The cafe with five faces, p.44
The Café with Five Faces, page 44
“And then there were the smart western shops; I suppose, by ‘western’, I mean upmarket and expensive, although some were western-owned for sure. And on some spare ground, there was a makeshift volleyball court with more than the usual number of players, all males in full Islamic dress, not thobes, but I’m not sure of the name for them. So different from the last game I saw on the sands of some sun-soaked Mediterranean shoreline.”
“I can imagine,” Lois said. “Excuse my tangential aside and ignorance, but is Karachi by the sea?”
“Ignorance excused, as I didn’t know either, until I looked at a map,” Matthew responded with unusual empathy. “And yes, it is. I was able to squeeze in a wander on the beach for an hour or so the day before I left. Despite attempts to pressure me into rides on an assortment of quad bikes, horses and highly decorated camels, I managed to have a very pleasant walk. I went as far as where a small stream crossed the beach, which was a little too deep for my new shoes. It whiffed a bit and I suspected sewage, until I turned around and realised I’d trodden in some fresh and fragrant camel dung.” Cue more evidence of amusement from the female in attendance. “For the most part – after the initial transport offers, anyway – despite the fact I obviously stuck out like a sore thumb, I was largely ignored, until I was pestered by two sisters, aged somewhere between five and ten, who I suspect were harassing me for money but, as they were relatively well-dressed and prattling at me in Urdu, I couldn’t be fully sure.”
“Aw, a romantic stroll in the waves!” Lois had some strange ideas when it came to affairs of the heart.
“Well, it could have been, had I been with a lady of choice, but I wasn’t with a lady of any description.”
“I bet you were carrying your laptop bag for company, weren’t you?” accused Lois. “With the usual no idea if you were in a safe place or not!”
“I hadn’t got much idea where I was at all. I would’ve been completely all at sea without my phone.”
“Which you were probably also waving around for all to see.” Lois completed Matthew’s sentence in some despair. The victim of her disdain declined to answer, so we all assumed he was guilty as charged. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he had been a little naïve in such circumstances, despite all his experience. Street savvy wasn’t a term you would easily collocate with dear old Matthew, although thinking back, it was Mark who had been caught standing on a street corner at ten o’clock at night in a dodgy part of Manilla carrying an expensive camera and a map.
Matthew diverted attention back to the events rather than the analysis. “I took an Uber back to the hotel and my driver’s English was the most unintelligible I heard during my week there. This didn’t stop him talking about religion and money at some length. At least, I think that’s what he was talking about. To say the car creaked and groaned like an old banger would be doing some old bangers something of an injustice, so I couldn’t hear all that well.”
“You’re getting old.” I got the idea Lois was taking advantage of Matthew’s obvious fatigue to ladle on some abuse with minimum risk of a sharply worded retort.
Matthew feigned further deafness and ignored the insult. “For some reason, I felt safe in that near-wreck of a car, even in the middle of the horrendous rush-hour traffic, which left this overwhelming sense of toxic exhaust fumes weighing heavily on my internal breathing apparatus. It was like being in Hanoi or Saigon, but instead of a million mopeds, there were all sorts of vehicles manipulating their way into and out of junctions.”
“Did you go out in the evening?” asked Mark.
“No, I stayed in the hotel and either partook of the wonderful Pakistani buffet on the top floor with views of the city lights and absolutely fantastic fish curries, or had coffee and cake in the café downstairs.”
“I thought you looked a bit chubby,” remarked Lois, a trifle unkindly.
Matthew decided he was in no position to argue. “The café was, shall we say, different,” he went on. “I ordered a cappuccino and a piece of cheesecake, expecting the nice large coffee I had seen a picture of, along with a miniscule slice of cake, as seen in the display cabinet. What I got, for the princely sum of around £3.50, was all three slices of cheesecake which had been on display, along with a small and pre-sweetened cappuccino.” I recoiled at the sugary reference. “It’s OK, Kal, I’m never going to ask you for one!” I wiped a metaphorical bead of stress-induced sweat from my forehead in mock relief.
