Halfway to Africa

by James Lawrence

6. TWO WEDDINGS, A FUNERAL AND A DIABETIC

I’ve never understood why a wedding is widely hailed as a joyous occasion, unless it is in the macabre ethos of the gallows mob baying at some hapless innocent on his way to the scaffold. I’ve been shanghaied into attending a good number, and am always struck by the tight anal retentiveness, vituperative backstabbing and general ill humour, all masked behind a ghastly rictus grin, that characterises them. And with apologies where appropriate, I have to say this is almost exclusively a female phenomenon. Men of my acquaintance mostly detest the whole b---s-aching cavalcade, but for women it is a very, very big deal indeed. The stench of female fear – that every other bitch will completely out-shine her, and that she will be the target of much clandestine sniggering – permeates the weary charade for weeks in advance. “We only do it to please you men!” is arguably the most breathtaking travesty of the truth in all of human congress. “What would it do to your precious male ego if I turn up looking like a tramp?” Yeah, right. All my fault again.

As the nightmare approaches and panic mounts, the long-suffering male is dragged ever closer under the grill. He is cajoled into a hair-cut, new (or at least polished) shoes, new (or at least dry-cleaned and crisply pressed) suit with sensible shirt and tie, and is likely to be on the end of a stern warning to smile serenely throughout and not do anything embarrassing.

I would like to propose a new custom for the nuptials: at the peak moment of hysteria (usually when climbing into the car which She has spotted has not been cleaned to Her satisfaction and will therefore indelibly blemish Her scandalously expensive frock), the gentleman should administer a good, hard slap (in a caring way, of course) to calm the lady down.

No: if it comes to a choice between wedding and funeral, give me the funeral every time. Whereas one marks the end of all suffering and the beginning of eternal peace, the other does precisely the opposite. At a funeral guests are demure and respectful, striving conscientiously, as they do, to present a picture of woebegone anguish, of bearing the unbearable. Nobody has anything unkind to say about the deceased or anyone else. It’s all over mercifully fast, and it’s uniquely the occasion on which my normal demeanour – that of miserable git – is not only tolerated, but positively encouraged. And then there is the simple, cathartic pleasure of reading the tombstones, in the spirit that, however fed-up one might be, there are always others worse off.

In fact it is just this innocent pastime which has never failed to provide me light relief from the grisly events unfolding around me at a wedding. But one thing has always puzzled me: where do they bury the sh--heads? I mean, all the inscriptions read like: “Devoted father and husband ….. Heaven has another angel …. Heart of purest gold” and so on. I’m sure they were all wonderful human beings in their time, but the point is, a lot of people I know are sh—heads, and they die as well. Where are they buried? Are there alternative cemeteries especially for sh--heads, hidden away at the back of the other cemeteries, or on remote, windswept hillsides? There all the tombstones are inscribed with things like: Nasty little racist bigot… Venomous bitch who gloated over the misfortunes of others… Drunken wastrel who beat his wife and children, may he burn in hell for ever… A tedious blob with all the personality of a stick of celery … Much beloved son, sorely missed, drove like a c--t.“

I could have done with this pleasant diversion at my first Portuguese wedding, but, unlike the more pragmatic English, they keep such salutary reminders of death well away from the churches. It could have gone either way: after a 160kph white-knuckle dash down the motorway weaving behind C’s nephew, stopping only for a very leisurely coffee break, we arrived an hour early but glad to be alive. Never mind: I was relishing this privileged opportunity to experience authentic Portuguese culture, from which I would emerge a wiser and worldlier man. This is what foreign travel is all about.

Forty-five minutes standing in a broiling Lisbon street made me, for the first time in my life, pleased to enter a church. Inside was welcomingly cool and dungeon-like, with, looming over us, angry gargoyles and the usual images of naked men being tortured to death. Sceptic though I might be, I had to admit: as a backdrop to this happy event, no plain registry office could hope to compete.

