The cafe with five faces, p.20
The Café with Five Faces, page 20
“And a very anti-democratic pillock at that,” agreed Mr Tourist, who was now, apparently, even more convinced of his voting error than he had been on his previous visitation, and also more accustomed to his wife’s belligerence and the occasional slip in her standard of language. In fact, he seemed a little happier in general than before; I presumed this owed something to the fact that the editor of the Daily Mail had changed with a vastly reduced amount of front page and editorial vitriol as a result, with the new editor even having the guts and common sense to condemn the ‘loathsome’ and ‘vulgar’ language used against the prime minister by Brexiteers. This had obviously assuaged his guilt in buying the paper, as a copy was lying open on the table in front of him with the cartoon page clearly visible.
Mrs Tourist hadn’t finished, although it was rather unclear what the Regulars were making of her slightly foul-mouthed tirade. “I mean to say,” she continued, “the referendum was conducted with ten per cent of the necessary information and half of that was provided by lying fascist-inspired bastards. If anything was undemocratic, that was – asking a country to make one of the biggest decisions in its history with virtually no information!”
I poured some tea for Mrs Regular, omitting the milk, as my personal opinion is that Darjeeling is better without it. I then felt rather guilty, as I wasn’t sure if she was a ‘milk first’ or a ‘tea first’ person and I had deprived her of the choice. These points did not seem to be at the forefront of her attention at that moment, however, as she was twisting her neck to more closely observe how a marriage worked when both partners actually communicated.
“Poor Theresa May,” opined Mr Tourist. “Caught between a rock and a hard place in Europe, in Britain and even within her own party. But, as you say, only a pillock could possibly misinterpret democracy, as she seems so determined to do.”
Mr Regular grunted again, although this particular grunt had a tone of assent. Perhaps it should be said that my interpretation of grunts has never been a strong point. His wife, however, with presumably many years of experience in noise-identification under her belt, appeared to have understood the same message.
“I dare say you’re right,” she said, more to her husband than to the Tourists, although addressing her husband involved less neck strain, which may have partially accounted for her choice of audience. “Such a mess; it’s like watching a soap opera, but with a soap opera, you usually expect some kind of happy ending. That doesn’t seem likely in this case.” She robotically took a drink of her Darjeeling and didn’t seem to notice the lack of milk.
“Nice weather.” The words came from an unexpected source. Mr Regular had obviously had enough of political talk for one day and decided to change the topic completely. His wife and I were momentarily stunned into silence by his coherence, whilst the Tourists turned to their cappuccinos, looking as though they had been chided for speaking out of turn.
“Nice to find a café which makes consistently good cappuccino,” commented Mrs Tourist.
“This tea is nice without milk,” said Mrs Regular. “I’ve never tried it this way before.”
“We aim to please,” I replied, swiftly leaving the two couples to their usual paired interaction patterns and returning to Cape Town.
A perfect example of a bar in a café. This is Bourbon Coffee Roasters in Bogotá and features, from left to right, a French Press, a Chemex, a Siphon and a trio of V60s. No AeroPress, but you can’t have everything!
2018: 37: Cape Town: A Tale of Two Standards and Dubious Labels
The early-evening darkness seemed to be deepening the gloom in Cape Town as Mike, James and John entered into their second beer of the evening, the first one, as James so succinctly put it, having ‘barely touched the sides’, a quaint northernism for guzzling with excessive haste, something I find more common, in myself at least, in the heat of summer.
“What is the world coming to?” pondered Mike in a way which could have functioned as a lead-in to a multitude of subjects, making it impossible to frame a relevant response with any certainty. Fortunately, it took as long as it takes to sip a beer before he elaborated on his latest feelings of woe. “Explosive devices sent to Democrats Obama and Clinton, and also to the liberal and anti-Brexit supporter George Soros, amongst a good few others.” James and John ‘ah’-ed in recognition and awaited their opinionated friend’s verdict. “It makes you fear what will happen on this side of the pond as and when Brexit is thrown out in the UK.”
“It can’t stop us hoping, though,” James responded.
“Absolutely not,” Mike firmly agreed, “but whichever way Brexit goes, there is likely to be some civil unrest and, much as I want it to fail and for us to remain in the EU, my big fear is that it’s the Leave extremists who are far more prone to verbal abuse and physical threats and violence. There has already been loads of evidence to support this from the vitriol of the Tory right and the pro-Brexit media through to the murder of Jo Cox. But we really can’t let the fear of verbal abuse, as demonstrated by the tweeting Trump, or the fear of extreme right-wing violence, as demonstrated by the letter bombers in the US, and the worry there will be copycats over here, intimidate us.”
“We shall not, we shall not be moved!” chorused James and John, whether sarcastically or not was unclear, based on what I took as an unsuccessful attempt at a tune, but I strongly suspected the latter.
