Blind Date at a Funeral by Trevor Romain

Author:Trevor Romain
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781415208342
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2015-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

Falling from Grace

(Soundtrack: ‘Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet’ by Henry Mancini)

When I was a young man, the quickest way to get me to do something was to tell me not to do it.

Just like Debbie’s father did.

I was in the army. Debbie was in matric and we were in love. I was visiting her on my weekend pass and we were sitting in her room and listening to songs on her cassette player.

A cassette player was a device that was very popular in the last century, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. You would record songs from a record player or even from the radio onto strange things called compact cassette tapes. It was quite difficult to record songs from the radio without getting part of a radio commercial or the DJ’s voice or your sister screaming or a dog barking or a street vendor shouting, ‘Mielies!’ in the background. Often you had to take a pencil and fiddle with the spool of the cassette to loosen the tape if it wound up too tight.

I was actually loosening a cassette tape with a yellow HB pencil when Debbie’s father burst into the room and told me it was late and I should be going home.

But I wasn’t ready to go home.

No, sir. We hadn’t even kissed yet and I was NOT going to go back to the army base for two or three weeks without getting a kiss or two. Not that we were going to do anything bad. I mean she was in matric and not ready for prime time, so to speak.

‘But it’s only 9 p.m. Five more minutes please, Dad,’ pleaded Debbie.

I just shut my mouth and smiled. I knew better than to say anything. I felt invincible after surviving basic training and had a deep urge to give him some backchat. But, out of respect for Debbie and because I was rather besotted with her, I refrained.

I am a bit of a chicken in general, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid of her dad. He looked like a skinny male model out of a Volvo advertisement. He was lithe and wore black fitted trousers with a tight, white polo-necked jersey. He had gold wire-rimmed glasses and wore his blond hair quite short with a neat side parting. I kept on expecting him to speak with a Norwegian or Swedish accent, but he didn’t.

‘Okay,’ he said, gruffly. ‘Just five more minutes.’ He walked out with ne’er a sideways glance.

I can take you one time, boet, I thought to myself. I’ll klap you so many times you’ll think you’re surrounded.

‘He’s cross,’ said Debbie. ‘He gets that way when he drinks Scotch.’

I knew that her mother and father were having a marital thrombosis and that her dad sometimes became violent after a few drinks so I agreed to leave.

‘I’ll come back later,’ I said, kissing her goodbye.

‘No, you can’t come back!’ she whispered.

‘But I want to,’ I said, kissing her goodbye again.

‘I know. Me too,’ she said, kissing me back, ‘but I’ll get into trouble.

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