CHAPTER 21
I ended up enjoying the evening, impressed by the stage mechanics, props and scenery rising and falling on cue, and it was clear that the audience were of the same type as I had encountered at a showing of the ‘Rocky Horror’ film, in that they clearly knew every line of the script. When the male lead came out with that line Jacky had quoted, about babies and corners, almost everybody in the theatre cheered.

One moment shocked me, where a female dancer simply lifted a leg so that her hell rested on her partner’s shoulder, then put her body against his chest. There’s flexibility, and then, wow. My sensible brain was wondering how much hip damage she was storing up for later years, but it was bloody impressive.

We’d eaten in a ‘Bella Pasta’ place beforehand, so getting home was simply a matter of booking an Uber to Marylebone and the late train to Wycombe. I usually tried to avoid the Pisshead Express, as it is indeed full of drunks, and that night was no exception. Mary saved the day, pointing down the platform as our train approached.

“I think those Transport Police are getting on this one. Stay by them?”

The plan worked, but we were still held up at one station as they handed a drunk over to colleagues on the platform.. Mary’s humour was dry.

“Welcome to England, Jacky. Not just benches for the wildlife”

“Train’s so full, as well. Not good”

“Did you not see how many people got off before we could board?”

“Yeah; where’d they been?”

“They were going clubbing, Jacky. Be out all night”

That triggered a memory, something she had said in Albany.

“Jacky, remember Albany? All those young girls wearing almost nothing?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“You said something like what’s outside Toronto just being a lot more Toronto. Here, there’s a lot of London as well, but the towns outside the ring road, the M25? They’re cities in their own right, and the rail links are good, so the twenty-four hour party people, they’re only just going in while the drunks are going home. Anyway, nobody can really afford to live in London”

Mary was nodding away, and I realised that she was maybe a little more refreshed than we had realised, so that probably applied to all of us.

“Other cities too, Jacky. Party towns, I mean. Newcastle, Brighton. Sort of places where hen parties go. I hear… Look, Newcastle, it’s almost at the North Pole, and in February, the men, they’re all out on the town in T-shirts, polo shirts, no jackets. I read somewhere that if they take a jacket, the pubs are so packed so sweaty, put your coat down and somebody will take it. Then they drink so much that they can’t feel the cold anyway. The women are the same”

That set me laughing, so I told Jacky about the other yoof fashion of wearing a zipped-up parka in imitation of New York rappers, even in the hottest part of the Summer. and she simply complained that they couldn’t make their minds up.

A cab home from the station for safety, something I was really beginning to appreciate now I was well and truly living on the distaff side. It was a learning process that begun with Carly’s insistence that I didn’t ‘swing any way RFO’, received a push from that ocker trucker and another from the other day’s friendly driver. My male privilege, such as it was, had now vanished. Yes, I know that men are far more likely to be victims of violence, but that doesn’t cover the constant niggle that women get, even if it was unintentional, as with poor stammering Rishi.

Not easy, not easy at all.

The next day was just a supermarket run, followed by Mary’s promised cookery session, which certainly looked better than the cat vomit episode, and we had the Morans over for it, which was actually fun, because the dear old-fashioned pair had brought a Monopoly set over with them, as well as wine, which had Jacky enthusiastically explaining the different streets on her country’s version. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the reason she knew the other set so well was because she was an absolute cut-throat hard-nosed bitch at the game.

Sunday we went over to Watlington and a walk along the edge of the Chilterns, with views out to the chimney at Didcot, lunch in a pub directly opposite an old church, which tickled Jacky, as well as leaving her musing over what qualified as ‘ancient’ in America compared to the UK. I pointed out that even with Stonehenge, we were still newbies.

“Something I picked up in Australia, Jacky. They’ve got stories, oral culture thing, going back nearly sixty thousand years. Stonehenge is only five and a bit”

“Really? Welp, gonna have to find a way of working that into the Montreal thing. Anyway, why’s the pub called after a sailor?”

Teacher Mary again.