“Indeed,” agreed Mike, obviously detecting no sarcasm at all. “I’ve been a member of the moderate right all my life, but now extremists on supposedly the same side of the political divide are threatening to bring civil war on leading western democracies.”
While I could understand the train of thought, I deemed this too wild an exaggeration, hoping this wasn’t actually wishful thinking on my part. It is all too easy to imagine some civil disturbance, whatever the final Brexit outcome, and from that point, who knows what escalation may occur? As Mike had stated, there is certainly little doubt as to who would be the sorest losers.
“The people behind acts like these are nothing, absolutely nothing, like you, mate,” James said, and there was no lack of sincerity in his consolation.
“I hope not!” exclaimed Mike, who clearly hadn’t believed there was any connection whatsoever between himself and extremist elements. “But I just feel so hopeless at times. Just look at the way the world has changed in the last three years! I barely know where to start.”
James and John exchanged glances with a complete and shared awareness that Mike knew exactly where he was going to start and that the evening rant was only just about to begin. There was a pause of a few seconds, during which James seemed to be silently mouthing a NASA-style countdown to lift-off. His timing was almost perfect, with a deep inhalation from Mike indicating ignition, and lift-off coinciding with the first word.
“I mean, let’s take America and its president,” he began, as James and John both licked a finger and marked a figure ‘one’ in the air (behind Mike’s unsuspecting back) to indicate a correct prediction. “With Trump, there is no truth, there are no lies; the truth is just whatever he wants to believe or it is convenient to believe at a specific moment. Every time he appears on television, there should be a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen, like there is at the start of a book or the end of a film, you know, a warning along the lines of, ‘This is the truth as the speaker sees it; any resemblance to the actual truth is purely coincidental.’” Laughter of a sardonic nature ensued.
He took another sip of beer just as an engine would draw on fuel to power its next move. “Take climate change. I mean, is he for real? How much more evidence can anyone possibly want? Denying climate change is like denying the Holocaust in terms of evidence and should be punished as such. But his most important supporters, of course, are rich entrepreneurs whose bank balances suffer due to measures designed to protect the planet, so let’s shovel the issue under the carpet under the guise of fake news or some other such crap and let future generations pay for his four years of fame.”
“Hopefully not eight,” murmured John, moving his hands into what seemed like a praying position.
“Are the Holocaust and climate change in the same league?” queried James.
Mike thought about this for a few moments. “Tough question, and one which requires retrospection on one side and future projection on the other. I studied twentieth-century international history at university and I’ve also been to Oświęcim three times and visited the camps of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Apart from a very, very small minority, everyone knows what happened there with as much certainty as is possible, and yet, at the same time, it is impossible to believe any human being could ever, ever do such things to any living creature, let alone another human or millions of humans. But happen it did and six million Jews, as well as even more non-Jews, died. The effects of climate change are already visible, but the numbers of deaths, to date, are negligible. The long-term effects, though, are another matter altogether, and casualties could exceed those of the Holocaust, not down to the deliberate cruelty of one individual, but due to the mass irresponsibility of the present generation. The only good thing is the fact it isn’t too late to change direction.”
“I get it,” said James, nodding thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. That’s scary.”
“And then there are the double standards.” Mike, considering the diversion closed, returned to his previous topic after another, lengthier sip of thought-provoking ale. “Please explain to me how Brett Kavanaugh gets exonerated after just a four-day investigation by the FBI. Four days! When there are witnesses popping up with the frequency of thistles in a fallow English meadow? And then the Trump apologises to him on behalf of the American nation, declaring witnesses in the case to have lied, even though over half the population believes Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. Surely that’s fraud or, at the very least, perverting the course of justice!” There was a chorus of deep sighing around the group which almost seemed orchestrated. No one spoke because we could all see Mike winding up to further his reasoning, not that anyone was remotely inclined to frame an argument based on the discourse and rationale thus far.
“And then, on the other hand, you get Michael Le Vell and William Roache…”
“Actors on Coronation Street,” I muttered to a slightly confused-looking John.
“…losing a year’s work while they are proven innocent by trial and jury, and you get Johnny Depp, who is still hounded as guilty until proven innocent years after possibly false accusations were made against him, and now Cristiano Ronaldo is in danger of losing his reputation over accusations which seem to have few, if any, grounds. There may also be limited grounds for convicting Brett Kavanaugh as well, I don’t know, but why do those accusations merit only four days, hardly what one could begin to term a proper investigation? It doesn’t take much of a genius to work that one out when you think who his sponsor is. Sexual predators stick together. I see so little, if any, gender bias in my field, but when the top of US politics is currently so riddled with misogyny, who can blame the protesters?” This was clearly another of Mike’s regular questions which did not expect, or receive, an answer, other than nods of agreement and empathy.
James used the slight pause for breath on Mike’s part to order three more beers, which were fortunately in a fridge close at hand because I really didn’t want to miss the next instalment.