The bride was, I hardly need say, very, very late. The organist’s wave of relief (his repertoire having been exhausted) was plainly audible in the rude interruption of a meandering rendition of one of Bach’s lesser known works by the exuberant hammering out of the opening bars of Mendelssohn. It rolled over the fidgety congregation, causing it to swivel to witness the bride enter on the arm of her brother.

To my surprise, the ceremony was, like the buttock-numbing pews, little different from the many I had endured back in Blighty, right down to the screaming baby at the back. All it lacked was the vicar’s pre-emptive bol----ing of the congregation for throwing confetti at the end. (Here they use eco-friendly rice, which the pigeons are pleased to clean-up, their droppings standing in for the confetti by staining the path.) But he did convey to the assembly his profound personal euphoria at this union made before God, and reminded them of three unseen guests: Jesus (who was Himself a guest at a wedding in Canaan), and the happy couple’s respective fathers. Two fathers and a Holy Ghost were now side-by-side, showering blessings on the marriage, clinking glasses and generally exalting in the highest, notwithstanding being dead.

At first, the reception gave me cause to hope. Through a door in an unlikely wall, we entered into the dreamy garden of what had once been the stately home of a very wealthy and important man. In the shade of giant Cedars of Lebanon we sipped the champagne and orange juice proffered on silver platters by respectful lackeys in penguin suits, and tossed little pieces of smoked salmon to the koi carp circling in the ornamental pond. Manicured lawns swept down to the grand marquee, where I was delighted to come across a young quartet earnestly playing gracious chamber music. I was especially moved by the cellist, locked as she was in such studious concentration, so petite and somehow vulnerable. I wanted to plant a fond paternal kiss on her brow and reassure her that everything was all right. I can be a sentimental old fool, sometimes.

The food was classy and the wine kept coming. Life felt good; I even began to smile and talk to people. Though I laid it down very early on that dancing was out of the question, through the blur of alcoholic contentment I could actually see myself pulling off a soft-shoe shuffle if called upon.

Then came the entertainment. I think he must have been thrown out of Club 18-30 for vulgarity. His warm-up was to get the groom and best man to perform a striptease, sparing their modesty by allowing them to keep their underpants on. The disbelief spreading over the faces of the seniors present was diverting but not enough to hold me: leaving instructions to call me if this should turn into a female striptease, I stormed out, head high, dignity in tact.

Anxious to put safe distance between myself and this grinning fun-person, I stumbled into a small square of faded elegance, with the inevitable dingy café – something like a station waiting room but without the glitz. I took refuge there for as long as I dared. After forty minutes of glorious freedom, I was summoned. It seemed my rudeness had been noticed and commented upon.

Hands in pockets, I dawdled back to the marquee to find them all dancing the Conga and strode straight out again. With strengthened resolve and sense of righteousness, I trod my way back to the café.

This time I was joined at table by a malodorous gentleman of advanced years, who struck up a conversation; or, I should say, monologue.

“Yes, this was once the most sought-after area of Lisbon,” he opened, after the preliminary courtesies. “And that grand house belonged to [very famous man whose name I’m damned if I can remember]. In fact this whole district belonged to him. He was a great man, one of the most important in our history, a most versatile and learned man (he designed the house himself), a man of vast wealth and influence. Foreign princes and nobles would stay at that house. Great balls were held, and Portugal’s finest musicians would perform there. It has been painted by [some famous artist whose name I’m damned if I can remember]. Ah, we’re only very small, but Portugal has a great history, a remarkable culture.”

He paused as if to reflect, or perhaps he was listening to ‘The Birdie Song’, which had suddenly erupted halfway through his dissertation, and was now booming out over the rooftops into the balmy twilight.

I bought the old boy a drink and sauntered out into the night. There wasn’t even a graveyard nearby to lift my spirits, so I plodded the deserted streets for a while. There came another summons from C: “You can come back now. The adult disco just finished. They’re setting up the children’s disco.”