“And that was the end of the evening’s entertainment?” asked Mark, with a hint of disappointment.
“Pretty much,” said Matthew, starting to look a little self-conscious.
“Oh, don’t tell me!” exclaimed Lois. “You went to bed with a corny American Christmas romcom, didn’t you?”
“I think I need another coffee, Kal. Anything for you two?”
“We’ll share another Chemex,” said Mark, smiling at the woeful evasion technique which had not a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.
I left Matthew alone to bear the brunt of his friends’ ever so slightly more than gentle teasing. Everyone has their guilty pleasures, and I don’t believe there is anything amiss in men watching romcoms, chick flicks or whatever you want to term them. I’ve been known to avail myself of such visual treats. Quite frequently, actually. So there!
The ‘relative’ peace and quiet of Clifton Beach on Karachi’s Arabian Sea coast with a sample of its array of public transport options.
2019: 66: Cape Town: Gutted, Trussed, Stuffed, Roasted, Carved Up and Devoured
“So here it is, Merry Christmas!” Mike, tunelessly, sounded about as festive as a turkey on Boxing Day, having been gutted, trussed, stuffed, roasted, carved up and devoured, before having its carcass drowned in a pan of boiling water to eke out every last ounce of taste and shred of flesh. There was a metaphor in there somewhere for post-Brexit Britain, should it ever be mistakenly forced upon us. And it was only the beginning of December.
“Cheer up!” encouraged James with a level of sincerity which would have struggled to register zero point five on a scale for the said personality trait, were such an instrument of measurement invented into being.
John then popped his head around the door, presumably hoping to have his own downcast mood lifted by the fellowship of good companions. I shook my head in a none-too-subtle attempt to dissuade his further encroachment into the room, but all was in vain and he was quickly sucked into the prevailing ever-decreasing circles of despondency. This descent served to confirm my worst fears that my cut-price attempts to bring some Christmas joy into my establishment, courtesy of an artificial tree and a few fairy lights, had failed dismally in the face of formidable odds.
“Do I need to ask what’s up?” queried the new arrival, suspecting that he didn’t.
“Election season,” said James, the slightly less gloomy of the twosome already being propped up by the bar.
“Ah,” acknowledged John, making a considerable effort to simulate even mild surprise. “And there was me thinking it was Advent. Three beers, then, Kal, and the sooner the better by the looks on the faces of these two.” I obliged as speedily as a well-poured beer allows.
“To vote tactically, or not to vote tactically: that is the question,” began Mike, as dramatically as one might anticipate from the framework of such a renowned theatrical line. “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of voting for a party you detest, or to take democratic arms against a sea of neo-fascist lunacy.” I rather doubted Mike had come up with this woeful adaptation of the Bard’s finest work on the spot and mused as to the quantity of creative juices which might have been expended in its composition. I soon gave up.
James should have known better but, overwhelmed by the artistic licence taken by his friend, it seemed he temporarily didn’t, as he proceeded to open the proverbial can of slimy earth-dwelling critters with something approaching gay abandon. “Care to explain?”
Mike, obviously, was only too happy to elaborate and, having performed my serving duties, I pulled up a chair and made myself comfortable, knowing this was unlikely to be perfunctory.
“It’s just such a dilemma, isn’t it?” This was evidently not a real question, so it remained unanswered so as to allow the monologue to unfold unfettered. “I’ve supported the Tories since long before I was allowed anywhere near a ballot box. But because the Conservatives have drifted so far to the right and have now become so indistinguishable from the Brexit Party that even Farridge has all but endorsed Johnson’s manifesto, and that other piece of ultra-right-wing thuggery who likes to be known as Tommy Robinson has also bawled ‘vote Johnson’ propaganda, I simply cannot do so anymore.”
