Depaysement
This blog entry is a competition entry for the lovely Tots100/Alfresco competition, in which I write about my best ever holiday.
—
We never would have gone to Bordeaux, but, people were getting married and we were going to be there, if possible. I’d picked out a pink, floaty dress and MindReader had decided not to match his tie to it this time, much to my chagrin.
The Illness reared its head, of course. “I am not well enough to travel,” I said, dramatically, holding my hands up in the airport, tiredness washing over me as I did so.
“I know,” MindReader said, holding my gaze. “We’ll just get on the plane. Next steps, next steps.”
We spent an obscene amount on an airport lunch and I slept on the plane and, stepping out into the sun, I was overcome by that feeling I get only once a year. The French even have a word for it: depaysement, which translates to ‘the feeling one gets when one is not in one’s home country.”
And, on that holiday, almost six happy months ago, depaysement describes exactly how I felt, and how things changed.
We lounged on sunbeds, books with curled corners discarded as we felt only the sun on our bodies. We went, giggling, in search of the sea which we could hear over the sanddunes but not see. We lazed about on windy patios, drinking crisp white wine and looking out onto satisfyingly symmetrical vineyards. We went for pizza at midnight in Andernos de Bains, our fingers oily and smelling of garlic as we walked home, hand-in-hand. We went house-hunting, looking idly at prices and imagining a life where we breakfasted on brie out on the decking. I wore things I would never wear in England; mad hats and playsuits and jazzy flip flops. We toasted ourselves, my health (cautiously), each other, the happiness we made, over drinks that looked like liquid velvet in the candlelight.
And I wasn’t really very well – no, not then – but the illness seemed less relevant somehow.
We landed in Birmingham on a blustery August afternoon. “Holiday is over,” I said. “Back to worrying.”
“Not at all,” MindReader said, dropping a kiss on my forehead. “New you.”
And he was right.
Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got til you’re orange
“Don’t take the piss,” I say, standing in our hall with my coat wrapped tightly around me.
“Oh, I can’t promise that,” MindReader says, leaning down to stroke Benny who, since I have been out for ten whole minutes, would very much like to be picked up.
“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath and removing my coat.
“Billygean!” MindReader says, aghast.
“Wait wait wait, there is a bit of an explanation,” I say.
“But – your arms… and your neck! My god!”
“Wait – no – some of it is a guide colour,” I say. “So it goes on darkly so you can see where you’ve put it… and then it washes off. I hope.”
“But…” MindReader says, reaching out and gently moving my chin to the side. “You’ve got white patches too.”
“I know,” I say, hanging my coat up and standing awkwardly in the hall. “I have to wear that cream dress tomorrow and I look so weird in it with no tan.”
“I thought it was fancy dress?” MindReader says.
I wave a hand. “It was, and then we couldn’t be bothered.”
“Well,” MindReader says, his mouth twitching. “It is now. You can go as an oompa loompa.” He mimes texting a colleague of mine. “Colleague,” he says. “We’re now going as oompa loompas.”
I cannot help giggling a little bit. “I couldn’t find my usual… So I used this stuff that goes streaky. Dunno why.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From one of my blog readers,” I say.
“Who?”
“Um, Kittyb2113…” I say, as MindReader rolls his eyes. “It was a gift!”
“Oh Billygean,” MindReader says, tracing the brown tidemark that divides my orange neck from my white face. “What’re you going to do?”
“Fill in the white bits on my second application,” I say.
“I don’t think you should put more on. It’ll get worse!”
“Browner. It’ll get browner.”
“Right. And then?”
“Well. Look mental, probably. And smell a bit funny.”
“And smell a bit funny,” MindReader says.
—
PS. This is my painting, by popular demand (8 emails. Um!). You’re WELCOME.
The jokes about the colour of the ‘sunset’ and the colour of my neck, they write themselves.
On my future Turner Prize
“Ah, like the Emperor’s Underwear,” I say to MindReader, as we sort through a box of my things that has come from MadFather’s. They come periodically, do these boxes; 26 years of memories moving out slowly, year by year.
“The Emperor’s what?”
“The Emperor’s Underwear.”
“Er, I think it’s The Emperor’s New Clothes,” MindReader says.
“No because he believed it was underwear. But he wasn’t wearing any! Is well known mythology thing.”
MindReader pulls out some of my old paints. “A mythological story about a man who doesn’t wear pants?”
I sniff. “All mythology is weird. Like that Medusa lady with the hair snakes.”
“The Emporer’s New Clothes isn’t mythology anyway,” MindReader says, holding up a painting I did.
“Oh my God,” I say. “Do you remember when I bought those paints?”
