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I got off the plane half
deaf. Wildly flicked through a Spanish dictionary at the luggage collection,
grabbing a few words, I scrambled together a sentence and hurled it at my
Auntie and Uncle, excusing myself for my deafness. They kissed me on both cheeks,
making sounds like barnacles being prised of rocks underwater. As if it wasn’t hard enough to
understand the language anyway – the uneasy flight had bounced out of me a
portion (tapas sized but a portion still!) of my comprehensive power!
My Uncle’s car headed
‘homewards’, scenery alternating from flats to hills, flats to hills. I
received questions with an apologetic nod and sometimes a jab of an incoherent
reply- such replies were not encouraged. The next day, which I heard more of,
was spent with my great Auntie, who recalled her experiences of London, of
which I wish I hadn’t enquired about, although she didn’t appear upset talking
about my uncle being ill, and thankfully my biological vocabulary failed me
when she went into details about her digestion problems. She found funny
anecdotes for every serious scenario, and inevitably my favourite fable of all:
The Wedding.
“Raimunda! News is that
Adolfo is finally going to marry Feliciana!”
“When’s the wedding?”
Raimunda replied abruptly.
“Oh er, next week! We’re
going to London!”
Raimunda put down to the
phone and turned to her husband-
“Felipe, We must sort the
outfits out immediately!”
“What outfits” said Felipe,
slightly alarmed, maintaining his serene countenance.
“Felipe, Adolfo and Feliciana
are getting married next week!” continued Raimunda, exclaiming wildly with more
fury at Jasmina’s assumed secrecy than joyous about the two new lovers.
“Oh they are they?” Felipe
murmured dully, “well slow down a little Rai, we’re not a well off family,
we’ll talk about it when I’m back from work.” Checking the time on his watch
Felipe turned to leave to work, double-taking he noticed the date on his watch.
“Raimunda, who was it that told you about the marriage?”
“Jasmina!” she howled from
another room “and I bet she knew about it before today! Always trying to be one
up on me that Jas-min-a!”
Felipe
smiled to himself to the thought of Jasmina smirking down the phone. “April
fools day! What a good one!” he hummed in his head, skipping to the train,
enjoying his wife’s humourless reaction, and momentarily forgetting the hazards
that would come with it.
Meanwhile in the same small
beige flat I am sat in now:
“Jasmina. You better ring
Raimunda & Felipe and tell them it was a little joke before she does
anything rash!”
Spoke Jasmina’s husband
Gregorio softly & wisely. Jasmina rang, conscious and guilty now, of the
unimaginable escalation that her joke was unravelling into on the other side of
the telephone line! There was no answer. Jasmina and Gregorio smiled at each
other slowly, both knowing Raimunda seldom left the house until evenings on
weekdays; her unusual absence at this time confirmed all anxiety.
“Eventually Felipe was home
and I called up to called off the wedding jokes. He humoured me, though knowing
the farce form the start. But as Raimunda crept through the door concealing
large shopping bags, I could almost hear his face drop! Needless to say
Raimunda was furious, & embarrassed for not heading Felipe’s words! the
stern old woman still holds a grudge from that April morning (and other
mornings no doubt!) But the best part was that her pride was crushed when she
had to refund those elaborate wedding outfits, with that same erect but now
lowered to her chest chin, and shamed jaw that bought them, it must have broken
her cold heart!”
Tia Jasmina finished the
story I’ll never sicken of for the third time. Each time it gains a new flicker
of the narrative, once lost, but conjured up in the spirit and flame of story.
Her arms conduct the atmosphere about her, pushing the words around like cake
mixture in a space shuttle, As she mimes with the cheeky timing of an artist
all the best details. And its in her voice and intonation as her syllables trip
over her and stampede into the penultimate scene, and she scrambles the tone
back up again- slower for the finale, then flops her arms down like a clockwork
doll, giggles and ends with: “Bueno.”