“Because nowhere in the whole country is more than a few hours drive from the sea. Not like Canada. Different mindset”

She then spoiled things a little by giving us a lecture on iodine deficiency and cretinism, which didn’t really fit with a pub lunch.

I decided to raise my neckline for the few days I had left at work, so as to spare poor Rishi, and then we were back on the train to Marylebone and then St Pancras, where we took time out so that Jacky could get some shots of the Midland Hotel’s front before my new document got its first use at the French border controls.

Not a flicker of interest.

I had heard of the inflated prices on the Eurostar, so Mary and I had spent an hour in the kitchen putting together an on-board picnic, a large part of which was gone before we reached Folkestone, when my ears popped slightly as the world went dark. Around half an hour later I felt my ears pop again, and a few seconds after that, we emerged into the sunlight once again, and the train perceptibly accelerated to its top speed, I assumed, of around a hundred and eighty miles per hour.

Jacky was glued to the window, but it was all familiar territory for Mary and me, so my eyes were up, looking for any sign of a harrier or buzzard. No luck.

We were in Brussels on time, and the change was smooth, the local train to Brugge being far more rewarding for views, and I had to remind myself that Mary’s comment about the sea could just as easily apply to cultures. Ignoring Quebec, to paraphrase Jacky, what was outside her home was just an awful lot of Canada. Here, we were passing through two language zones and close to a third, all in around three hours.

The station was on the edge of the ‘not new bit not quite as old as the middle bit’ part of town, so we grabbed a taxi to the Augustin, our little hotel, a neat four-storey building on a quiet canalside street.

It was a repeat of Bath, in many ways, for we simply checked in, dumped our bags, and set off for the Burg and the Markt, Jacky’s eyes everywhere as she tried to absorb every sight at once. Mary towed her to one of the cafes, where pavement tables spread under the shadow of the bell tower and other soaring bits of eye candy. I ordered a round of coffees in my best Dutch, only to have the waiter reply in fluent English. When a different waiter brought the cups, Jacky tried again in her French, which brought a snort of laughter and more rapid-fire French in reply, before the second waiter also switched to English.

“That explains your weird accent! I do not mean to be rude, but that’s what we call Star Trek”

All of us put on a puzzled look, and he grinned, then, in an artificially gruff voice, said, “It’s French, Jim, but not as we know it. Where are you two from?”

“A little to the North West of London”

“Okay. What have you come for—the chocolate?”

Jacky nodded.

“And the beer!”

“Well, of course. Nobody can come to Belgium without trying the beer. Best to start with the weaker ones, like a tripel”

The cheeky sod. I spotted a name tag.

“Dirk?”

“Yes? That’s me!”

“We are Ellie, Mary, Jacky. And I have cycled through Belgium many times. I know exactly what a tripel is, as well as Forbidden Fruit and Death’s Triumph. Nice try, no cigar!”

He grinned, cheekily.

“We have to entertain ourselves, ja? We know we’ll get caught out. Had a customer once, with his girlfriend, and he spoke really good Dutch, not Vlaams, and French and German too, so I’m making sure he knows we’re matched, ja? Then he beats me”

“How?”

“A coach party came in. From Wales. That was too much for me”

A thought struck me.

“Were they cycling?”

“Yeah, loads of bags on their bikes”

“And was he bald, with a reddish beard? She dark hair, curls, white streak up the front?”

“Shit! You know them?”

“Yes, I, well, sort of. I knew them through a cycling forum”

“If you see them, say hi from Dirk”

“I’m afraid, well, Lana… Lana went first. Stomach cancer. Arthur came down with a myeloma only two years later. Sorry. If it makes your memories better, on a good day he could do ten languages. Had a real gift, just not with his health”

“So sorry I brought that up, Ellie”

I looked around the Markt square, felt the sun on my shoulders, and the presence of my wife and, surely, best friend, with another close by, and started counting blessings yet again.

“Not a worry, my friend. Sometimes it is nice to be reminded of how lucky some of us are”