It was autumn 2009. I was looking for a sedentary, fulfilling task to undertake. I went to Hobbycraft, spent £40, and decided I would be An Artist. I would wear white linen trousers, eat organic apples, burn patchouli incense and paint sunsets in MindReader’s shirts.
It didn’t exactly go to plan.
“Ha, yes,” MindReader says, holding up my ‘sunset’.
It is a piece of A4 canvas, the bottom three quarters of which are painted a crude orange and the top quarter of which is painted bright blue. There has been a vague attempt to merge the two colours, and the point at which they meet is painted a sloppy, messy brown. “It’s beautiful,” MindReader says with a laugh.
“What kind of artist would you say I was?” I smile as we regard the sunset.
“Definitely surrealist,” MindReader says.
Friday nights with my fellas
“Why did you need a notebook anyway?” MindReader says to me, reclining in our squashy sofa and sipping his cup of coffee.
“It’s my new budgeting plan,” I say.
“Ah. Are you in trouble again?”
“No,” I say. “I just got a bank charge in December and it came out yesterday and sent me over my overdraft again so I will get another bank charge for January…”
“Billygean…” MindReader says. “If you need money just say.”
(Indeed, Internetz, controversially, it seems, MindReader and I pay for all joint things [rent, food, bills, petrol, meals out, cat litter, oh the cat litter, etc] out of our joint account but keep our residual money separate. So he cannot tell me not to buy bath bombs and I can’t tell him not to… well, okay, just the bath bombs thing then).
“I was too scared to check!” I say.
“And the notebook…?”
“Well,” I say, as we hear Benny rustling around on the floor behind us. “I am going to save for us! So we can buy a car! Or a house! I looked at my bank after I got the nasty charge letters, and I reckon I spend about £100 a month on being… unprepared.”
“What?”
“Like I will spend £5 on lunch as I forget to make it, and then £10 on dinner stuff if you go out or I’ll buy a bag of crisps for 70p when you can get 5 for £1 in the Supermarket… And then I always buy other things like those tea towels I bought. Though they are lovey. So I am going to write down all the impulse buys I wanted to make but didn’t and see how much I’ve saved! And this way I’ll have extra money, so I won’t even have to stop buying clothes. Or saving what I already save. Sometimes. It’s perfect!”
“Right,” MindReader says. “So you can’t have takeaway tonight?”
“No. The Notebook says no.”
“Not even if I pay?”
“Well… maybe.”
“And you’re really going to save it?”
“Oh no.” I say. “I meant to tell you… I’m going on holiday with my friend during the Olympics as I can’t handle you watching it all the time. Like the World Cup. I can’t do that again.”
“Wait – not a car then – a hol-”
Just then, Benny launches himself onto the bookcase, where he teeters for a while, then launches himself down onto us, ginger paws flying everywhere.
And my crap-with-money bombshell is ignored. For now.
A Monday morning in January
“Morning,” I say sleepily to MindReader, at 7 o’clock in the morning on our first work-Monday in January. When the mornings are as dark as this, we leave our wooden blinds open and watch the grey-pink dawn blush over the rooftops.
“Hello,” he says, pulling me close to him.
“I’m tired,” I say, as my teasmaid hisses to life, filling the room with the scent of strong coffee. “Shall I wear my white shirt or my green spotty pussy bow blouse?”
Just then we hear a thundering up the stairs. Benny is not a quiet cat. And is also a little bit crazy, it seems. He has mad hours, where his eyes go like saucers and he chases pencils and hides in the TV cabinet and uses the back and sides of the sofa as a race track while we sit there, sitting rigidly with our feet not touching the floor. The rest of the time he likes to be picked up a LOT, and sleep on the back of the sofa with his head on your shoulder, and wait quietly for you on the toilet lid while you have a bath.
“Meowwwwww,” Benny wails outside our door.
“He heard us again!” MindReader says, pulling the cover over his head. “He heard us talking!”
I laugh. “We’re prisoners in our own home.”
“Shh don’t speak,” MindReader says. “Don’t attract the beast.”
And the winner is… (courtesy of Random.Org)
Nathan Pralle!
Cat ownership = awkward situations
“I’ve never met a cat like him,” DoctorSister’sHusband says as Benny hangs over his shoulder, his paws wrapped around his neck.
“He’s quirky,” I say.
“He’s getting heavy. It’s not unlike holding EarlyNiece,” he says, putting him down.
“I think they weigh about the same,” I say. “A stone?”
“About that,” DoctorSister says, jiggling EarlyNiece on her knee.
We are enjoying a particularly civilised afternoon of sandwiches, cakes, tea, cats and babies and I can’t remember the last time I felt quite so content.