“And as we’re talking double standards,” he restarted, although the use of the first-person plural in what, to date, had been a monologue, was questionable, “the Trump praises some small-time politician, what was his name, erm, Greg Gianforte, for violently attacking a British newspaper reporter on the very same day he warns Saudi Arabia of dire consequences if they actually have murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Of course, if they haven’t actually decapitated and dismembered him, then arm sales matter more so he’ll carry on cosying up to the Saudis. All that matters is whatever benefits Trump and be damned to the rest.”
“Where did he say this?” The tone was incredulous, and James and John produced it in perfect harmony.
“At one of his ‘Make America a Joke Again’ rallies.”
“So, it’s official, the lunatics really have taken over the asylum!” James laughed in despair to save himself the bother of crying.
“Well, we knew quite a while back that one had taken over the White House!” John pointed out to murmurs of assent.
“It isn’t only the Big D, though,” said James, seeming to welcome the opportunity to contribute more than usual to one of Mike’s rants. “It’s the family, some of whom seem to think they’re speaking on behalf of America. You know, Jared and Eric.”
“Sounds like a comedy duo,” John said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
“No comment on that one,” said Mike, keen to return to the fray. “But you’re right, they do. What’s it called? Nepotism? Anyway, to endorse what Senior implied, Eric seems to think good relations with the Saudis shouldn’t be lost over the mere murder of a journalist. In other words, millions of pounds of arm sales versus one life.”
“Perhaps not a good time to mention Yemen,” mumbled James. “I suppose it’s a fine line, isn’t it?”
“But one has to be drawn somewhere, don’t you think?” asked John.
“Quite!” Mike agreed emphatically. “Even the head Trump seems to be despairing a little of late, calling the Saudi cover-up one of the worst in history! It strikes me he is actually criticising the cover-up more than the actual crime! I’m just waiting to see how he’ll worm his way out of doing anything positive.”
“Well, I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of that one.” James seemed to be drawing a line under that particular discussion and the three of them spent the next minute or so savouring the evening’s beer, a Birkenhead Pilsner (from somewhere in the Western Cape, not somewhere near Liverpool).
“Did you watch the game last night?” John ventured a change of subject.
“Nah, it was only on Sky, wasn’t it?” responded Mike, still in a bad mood and spreading negativity like salt and sand from a snowplough. “And I’ll be damned if I’m paying to watch something which used to be on, and still should be on, terrestrial TV.” That drew a line under that faint-hearted attempt at a conversation as well.
“Do you remember when you asked if Rees-Mogg would recognise a working-class person?” James decided to try a different tack to maintain some level of interaction, although I considered this to be a very risky choice of topic, hot on the heels of a dissection of Trumpism. I was correct, albeit for a reason I hadn’t foreseen.
“If you have a recording of the conversation, I think you’ll find I said ‘working person’, not ‘working-class person’,” Mike retorted, and it was hard to discern if this was gentle teasing or terse rebuke. The common consensus in my mind decided the latter was rather closer to the truth. “‘Class’ is a word I really try to avoid when talking about people. I mean, do you really want to be identified as a white, middle-class, middle-aged male, or as James? James is James; middle-class male is bullshit and poppycock! Class labels are shit and no one should have one attached to them.” It suddenly seemed to dawn on Mike that he had done little other than rant for some time now, and just perhaps, his two friends had had enough. He smiled for the first time that evening and moderated his tone and decibels just enough for one to notice, although he was still keen to make his point. “Look, as I see it, labels are only used by people who want to be labelled or who want to say usually negative things about other groups. I don’t have anything negative to say about people who might conceivably be considered upper-class or working-class or whatever, so I don’t use those labels. And I certainly don’t want to be labelled myself.”
“Fair enough,” said James, who seemed to have forgotten what he had been trying to say before being reprimanded.
“How would you label me?” Mike asked, something I deemed a dangerous question as he was laying himself open to a range of ridicule. In typical Mike-style, however, he decided not to give anyone the time to formulate and produce a response. “Some people make judgements on cash, some on education, some on accent, and who knows what else? I have a good education, or at least I think so, but my gruff northern accent is considered ‘common’ by some. Why should I be labelled by the way I speak?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said John, who shared a similarly gruff northern accent.
“This is a slight digression,” Mike continued, signalling what we therefore knew would be quite a significant one, “but just look at the situation with actors.” James and John once again exchanged glances to acknowledge we had been correct and once again licked a finger, this time marking a figure ‘two’ in the air. “Apparently, according to perceived wisdom in some misguided areas, a straight actor cannot possibly play a gay or a transgender character because they ‘don’t know what it’s like’. Can you imagine what would be said if that was turned on its head? ‘Oh, sorry, you’re gay and the character is straight’? It doesn’t work that way, does it? The job of an actor is to portray characters; what comes next, ‘I can’t play Henry VIII because I’ve never been a king’?”
“Or ‘Elizabeth II because I’ve never been a queen’,” suggested John. After a moment’s thought, this produced some laughter which may not have been deemed politically correct in some quarters.
