My darling Jabu

Just as I was beginning to think you were a fictional creation of your magazine, I bumped into someone who claims to be your sister.

I met Lucille on the first tee of the Wanderers golf course. I was intending to play a round on my own, but there was a group of hackers ahead who were taking forever to get along. So I was delighted when she arrived and asked if she could join me. When we made our introductions she asked if I was the one corresponding with you and when I replied in the affirmative she revealed, in her peculiar inflection, that she was one of you ‘sistas’.

While we waited, the morning cold relieved by a few sips from the flask of single malt I carry in my bag, she told me you are acquiring growing fame as the snake whisperer of the Bushveld. She says you are studying the character traits of cobras to give guidance to businesspeople negotiating government tenders. What a novel approach to a slippery process!

Well, it appears the whisky went straight to your sister’s head because she took out a very expensive looking driver and teed a pink ball. Are you her coach? I ask because she grasped the instrument as if holding an angry python and proceeded to wrestle it in what I can only imagine was a warm-up routine. I must declare that I was feeling some trepidation at this point because the group before us had not made much headway and I feared if she made any sort of connection with the poor ball that she would seriously imperil them.

But I am not one to interfere. Oh, how I regret it now because this was the start of an awful day that the more I told myself could not get worse continued on a merry slither downhill! Lucille’s first attempt to club (this is the only possible description) the ball gave me some succour as it remained completely unscathed on its perch. With a giggle she again went through the python strangulation routine before striking at the ball.

This time it took off beautifully straight, but as it reached its zenith it began to veer horribly left towards one of the preceding group and struck him nastily in what appeared somewhere below the midriff. He went down with a shriek, holding his hands round his nether regions. He was still in that position when I arrived to administer a sedative from the flask. Lucille, in the mean time, had taken a position lower down to inspect the damage.

‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she said, her hand to her mouth. ‘Is there anything I can do to ease the pain?’

‘No thanks, just give me a few minutes, I’ll be fine,’ he grimaced, still holding his hands between his legs.

But Lucille, being the kindly sort, took it upon herself to massage the wounded area for him.

‘Does that feel better?’ she asked, a tear running down her cheek.

‘Well, yes, that’s pretty good,’ he admitted. ‘But my thumb still hurts like crazy.’

Lucille was in such a state that there was no way we could continue so we retired to the clubhouse. There I comforted her with a few more single malts from the well stocked bar before I had to leave as I had agreed to meet my old friend, Archibald, at the Radium Beer Hall in Orange Grove. I packed my faux leopard skin golf bag into the boot of my pink Cadillac and sadly took leave of your sister, who now seemed much cheered.

I arrived a little early at the Radium so as to reminisce about this wonderful institution and catch up with my old friend and owner Manny Cabeleira. Listed as one of the world’s top twenty bars, it was founded in 1929 as the Radium Tearoom. Then it lived the double life of elegant European-style café and illicit speakeasy, until it acquired a liquor licence 13 years later. Shortly afterwards, it changed its name to the Radium Beer Hall, becoming a men-only, sawdust and spit-on-the-floor type of place.

At the time, it was given the scarred old bar counter from the demolished Ferreirastown Hotel, atop which the fiery ‘Pick-handle Mary’ had inflamed rebels during the 1922 Rand Revolt. In 1985 the bar was acquired by Manny, who converted the adjoining courtyard to a Portuguese restaurant and welcomed back women. The pressed ceilings were painted olive green, and the walls in the Portuguese national colours. Since then many patrons have been rendered brain-dead by the copious firewaters on offer and the awful jokes of the proprietor.

‘Trinity,’ roared Manny as I entered. ‘Do you know I recently got divorced? My ex said she’d never have married me if she’d known how stupid I was. I replied, you should have known how stupid I was the moment I proposed. By the way, Archie phoned to say something’s come up and he won’t be able to make it. The only thing surprising about that is anything still able to come up for Archie.’

Archibald is normally a restraining influence. Not being so fettered I decided to make the most of being stood up and took a seat at the bar. I ordered chicken giblets and a flagon of Catembe, a mixture of red wine, Coke and slices of lemon, which is perfect for dousing the flames of the napalm-like peri-peri sauce dispensed from old tequila bottles.

The giblet was tender and the pungent, fiery sauce supreme. I took a long drink, then another, as my nose started to run and perspiration beaded my forehead. Liqueurs were plonked before me by Manny, who said, ‘On the house.’ But I was starting to lose my bearings and I was no longer sure if this residence was stationary or moving. I clamped one hand firmly on the counter and the other on the derriere of a very beautiful young man next to me decorated with a pink boa.

‘I’m gay,’ he hissed in my ear.

Well, he should have told that to himself because he was one of the unhappiest looking people I have ever met. But please bear with me from here because the sequence of events is somewhat hazy. Feral Cheryl, one of the waitresses, convinced me that I needed exercise to clear my head, which at the time seemed a jolly good idea. I somehow managed to get on the bar and there performed a cancan to the Fat Sound big band that had struck up in the restaurant.

The remorse and embarrassment I felt as I went down were indescribable. ‘We have to get her to a doctor,’ I heard Manny shout as I was lifted from the floor, carried to the Cadillac and laid on the back seat. Manny took the wheel and I recall shrieking as we took a sharp turn, accelerated up a rise and slid to a halt. He helped me out and into an institutional green emergency room.

I had hardly sat when a hysterical nun burst from a cubicle and ran screaming and shouting towards the exit. A pallid doctor, wearing a loose pile of uncoordinated clothing, his red eyes scorched into his forehead, appeared and called frantically to her. A flustered nurse pushed past, then turned angrily on the doctor.

‘How dare you tell her she’s pregnant?’ she puffed angrily.

‘Well, it cured her hiccups,’ snorted the doctor, pulling a rectal thermometer from behind his ear and attempting to write a note with it. He looked at it and pondered, ‘I wonder where I left my pen?’

By some miracle I found the strength to stand, tugged at Manny’s arm and hurried out.

To your health

Trinity Crimp