Cat ownership is going well. We kept Benny’s litter tray in the living room last night and he used it, so this morning we moved it to the downstairs toilet where we want it to live. What? It’s where we pee. AND it has an extractor fan. WIN.
There is a rustling as we see Benny picking his way across the living room. He lifts up his front paw and gingerly starts to climb into EarlyNiece’s car seat.
I exchange a glance with MindReader. “Well, this is awkward,” I say as Benny rocks gently in the car seat.
Eventually, he gets out and flounces out of the room and into the downstairs toilet.
“I’ll just use the loo,” DoctorSister’sHusband says, standing up.
I exchange another glance with MindReader. “Er, Benny’s just in there…” I say.
Benny meets his cousin EarlyNiece!
Benny takes laptop literally
Benny-Eve, Benny-Mass
“Today was the BEST DAY EVER,” I say to MindReader.
I was up early, ran down the stairs to MindReader in my new Christmas pyjamas and shouted, “it’s Benny Day!”. We dropped £70 in Pets at Home on litter trays and scratching posts and the entire time, I was grabbing MindReader’s arm and saying “I can’t BELIEVE it’s our turn. That we’re getting a pet. And not just here to look at the rabbits and go home again!”
We filled in Benny’s adoption paperwork and, to our surprise as well as the Internet’s, we decided to keep him as Benny (though my competition remains open) as this is, resolutely, his name.
Stories of cats not coming out of their carriers and needing to be kept in one room for a few days faded into obscurity as Benny bounded out, settled onto a beanbag, hoofed up a bowl full of food, followed MindReader to the kitchen, sat on my towel while I had a bath, pulled a t-shirt off the radiator and sat on it, visited the windowsill in the spare bedroom and licked Max’s face.
He follows us around. After an hour of cuddles I gave him a house tour which was surprisingly easy given you cannot leave any room without him coming. If you pick him up he will put his head in your neck and stay there for as long as you like. If you sit down he will come and knead your clothes with his huge paws, but if you start eating he will go and sit on the floor like a dog. He makes a LOT of noise moving around, he stomps and sounds just like a person coming down the stairs. If you call him over, so far, he will always, always come. He is absolutely huge and has paws like a tiger.
“He’s a bit stupid,” MindReader says to me as we watch Benny sitting on the sofa, his eyelids slowly drooping.
“Is he?” I say.
“Two strangers arrived, put him in a box and brought him to a strange house and he’s just got out of the box and fallen asleep!” MindReader says.
He isn’t keen on the idea of a Benny-Warming party, either
“Ralph?” I say to MindReader as we step out of the train station on our way to work. A freezing cold breeze burns my lungs.
“No, Ralph is a weird name,” MindReader says, holding a door open for me as we venture out into the rain.
“Ralph is definitely a tall, thin name. And while Benny’s tall, he’s round isn’t he?”
MindReader gives me a funny look. “He’s a cat.”
“Yes.”
“Five days to go,” MindReader says.
“Nothing can go wrong between now and then, right?” I say. Though really, I should have said nothing more can go wrong; in the past week, MadFather’s broken his ankle and had surgery, I have exhausted myself ferrying him around and have woken up with my Christmas Cold that graces me on the 22nd of December every year.
I stop dead outside the train station, amidst the Christmas shoppers and tired commuters ready for their Christmas holidays.
“What if Benny dies before we fetch him on Tuesday?” I say, as a man with a Selfridges bag steps around me. “What would happen then?”
“Well,” MindReader says. “For starters I expect there’d be a state funeral.”
Christmas Giveaway
The chaps over at Oo Shirts are offering one of my readers two t-shirts with anything you like on them. I don’t normally go in for giveaways but I thought this was a really nice one as you effectively get to choose what it is. I of course could inflict a Billygean.co.uk: your number one source for colonoscopy chat t-shirt on you, but I don’t think anyone wants that.
The two t-shirts must have the same design on them and be shipped to the same address. Other than that, they can be different sizes, colours and styles. The winner will be required to provide a short review of the t-shirt that I can put on here once you’ve received it.
The winner will be able to design their t-shirts at the design lab. There are some very cool designs. And you can put ANYTHING YOU LIKE. ON A T-SHIRT. Even images! How cool is that!
To enter:
Leave a comment below.
For an extra entry, tweet about this competition providing a link to it. As long as you put @Billygean in the tweet I should see it, unless you’re protected in which case ask me to follow and I will.
For an extra entry, share this post on Facebook (and show me you’ve done so)
For a final entry, suggest a new name for Benny.
So that’s four possible ways to enter.
Rather than choose the best Benny name, I will pick a winner at random at 9pm January 1st 2012.
Good luck!