The recently delivered and pleasantly chilled beer lubricated his vocal cords before he resumed. “This year, as you know, I switched allegiance and joined the Independent Group for Change. Now, we have a general election with just four choices for our local electorate. I can’t vote for my own party because we don’t have a candidate, nor the resources, to fund one. And before you ask, yes, I did volunteer to stand. I can’t vote Tory, because the sitting MP is a Johnson yes-boy, primarily interested in furthering his own career. So that leaves three others. There’s a Liberal Democrat who, historically, has very little chance of winning in this area, perhaps even less so given the fact that someone has been dumb enough to put himself forward as a member of the Liberal Party, so splitting the third-party vote even more, although perhaps not very significantly. And finally, there is the Labour Party candidate, who does have a chance of winning, and all recommended tactical voting websites dictate that I should vote for him. But I know so little about him; crucially, I know even less about his views on Brexit than I do Corbyn’s and, let’s face it, those remain well-shrouded in the clouds of mystery.”
“That reminds me,” interrupted James, with what momentarily might have been regarded as an attempt to lift the morale of the gathering, “have you heard the one about Corbyn coming off the fence?”
“No,” replied Mike doubtfully, wondering if, just perhaps, he had missed a significant and somewhat startling piece of news.
“No wonder, it hasn’t happened yet,” James said, as if delivering the punchline of a very poor joke, and one which was sadly lacking in taste and timeliness. “Every time he wobbles, some ego-centric bully called Shame-Us Milne pushes him back on with a bit more glue.”
“Ah, Labour’s answer to the evil known as Dominic Cummings,” sighed Mike, although he did raise something which bore a passing resemblance to a wry smile.
“So, what are you going to do?” asked John, bringing the conversation back down to earth. “The same question applies to all of us, really, I suppose.”
“Well, let’s drop the Liberal candidate as a shaggy-dog story,” reasoned Mike. “Is it better to vote for a party you have forever disliked – that, for me, is Labour; for a policy which will ruin and humiliate your country, both domestically and on the international stage, and which you therefore dislike even more – that’s Brexit through the Tories; or for a party with infinitely the most sensible approach to Brexit, in other words, binning it – that’s the Lib Dems. The latter seems the obvious option, but, under the current electoral system, it carries a substantial risk of a wasted vote, thus increasing the chances of the formerly pro-Remain but now Leave fanatic getting re-elected?”
By Mike’s standards, this was quite a concise statement of the acute predicament being faced by many of those in our constituency, including most, if not all, of my customers, and, no doubt, by millions of other People’s Vote and Remain supporters throughout the length and breadth of the country.
For a brief moment in time, all you could hear in the Cape Town room was the thoughtful sipping of beer and, had someone been careless enough to drop a pin, you would have heard that too.
“Going back to what you might have intended as a joke, James,” said John, with a dollop of judicious sarcasm and a somewhat tenuous sense of continuity, “Johnson and Corbyn: why are either of them in their positions, when both are under the control of extremist, unelected master manipulators like Cummings and Milne? Both are unfit to lead, as recognised even by moderate members of their own parties.”
It’s a feature of the growing instability and insanity in the political world that many such direct questions simply don’t have answers, rational or otherwise. How does one explain democracy when Trump is elected even though losing the popular vote, Johnson becomes prime minister without a popular vote at all, and Putin remains leader of Russia because everyone is instructed how to vote?
John’s question was met with the same blank, unknowing stares which one would expect to greet the three modern-day enigmata presented above.
“One has to wonder,” Mike said, by way of tweaking the direction of the interrogation, “how many prime ministers the UK actually has. ‘One’ is not the most plausible answer. Johnson is the official postholder for reasons which are lost on most of the world’s informed thinkers, but there is also Farridge, an individual without any political merit and punching well above his weight, who is having his strings well and truly yanked by the third member of the probable triumvirate, the soon-to-be-impeached, one hopes, Donald Trump. And following another line, Johnson, as you say, is a mere marionette of the deeply sinister Cummings. It’s an appalling situation for a country which used to be seen as a leader of democracy. If you need some kind of evidence, look at the Brexit Party’s stance in the coming election. Farridge says they’re standing in every seat. The Trump ‘suggests’ otherwise. Johnson won’t play. So, Farridge withdraws all his candidates in seats held by Tory Brexiteers to make sure the Trump’s favourites win.”