As anticipated, I was on the end of a savage tongue-lashing that evening, and the rest of the night passed in bad-tempered silence. But I can hold out a sprig of hope to mankind everywhere: after C had conferred with other alpha females present, and discovered they shared my views, I received an apology. Now, as you will know, this is a rare and precious thing, coming from a woman, but this was of another order of magnitude, totally without precedent: I got it in writing! I promise you, I am not making this up. Even now it hangs, framed, on the wall over my desk, as surreal as anything by Dali.

I believe it was due to a lingering sense of guilt that, some years later when I came to be invited to my second Portuguese wedding, I was cut some considerable slack. C’s largesse even extended to tacit permission to wear my white tuxedo. (I think I look as suave as hell in it, but apparently to Portuguese eyes it’s borderline gay.)

Apart from the priest and the bride, I was the only one in that church wearing white, which, along with the fact that I was a clear foot taller than everyone around me, made it awkward to render myself invisible, in the way I used to at school assembly in the distant past. In fact I must have stood out like a yashmak in a nudist colony.

The young lady at my side noticed that I hadn’t a clue what was going on, and couldn’t even manage the sign of the cross, which the rest of the congregation was executing every few minutes with polished professionalism and in perfect unison.

“I’m English,” I apologised.

“So you’re Orthodox?”

“Er, no: Protestant, actually.”

“Ah, you’re an atheist.”

This set me thinking about the whole business of The Reformation. How many brave men and women had gone to the stake to free England from the yoke of Vatican tyranny? Yet here was I, right in the thick of enemy territory. It felt treasonable. As soon as the padre’s back was turned I stole out of a side door and lit a cigar.

In solidarity with those earlier martyrs, I suffered the 39ºc heat for as long as any man reasonably could, and then repaired to the bar across the street. The exclusively male clientele turned as one to stare as I entered. As a foreigner, one gets used to that. But this time the eyes were fixed for that much longer than normal, and I thought I detected in them the trace of a smirk. Only when I caught sight of my reflection in the optics mirror did I remember the white tux. I toughed it out, returning their gaze, steely-jawed, over a glass of sparkling mineral water (raspberry flavour).

By the time the church had spewed out its contents, and the idiot photographer had put everyone in a filthy mood by keeping them out in the furious sun far too long, I was beginning to wish I’d braved one of those tired pastries back at the café. Never mind: I happened to know the bride’s father was as loaded as he was generous, and a bacchanalian feast awaited.

The bride, who had toiled four years for her diploma in tourism, had omitted to disclose in the finely wrought, gold-embossed invitation card the whereabouts of the reception hotel. “Follow that car!” I was ordered. “They know where it is.”

So, in a convoy that must have been at least thirty cars deep, we snaked our way through the infernally hot countryside. “How much further?” I asked, after about forty-five minutes of this.

Nobody knew, but the words were barely out of my mouth when we pulled up alongside the lead car. The helpless shrug told me they were lost. If I’d known they were two twenty-year-old females, I would have headed off in the opposite direction. Thirty cars stood motionless in the shimmering heat, like wagons in a circle, and twenty-nine mobile phones were pressed to ears.

C was oddly reluctant to phone for directions, so rather than sit there like a crash dummy, I explored a promising looking road – practically a dual carriageway. It petered out five hundred metres towards nowhere. On returning, we found all the others had disappeared. I suddenly felt very, very lonely.

With C still stubbornly refusing to phone, we circled around aimlessly for about fifteen minutes, then suddenly picked up a wedding cortege. “That’s it!” exclaimed C’s sister. “I recognise some of those faces.”

So, mightily relieved and smiling benignly, we weaved through the countryside, tooting horns and cheering at passers-by, for about twenty minutes, before pulling up outside the wrong hotel. It was another wedding.

I thought I’d toss a little levity into the ring, to relieve the tension a bit. “Can’t we just stay here?” I pleaded. “One wedding reception is much the same as the next.”

“No, I don’t think we should do that,” C and her sister solemnly demurred.

In taut silence we retraced our route. Twenty minutes later we found ourselves back where we had become separated. There was only one road left to try; I went for it. Squealing rubber and a blasting horn told me I’d made an honest mistake.

