapple halves with multi-coloured paper umbrellas at jaunty angles which one had to assiduously navigate to avoid starting the holiday by having a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. “Ah,” said Robert as he took his first mouthful of the potent cocktail and then held the half pineapple aloft to admire it. “Just the right amount of Pina offset by the perfect amount of Colada I like,” he said with a big grin. He w
as looking forward to the next six days.

  The all-in holiday boasted the use of all water sport equipment as well bicycle hire, and all the food and drink that anyone could possibly want. Much to Robert’s annoyance, Maria picked up a stomach bug on the second day and was unable to keep anything down. She was also too worried to go anywhere that was more than a quick sprint to the nearest toilet cubicle.

  “It’s no good being annoyed at me,” Maria had thrown at him, after one particularly bad morning which had left her exploring more of the inside of their bathroom than the beautiful island they had come to see. “It’s not my fault.”

  Robert had tried to sound more sympathetic than irritated, which was what he really felt. “I know that,” he responded, “It’s just that all the money we spent to go fully inclusive – we might just as well have gone room only for you.”

  “Oh, thanks a bunch,” replied Maria. “Remind me to show the same understanding the next time you’re crapping your insides out,” and with that she returned to the bathroom, slamming the door loudly behind her.

  Robert realised he hadn’t really thought through his last statement.

  “Why don’t you bugger off and take a bike round Castries. I don’t particularly want to see you for a while,” she shouted at him from behind the closed bathroom door.

  “Sorry,” mumbled Robert back through the door. “Look, I’ll go and see if I can find where dad used to live; that’ll give you some peace for a bit. That was thoughtless of me; I really am sorry.” He waited to hear the response, but none came; well, silence was marginally better than a torrent of abuse, he reasoned, and slunk off to collect one of the hotel bikes from the concierge.

  The hotel was only a few kilometres from the centre of Castries, and in spite of the road being laden with numerous pot-holes that seemed intent on catching out any unsuspecting cyclists, Robert soon found himself at a busy intersection in the middle of Castries where many multi-coloured stalls of all shapes and sizes had been set up. Some were selling ripe fresh fruit with soft, orange Paw-Paw, others had Yams and different, strange, knobbly vegetables that Robert didn’t recognise. Yet others were adorned with wondrous, salty-smelling creatures from the sea, or dazzling bundles of woven cloth in shades of reds, blues and yellows; he had come across the Castries Market.

  He knew from what his father had said that the ramshackle house where Stanley grew up had been in a turning off the road running north directly from the market place back towards the beach, and although he was sure that the road layout had probably changed significantly in the past 60 years, he drew on the logic that the location of the market may not have changed at all, merely expanding as the years had gone by. He carefully pushed his bike through the thronging crowds and made his way to the top end of the market; there were two roads which looked to Robert as if they were going north. He gauged which one was nearer the centre of the market and decided to try that one first. He got back on his bike and headed towards the sea front. He decided the best plan would be to scope the size of the problem first of all; he had recently attended the Keppner Tregoe Decision Making and Problem-Solving course at work, and he was confident that his new skills would help him sort out his issue. The total distance to the beach was two kilometres; he counted at least six turnings off to the left and four to the right. A lot of those turnings were pretty close to the market itself so he could count those out as his father had said that from their shack, as he called it, to the sea was only a short walk. Unfortunately, Stanley’s memory over the years had deteriorated significantly when it came to recalling the exact whereabouts of his family home. “How the hell can you not remember the name of the street you were brought up in?” Robert had queried in disbelief when he tried to get more details about it from his father ahead of his trip.

  “It was very different back then, son,” Stanley had told him. “All the shacks were just thrown up higgledy-piggledy close to the beach back in the early 1900s. As long as there was a track to get to the main road in order to get back into the town itself then that’s all you needed.” Robert reckoned that all the Ganja that his father had claimed to have smoked probably wouldn’t have helped his memory much either.

  Robert spent the next three hours working his way back and forth along the small streets that fed off each of the main roads, but they all appeared to be lined with fairly substantial, solid dwellings, albeit some of them falling into a state of disrepair, but none of them resembling the sort of shack that his father had described to him.

