I suppose it’s time I explained about Harold. His fans are in for a big shock. I have lost him. Not, as before, in Sainsbury’s. I’m afraid the Major has wandered off for the last time. And will not be found down at the police station wearing a policeman’s helmet and eating all their digestive biscuits. He has finally been hoist with his own petard. He has become a figment of his own imagination, marched off to a different drum, and boldly gone where no man in a cardigan has gone before. I am trying to find a gentle way to say it. The old pirate has walked the plank. Sven has taken the last longboat to Valhalla. Elvis has finally left the building.
My late husband (Oh! The first time I have used that description) was, as my regular readers will know, something of a Walter Mitty. His various incarnations included Sven the young Old Norseman, the occasional Prince of Darkness (whenever he was presented with a very rare steak), Che Guevara, the Pirate King and John Travolta on Prozac. He was not helped by his friends Bodger, who occasionally dressed up as Marilyn Monroe on the pretext of going undercover, and Fatty Fortescue with his endless stable of Moldovan nieces and an unrequited passion for a Japanese landlady in the Tatra mountains. To be honest, Harold was not firmly grounded in reality. And that was his eventual undoing in Africa, our last posting.
I’m afraid the dark continent got to him. I don’t like to go into details, but it all went a bit Heart of Darkness. They made him a Chief, you see. With the toga, the fly whisk, and the gay sandals. And a very long bout of praise-singing, followed by some tribal dancing and lots of palm wine. All in thanks for a second-hand washing machine and a set of crazy-golf clubs. Inevitably, Harold believed he had really become some kind of local deity. After that he was never the same. Wouldn’t wear his cardigan, even with the air conditioning on full blast. Wouldn’t take his malaria pills. When he finally became poorly, he wouldn’t see Dr Ogingwa (MD, BSc (University of North Greenwich)) but allowed our old retainer Godwin to call in his cousin the juju man. Before I knew it the bedroom was full of pungent smoke and howling fetish priests. Before he left us, Harold had a vision of himself as Secretary-General of the United Nations riding on an elephant. His last words to me were “Down, Jumbo”. Oh, the horror, the horror.
After a brief mourning period in Paris (if you must wear black, make sure it’s Yves St Laurent), I came to Brussels to recuperate at the invitation of my dear friend Vi Hornblower. Imagine my surprise to find that Brussels was not the dismal little backwater that Violet had described in her letters! According to her, there was only one decent restaurant in the whole town (Comme Chez Soi) and only one shop called Inno – which I assumed to be a branch of the French supermarket chain, a sort of Gallic Asda. I was quite astonished to find that Brussels is a vibrant, happening metropolis with more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris, Inno is almost House of Fraser, and they do a nice line in chocolate shops to boot. What better place for a girl to get over her bereavement?
And after all, who needs Harold when you’ve got the original Prince of Darkness himself in town?
My late husband (Oh! The first time I have used that description) was, as my regular readers will know, something of a Walter Mitty. His various incarnations included Sven the young Old Norseman, the occasional Prince of Darkness (whenever he was presented with a very rare steak), Che Guevara, the Pirate King and John Travolta on Prozac. He was not helped by his friends Bodger, who occasionally dressed up as Marilyn Monroe on the pretext of going undercover, and Fatty Fortescue with his endless stable of Moldovan nieces and an unrequited passion for a Japanese landlady in the Tatra mountains. To be honest, Harold was not firmly grounded in reality. And that was his eventual undoing in Africa, our last posting.
I’m afraid the dark continent got to him. I don’t like to go into details, but it all went a bit Heart of Darkness. They made him a Chief, you see. With the toga, the fly whisk, and the gay sandals. And a very long bout of praise-singing, followed by some tribal dancing and lots of palm wine. All in thanks for a second-hand washing machine and a set of crazy-golf clubs. Inevitably, Harold believed he had really become some kind of local deity. After that he was never the same. Wouldn’t wear his cardigan, even with the air conditioning on full blast. Wouldn’t take his malaria pills. When he finally became poorly, he wouldn’t see Dr Ogingwa (MD, BSc (University of North Greenwich)) but allowed our old retainer Godwin to call in his cousin the juju man. Before I knew it the bedroom was full of pungent smoke and howling fetish priests. Before he left us, Harold had a vision of himself as Secretary-General of the United Nations riding on an elephant. His last words to me were “Down, Jumbo”. Oh, the horror, the horror.
After a brief mourning period in Paris (if you must wear black, make sure it’s Yves St Laurent), I came to Brussels to recuperate at the invitation of my dear friend Vi Hornblower. Imagine my surprise to find that Brussels was not the dismal little backwater that Violet had described in her letters! According to her, there was only one decent restaurant in the whole town (Comme Chez Soi) and only one shop called Inno – which I assumed to be a branch of the French supermarket chain, a sort of Gallic Asda. I was quite astonished to find that Brussels is a vibrant, happening metropolis with more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris, Inno is almost House of Fraser, and they do a nice line in chocolate shops to boot. What better place for a girl to get over her bereavement?
And after all, who needs Harold when you’ve got the original Prince of Darkness himself in town?
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