Shaken though I was by this very near miss, I summoned up all my reserves of tact and patience, and said far more sweetly than anyone had a right to expect in the circumstances: “Darling, I think before we move another centimetre you should phone to find out exactly where it is we are meant to be going.”

“There’s no need for that tone of voice!” C snapped back, but she phoned anyway. “The hotel is in Nelas,” she announced. “On the Viseu Road. And they’re all waiting for us.”

“No, I’m pretty sure the Prince Hotel is on the Nelas Road in Viseu,” said sister.

My chin almost hit the steering wheel. “You mean you’ve known all along?”

Ducking my accusing eye, sister defended herself with a defiant: “Well, I know where it is, but not how to get there. You should have followed the others.”

Yes, I was beginning to see how this was all my fault.

“I’m sure he said Viseu Road, Nelas,” chirped C.

Sister volunteered to ask a gentleman standing outside his house. They were soon deep in conversation, heads nodding, arms pointing. I took the opportunity of this pause to weigh my options. Top of the list was to drop them at a bus-stop and burn rubber for home. But looking increasingly attractive was to leave them with the car key, wander off into the bush, find myself a derelict house and live simply off the land, foraging for food the rest of my life.

Sister returned to the car and we looked expectantly to her. “He doesn’t know,” she said.

I think I should draw a veil over the rest of the journey. Suffice to say we pulled up outside the hotel (which, in case you’re interested, is on the Nelas Road in Viseu) two hours and fifteen minutes after leaving the church. With the foresight that comes only with many years of bitter experience, before I allowed my passengers to exit I made them confirm out loud that I had not once lost my temper or even raised my voice. To my surprise, this they readily did.

So, after parking the car, I strolled into the lobby expecting to be greeted as The Serene One, a veritable Tibetan monk. Instead, C gripped me by the arm and said: “Are you all right? My sister said she has never seen you so nervous. It’s not normal – we think you must be diabetic.”

I went for a quiet lie-down for an hour.

You will have heard it said that people starving to death pass through a phase of euphoria and light-headedness, when the world seems unreal, nebulous, intangible, and they are prone to fits of hysterical laughter for no apparent reason. Well, it’s true. I dimly recall floating across the dining room, with no sensation of having any legs beneath me, towed like a child’s balloon past tables of concerned, upturned faces. The kitchen and waiting staff had been notified to serve me only food suitable for diabetics, which I duly shoved in my mouth. It all tastes the same to me.

Everybody else had finished eating, the band had struck up with “Twenty-four Hours to Tulsa” and revelers were really ‘getting down’ to its catchy rhythm. This, plus the sugar newly coursing through my bloodstream, gave me the impulse needed to escape to the garden and light a cigar. C brought me out a glass of quite passable diabetic wine, and life suddenly didn’t seem too bad again. Then an English couple came and sat next to me.

“Excuse me: do you mind if we sit here?”

I could have pretended to be Portuguese. I could have asked them what was wrong with all the other tables. I could have faked an epileptic fit. But I’m just too soft-hearted for my own good.

“Of course not,” I lied.

“Ah! You’re English! But you’re with the wedding party.” The white tux again. “I’m Trish, this is Martin. Do you live in Portugal? Eight years? Well, you must really understand how things work by now. We’ve just bought a house two weeks ago. We’re having it renovated. Do you know of any good builders?” Images of Julio and exploding aerosols waltzed across my inner retina. “Oh, shame. Actually, the first thing we have to do is get a residence permit. We were told we must have one, or they can fine us and even throw us out of the country.”

“Who told you that?”

“An English guy we bumped into. He seemed very knowledgeable.”

“I think I know him.”

“We’ve always done things by the book. We don’t want to start our new life by breaking the law.” Behind us, someone who was not Frank Sinatra was bringing ‘My Way’ to its soaring, gut-wrenching crescendo. “And another thing: we want to learn the language. We think it’s really impolite not to.”

