Evening 1: Awaiting Reggie, Chile-by-Bermondsey

“Don’t forget that Reggie and his Uncle are coming, they don’t like alcohol so make sure to have a drink beforehand”.

Carlos’s words to prepare us for our evening together. An evening with Chilean and Bengali flavours we were told, but no further details.

We arrived close by Tower Bridge in Bermondsey at 6.30pm with a Two Star visiting bundle: a box of chocolates and two litres of exotic fruit juice. Greeted by Carlos’s mother Sasha we were welcomed upstairs by her son, our host. It was only at 4pm that she had been told that visitors were coming, Carlos had saved her days of hospitality stress.

Mum wasn’t alone in the dark. Jane and I thought we were eating at Carlos’s (hence the 2 Star bundle), and Carlos thought that his workmate London-Bengali Reggie was going to take us to his grandfather’s tandoori restaurant at Elephant and Castle. Seventeen year old Reggie was to be with us shortly after a motorbike speed trial, with an uncle as his chaperone and companion.

As our Muslim friends had not arrived we were encouraged to have a drink as Carlos intended to put these out of view when the Bengalis arrived. With that he took a supermarket carrier off the top of a bottle of something experimental fermented by the Agronomy department of Santiago University, viz. 45 degrees of plonk. A surprise for Jane and I as we thought it was a dry evening and had fortified ourselves with an early gin and tonic to cover all eventualities. To accompany the Santiago Special, Sasha quickly produced a plate of dips and olives.

And so we waited. Ate three more plates of dips. Took a guided tour of the house. Heard about grander houses in faraway exclusive Temuco. Had two phone calls from Reggie, each one more apologetic and advertising a later arrival. Eventually he said he should get to us about 11pm, when we would go for an ice cream at the Tandoori.

By now Jane was getting an intensive tuition on Chile, politics, and Spanish translation from Sasha whilst I was in the kitchen witnessing culinary marvels at the hands of Carlos. In no time we were sitting at a fine table, dining with cutlery bought at a scam auction by his father many years back.

Long conversation. Family histories. Devastating attack on the chocolates to accompany our Costa Rican coffee.

No Reggie. Motorbike trials: verdict guilty.

Home at 1am, Carlos’s hanky waving us on our way.

It’s a long way from Chile to Bengal, and longer from Greenwich to Chile.

                                                                                                                                   21 July 02

Evening 2: Blackheath by Night.

An ordinary invitation:

“Come on over on Saturday! We’re having a party!             We’ll get the children off to bed and enjoy ourselves!”

Parked up at Blackheath Standard Saturday 8pm, here we are, clutching our Five Star Gift Pack: Flowers, wine AND a box of chocolates. Crazy!

Concerned a little about how we would fit in. A couple whose friendship was only just ‘coming out’. Would there be lots of questions about us from our Baptist hosts? We need not have worried.

Our hosts Angela and James were waiting for us, bubbly Angela with eager enthusiasm, introverted James with brave resignation. Not a child of their three was to be seen, and most of the eight or so other guests were already there. We gathered together in the main room of their flat, furnished party style with all its furniture pushed back to the walls leaving room for a dozen chairs packed side to side. No background music was to spoil the conversation, James was hard of hearing so that was a no-no.

Hallo, how are you, yes I’m with her, she’s my wife, yes I’m related to Angela, no I live quite close. Nice to meet you, hallo.

First round of conversation over.

Yes I’ll have something soft as I’m driving. Yes Liebfraumilch will be fine for me. Interesting crisps! Yes I’m with Jane, she knows Angela. Oh you’re Angela’s brother’s wife, right.

Second round. Silence.

So, Jane tells me you are into computers, James.

Yes, answered our host.

Silence. James think about the question.

He continues when he’s had time to consider it.

I use them at work and sometimes at home.

Silence. A calming influence. You can feel your body slowing down. Like the first stage of a meditation perhaps.

Talk talk talk about children, presided over cheerily by Angela, who then jumps up to organise another round of interesting crisps and daring German wine.

No, this Liebfraumilch is fine Angela. But a Sprite would be even better (that’s my all sugar sorted for the next month).

More children talk talk talk.

Children’s TV programmes these days, such rubbish! Not like what we used to watch.

The beginning of the key conversation of the whole evening. But interrupted! The food. Great.

Walk through to the kitchen next door. Homemade fish pie, a lovely fish-shaped pastry thing. Potatoes, chopped carrots and celery and their customary saladoid companions. Sitting room is a bit full so perhaps we’ll spread out and meet each other loitering in the kitchen. No. No one left in the kitchen. All have taken their food and gone back to their allotted seats where they were before. We sit and eat.

Do help yourself to gateau too! Says Angela ever cheerily. Don’t worry about the calories!

All return merrily to the kitchen. Each collects gateau without talking, loitering or meeting anyone and returns to their designated seat once more. All are relieved that no one has had the insensitivity to challenge the seating arrangement.

Was there something in the gateau? Was it just the glucose rush of all that sugar? One way or the other a conversation was raging. From left, right and centre came rushing in the names of favourite children’s TV programmes from the 80s, 70s, 60s and even 50s, kick-starting the pulse of this otherwise… calming, gathering.

Sooty and Sweep. Marine Boy. Skippy Skippy Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Lassie. Were you for Magpie or Blue Peter? Trumpton, Camberwick Green, Bagpuss. Who remembers the Clangers? John and Jane do. And that monster that used to frighten them. And what about Watch with Mother, Tales of the Riverbank, Andy Pandy, Bill and Ben (not forgetting the Weed). How much TV were you allowed to watch?

The soup dragon.

Sorry, John?

It was the soup dragon that frightened the Clangers. Someone just asked.

Keep up John, says Jane cheerily. She’s right. It’s just that this party is very calming and I feel my bodily systems slowing a little. Still, it’s 9.15 now and she said we would leave around 10, looking forward to the footie back home, Match of the Day, 10.30.

Barnacle Bill, Crocodile Kate, Seaweed Sam, Dishwasher Dave, Jason and the Argonauts, Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry, Abbot and Costello, Wacky Races, Mork and Mindy, the Fonze, the Muppets, Sesame Street. Who was your favourite? Grouch, Big Bear, Miss Piggy, Kermit?

‘Twizzle’.

Once again the room turned to me, halted in mid-reminiscence. What about Twizzle?

‘It used to be on after Andy Pandy’.

John, Jane whispered, are you all right? Your eyes look funny. We were talking about Andy Pandy ages ago.

‘Sorry, it’s just that my brain is freezing over. I’ll try and keep up’.

It’s 10.30 now. Well there’s no way I’m going to say it’s time to go. Everyone’s having such fun. Must be me. Everything seems to be really mellow. Never mind the football.

“It was the chewing gum, THE CHEWING GUM”.

Jane was looking more than a little concerned as the conversation hushed again half way through the list of past Dr Who’s.

“Marine boy”, I said, “he had special chewing gum. That’s why he could stay under water”.

“How about coffee or tea?” Offered a slightly disturbed Angela.

We eventually left at 11.15. I had not offered further contributions to the nostalgia. I was more concentrated on the unusual experience of my blood slowing down, then flowing in the opposite direction.

Even now a feeling of deep calm falls upon me as I recall an Unforgettable Evening.