  It started to dawn on him that it would be unlikely for ramshackle, broken-down old wooden buildings to be left standing as Castries expanded into a tourist-based economy, let alone what the locals would have done with the derelict shacks, no doubt looking for more permanent and desirable homes for themselves.

  “Bollocks, this is hopeless, I need to get back,” he eventually said in frustration, feeling annoyed that he had wasted so much time on his fruitless endeavour when there was limitless free booze and food back at the hotel which he could have had whilst lying next to a sun-warmed swimming pool the size and shape of a humongous, ultra-giant fried egg.

  He started to furiously pedal his way back to the market, weaving his way dangerously to avoid both the pot holes and the people returning to their homes with their market purchases, often talking and laughing together in big groups, none really paying that much attention to the road. As he struggled to make sure he didn’t catch either of the hazards, his frustration and annoyance continued to build up, and as he took the last corner away from the market square itself, he narrowly missed running his bicycle into an elderly man who was packing up one of the fruit stands. “Sorry,” Robert called out over his shoulder, disappearing into the distance as he pedalled vigorously down the road towards the comfort of the hotel.

  “Hey man, mind where you’s going,” shouted the man at Robert’s back which was rapidly growing smaller as he pulled away. “Bloody tourists,” he said, turning to his wife, who was loading some baskets into the back of the pick-up truck they used for their produce.

  “Oh Leroy, don’t be such an old grouse,” she said lovingly, and he shook his head, then gave her one of his winning smiles that everybody knew him for.

  Squash was the game that everybody played.

  There were informal squash leagues at work, formal squash leagues at local sports centres and general after work friendlies with just about anyone and everyone who was physically able to hold the latest wooden-handled, or if you could afford it, carbon fibre-handled, Wilson racket; if you didn’t play, then, darling, you just weren’t in with the right crowd. Robert hated squash.

  “But it’s such a poncy game,” he would say, after he had received yet another drubbing at the hands of some athletic young whipper-snapper who he deemed to be hardly out of short trousers.

  “I need to find something that keeps me fit but isn’t squash,” he said one night to Maria as they lay in bed, Robert nursing a beautifully circular, deep damson coloured bruise on his right buttock where he had not been quick enough to get out of the way of a wickedly fast smash from his opponent who had been about four feet behind him in the centre of the court.

  “What about running, or just going to the gym?” suggested his wife helpfully. “I could come with you if you like. I need to do something to get back into shape, I quite like the idea of getting fit again.”

  Robert smiled condescendingly. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to get too downhearted if you can’t keep up,” he said, patting her arm in a fatherly way.

  She pulled her arm away sharply and glared at him. “Don’t you worry about me, smug bastard,” she retorted.

  Ooops, hit a nerve there, thought Robert to himself.

  There then followed many weeks of the two of them pounding the streets around the town whenever they could get time together. Sure enough, with Robert’s initial advantage of his recent rugby years and energetic, albeit often unsuccessful, games of squash behind him, he was able to comfortably
control the pace, often having to slow down so as not to open a gap between the two of them as they went around the common running routes along the sea front. Then a strange thing started to happen.

  Robert started to notice that Maria was keeping up a lot better, and indeed, when he sneaked the pace up a little, she seemed to keep up with apparent ease.

  “Well done,” gasped Robert between agonised breaths as he bent over his knees trying desperately not to be sick following one particularly hard run where he had been totally unsuccessful in trying to pull away from his wife.

  “Wow,” gasped his wife in return, between big gulps of air, wiping some sweat from her eyes. “That was brilliant! Thank you for not pulling away, I don’t think I could have gone much faster, but I feel I had a bit more distance in the tank if absolutely necessary.”

  Robert looked up at his wife from his bent-over position and saw that she was in a semi-squat pose with her hands clasped firmly in front of her chest, back ram-rod straight as she swayed gently from side to side, straightening each leg alternately, looking for all the world as if she was limbering up ready to run a half-marathon.

  Robert promptly threw up.

  They joined a gym together and enjoyed many different sessions of circuit training and exercise classes, though Robert was never condescending to his wife’s abilities again. “Once beaten, twice shy,” he used to say.

  “Don’t you mean ‘bitten’?” his friend once tried to correct him over a pint at the local, The Paul Pry.

  “I know what I mean,” Robert replied flatly, finishing off the remnants of his glass. “Come on, my shout.”