Ol’ Blue Eyes had yielded to ‘Uptown Girl’. The bride’s mother was suddenly beside me, tugging at my sleeve.

“No, thank you, really; I prefer not to dance.”

“But this is lovely music. Don’t you like it? It was Princess Diana’s favourite!”

“I need to rest a while – the diabetes.” Go with the flow; that’s what it’s all about.

Trish resumed. “You speak Portuguese really well. Did I hear you mention diabetes? Martin’s diabetic too.”

While Trish went to the bathroom, Martin and I swapped anecdotes about our condition. “Well, I’m not familiar with your particular form of diabetes,” he conceded at the end of it, “but it sounds pretty serious. You should take it easy.”

“I plan to, but I don’t think we’re going to get much sleep tonight with all this racket going on.”

“They didn’t tell us there was a function on when we booked.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Trish, returning to her seat. “I love weddings, and one of the reasons we came to Portugal was to experience a new culture.”

And it was at that very moment it happened again – the haunting refrains of The Birdie Song came wafting out into the soft night air. Some other excitable female burst out and tried forcibly to drag me back to the dance floor. “Come on – anyone can dance to this!”

I clutched my thigh and winced. “Sorry – old war wound – Vietnam.” She didn’t seem too certain, but it was enough: elbows flapping, she went off in search of easier prey.

My two companions eyed me strangely. They seemed harmless enough; almost innocent. I had a vision of them and all the other dewy-eyed hopefuls stepping off the plane with shimmering but beguilingly vivid images bubbling up of their new life of everlasting hedonistic ease in these sun-kissed Eleysian Fields.

There they are at shiny white ‘Bougainvillea’, lazily plucking lemons for their poolside gin and tonics, while in the barely audible distance barefoot children scamper around amongst the chickens (which never crow at 5am). Their authentically peasant walnut-faced parents, poor but honest and endearingly eccentric, adore the newcomers and refer to them affectionately as ‘El Anglaises’. Having quickly got the hang of the local argot, they exchange boisterous, good-natured badinage with the Anthony Quinn look-alike who runs the little newsagent down by the harbour when they pick up their copy of The Mail on Sunday. On market days it is great fun to set up a stall and sell the organic produce of their citrus and olive groves. On festa days astonished natives yield centre stage to form a circle, rapturously clapping and stamping their feet to the rhythm of the flamenco guitar and castanets, as these ‘stiff’ Anglo-Saxons show them a trick or two on the dance floor. Every Wednesday is Bridge Night with Dennis and Sheila – well, it’s nice to keep some contact with fellow Brits. The spouse with whom they have been bored for the past twenty-two years will suddenly become interesting; or they will meet lots of exotic people and have limitless uninhibited sex with sensual Latin lovers. They will never again encounter any unpleasantness or adversity. And then Pop! – The Birdie Song.

C came out to rescue me with a glass of water and some pills. “Take these and go to bed,” she ordained; then tenderly mopping my brow with a paper serviette: “You’re still feverish and you look like sh--. And now Paula is telling everyone you were wounded in Vietnam. You are crazy sometimes!”

*********

“Do you think I’m crazy?” I asked H and M a week later, slumped over their kitchen table, “or could I actually have diabetes?”

I value H and M’s opinion. As a very nice young Belgian couple, and therefore unburdened by being English or Portuguese, they are perhaps at least half-way sane. I am always guaranteed a sympathetic ear.

“No, you really are crazy, James,” H assured me, kindly. But as a precaution, she slipped their Encyclopedia of Health off the shelf and looked up diabetes.

“Symptoms,” she read. “Feelings of tiredness, confusion and disorientation, coupled with an inability to correct situations.”

“Oh, God, oh, no!” I cried, burying my face in my hands. “It’s worse than I thought!”

“What? What’s the matter with you?” A concerned hand squeezed my shoulder.

“I’ve been diabetic ever since I came to Portugal!”

James Lawrence is based in Central Portugal. He can be contacted on traduz@mail.telepac.pt

Visit James' websites at www.portugalhols.com and www.portugalpropertydirect.com