All of it stopped when my grandmother died. It did not have to, but there was an inevitability to it. Maybe because they were doing it for the kids, not so much for themselves. And when the reason went, the endless days and weeks just evaporated. The visitors disappeared, the family scattered, the nestled houses bordered and shuttered from one another. No one felt like it anymore. I could not wait to resettle on the other side of the world.
But the remaining house in Claviers would just go on feeling like an overstretched wake.
The Club, Elizabethville – 30th October 1948, after lunch
A date so carefully recorded, documented and archived that you expect some revelation: what, who, why, how? Was that what you did for the week-end, for the holidays? No. No-one in the family cared enough to remember what that was, yet they remembered every anthill around the house in Panda Likasi. The Club? A non-event that just happened. And yet, the place looks like out of a 50s sci-fi movie. Striking, modern, energetic. The warmth radiates through the picture. This picture, smack in the middle of a pile of photos of suburban verandas and gardens photographed from every angle possible. The Club, the Future. A proto-California. But at the very centre of it, everyone awkwardly piles up – kids, adults, friends. The group itself is boisterous, children vie for attention to anyone’s delight, but they all huddle and never look around. The Club, E’Ville, Elizabethville, a memory no-one had.
Sitting together, looking at each other.
The Leela Delhi, the Fullerton Singapore, the Atlantis Dubai – 2016, 2019, 2022, in the afternoon
The sun shines outside through the wide window bays. The place is bright. The overflowing displays are Dionysian frescoes brought to life. Many people partake, and yet it never feels crammed. And within the buffet melee, our table is but a rally point. Two sit down and talk, one explores, until we sit in a powwow for the debrief. We smile at unspoken remarks and laugh at jokes never made. We do that together, there is no point for anyone else. Space, freedom, quicksilver understanding. We zoom methodically in search of new discoveries for the sheer delight of it, disappointed when not surprised, rushing back to the table to buzz the information back to the hive, eat maybe, and off we go again. Life as it should always be.
Sitting together, enjoying each other.
The French expat club in Cameroon, in Singapore, the Belgian club in India – 1937, 1998, 2017, 7pm
The mandatory B team reception for the “nationals”. Everyone is prim and proper. It is important to keep a link to the motherland. A-List receptions are grand affairs, with Ferrero Rochers towers, of course, gilded and perfumed, for local potentates only, or if you are in the public service. There are your usual types: administrative personnel on the first year of their tour (anciennity buying you immunity from attending), bored housewives, white wine in hand, loud and proud, trying to keep their menfolk out of alcohol, mischief, and/or other women. “And what do you do Ol’ Chap? Never heard of them“. Bored househusbands desperate to befriend bored housewives. Men and women working locally reluctantly dragged for an evening of listening to inane comments about new traffic lights in Paris, the latest scandal at the Pool, and, of course, the expected bravura moment talking about the locals, and how they “think”. Told by people who have never worked with them on equal basis. A frayed Great Gatsby cos-play, the shredded coattails of the 19th century. Every Saturday evening. At the Convention Centre because we lack space. Was E’Ville ’s Club one of these? It looks like it.
Standing, talking at people.
Sector 21 in Gurgaon, Dempsey Road in Singapore – 2017, 2019, Friday evening
The local crowd is out in force, jostling in a scrum, the sounds of overworked aircon units fizzing in the air. We jostle to a table, to find a space to sit and hang out. Colours, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, twirl in the swirling dust clouds of haze or sand. We sit side by side, sipping our beers for an hour, babbling about inconsequential events. This is serious business, you just never know if and when the spark will take. Don’t expect anything, but let it happen when does. How else to build these life memories, these sensorial experiences, philosophical awakenings and spiritual moments? We never engage, mix, we just know what the other think. We let our mood be carried by the ebb and flow of the crowd’s, propelled by the energised kicks of the first notes of a favourite anthem and a jug of alcohol. The elders’ joy at the pack’s happiness.
Sitting among the swirl of people.
La Clarté, Claviers, South of France – July 1977, the afternoon
The coven sits at the table. On it, no cauldron, but four glasses of every shape and colour, and two dog-eared, greasy, packs of cards. The table is covered in a sticky burgundy plastic table cloth that probably once looked whimsical. The 4 of them huddle. The sisters, an usual or unusual summer guest, my grandmother keeping herself busy at the cooker. They play their hands absent-mindedly, maybe sharing the latest news, maybe talking, droning on how much they enjoy it. Letting life proceed, time suspended for an afternoon, a reasoned time-sink. They sat at the very same spots for 20 years. We kids had been dismissed to the living room: “go have fun, just be silent, you guys give me migraines”. The heat melts even the drone of cicadas, flies and mosquitos.
Shadows in the kitchen’s gloom, nodding and smiling.
Bernie’s BFD, East Coast Park, Singapore – March 2000, sunset
Three friends sit at the bar, basking in the last glittering light of the day. Dew mists the glasses, the physical manifestation of the thermal shock between sweltering heat and ice-cold drink. The frozen mist hardly has time before melting in rivulets, pooling on the wooden counter. The water evaporates before our eyes. In the thick, fat bottomed glass, wisps of tiny bubbles rise to the surface, deep brown or green plumes sashay their way around the smooth curves of ice cubes. Past the wall of bottles, the ships stand stock still on the horizon, the traffic jam of an entire world. We radiate happiness, in the orange sun setting.
We sit together in the joyous light. A celebration.
Go have fun!
I did.
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