“Well, we all know the Farridge sort,” agreed James. “Tries to look a lot more powerful than his position as a minority politician deserves when he’s really a pathetic puppet of the Trump and his bid to get his claws into an unstable and much-weakened Britain if Brexit goes ahead.”
“Why Johnson, though? Why Corbyn?” repeated John, apparently still waiting for and, if the panic in his voice was anything to go by, rather desperately craving an answer to his question.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” asked Mike, once again rhetorically, as well as evasively. “The good leaders of an appropriate age which we have are all in the minority parties: Soubry, Lucas, Sturgeon and, perhaps, Swinson, interestingly all women who are being kept on the side-lines by some of the major television companies, leaving live debates to be fought out by two extremist, ageing, we-love-Brexit men.”
“Although you are guessing Corbyn’s position there,” chimed in James, by way of a reminder.
“True,” acknowledged Mike, pausing to savour another mouthful of a rather nice South African bottled beer, which precipitated a further slight digression. “But, when all is said and done, the majority of us don’t want Brexit anymore at all. And we certainly don’t want a Brexit deal brokered by one of the most untrustworthy men in British Conservative history.”
“So says every poll bar one in the past two years,” said John supportively. “Furthermore, nor do we want a government led by someone whose attitude to climate change seems to be, completely coincidentally, of course, along the same lines of denial as those of the Trump.”
“The icemen Channel 4 used to represent Johnson and Farridge had more warmth, honesty and personality than the real versions,” commented Mike, with reference to a recent televised debate dedicated to climate-related issues, which those of a far right-wing persuasion had declined to attend. This provoked a muted chorus of sardonic laughter.
“How do you feel about your former party now?” asked James, which struck me as a rather needless question, as Mike had made been making his opinions as clear as the most sparkling crystal, and with regular repetition, for knocking on for two years.
Mike, however, as always, was quite content to be given the slightest excuse to deliver yet another diatribe on the subject. “I mean, I was fifty years a Tory, right, but I’ve been driven out of the party by its suicidal attitude to the European Union but, most of all, because it’s allowed itself to be dominated by a very small ultra-right-wing minority. The Conservative Party still claim, somehow, to be a broad church, but, unfortunately, that church has now repositioned itself and narrowed its scope so much that it includes most of the principles of the neo-fascist Brexit Party, while excluding those of a more liberal persuasion such as those espoused by the wonderful Michael Heseltine, John Major and Kenneth Clarke, people who actually understand what being a Conservative with a capital ‘C’ really means. As for the sheep who blindly follow Johnson, well, even a very long-serving Tory MP, who has only ever voted against the whip once, referred to them as ‘ambitious little shits’, and I rather think he was being quite kind and reserved in expressing that point of view.
“Just how can a party with centuries of experience in government put itself into such a ridiculous position? Deliver Brexit and most people will never forgive them for screwing up the country and its future. Don’t deliver Brexit and they’ll lose votes to the even more extreme right. It’s a lose-lose situation. The party’s over. And one of the saddest aspects of all this is that David Cameron, who was a half-decent prime minister, and probably better, will be forever remembered solely for breaking both the party and the country by trying to appease the effing European Reform Group.”
Mike had to pause to draw breath and drink beer, in one order or the other, but preferably not both at the same time, as had happened on a memorable previous occasion. Both James and John opened their mouths to speak but decided against when it became obvious the orator had, by no means, finished. “I mean,” he protested, progressively winding himself up with each passing second, “I’m not even sure what the parties are campaigning on this time around. In fact, is anyone campaigning on anything other than the Brexit issue, a point which indicates just how much more sensible, not to say conclusive, a Final Say referendum would have been? I think they probably are, but stopping it is the only issue which matters to me and to many others; I’m not remotely interested in anything else because Brexit, should it happen, will destroy too much and therefore make many other proposed policies redundant or impossible to fund.”
