I was three years old when I ran my father over. I can assume safely it was an accident, for I am sure that a three-year old does not intend to run someone over, even their own father.

Now 50 years on I have been thinking about that strange incident. Two things have made this memory surface. I was on a train in Northern Israel when an army recruit opened fire at a person he thought was acting suspiciously, I was sitting next to that person.

Even now I don’t remember the full course of events, but instead I can remember 50 years ago, slipping the hand break off on the taxi and gripping the wheel whilst standing on the driver seat in the black cab and rolling the cab across my father!

I can remember that Candy our white German shepherd was sitting in the luggage compartment next to me. I can remember the taxi continued rolling after passing over my father’s body. I remember laughing because I was driving like daddy, it had of course escaped me that I wasn’t driving like daddy and I had actually had to run over daddy to achieve this precarious position of not being in control of a taxi.

We were on a hill and I continued to roll, I remember laughing and hearing my father shouting and seeing through the mirror him running after me. His face a mixture of fear and something else, something I had forgotten, love. He had loved me once.

I remained silent about the shooting, but then someone started to mess with my head. Started digging around my mind like an old woman at a jumble sale looking for a particular item.  But I don’t give up my thoughts and feelings that easily or so I thought.

But the digging has revealed bones of a long gone spectre, one I buried before it had actually stopped breathing.

At the moment I am in a dark place and I have realised that for me to move on I have to move back to another time and place. A time when again I was in a dark place, one which I thought I had moved on from, but now I know I have been living in the darkness ever since.

I’m only going to go back 14 years you will be relieved to know, but this is not about my travels round the world, the furthest we get is Toulouse in France. This is about the end of the relationship between me and my father.

But of course there has to be a beginning for there to be the ending.

When I was a child, I like many little girls put my father on a pedestal. It didn’t help that he had the good looks of a 1950’s Hollywood star, resembling Cary Grant. It seemed every woman wanted to sleep with him and every man wanted to buy him a drink. Even my girlfriends at school thought he was lovely.  However by the time he died he had become a very public alcoholic. The two persona couldn’t be further apart and I often wonder how on earth he was reduced to the later.

I suppose now as an adult it was obvious he was an alcoholic all along, but my perception like many people was of the Hollywood star not the sad tramp he grew into.

By the time of his death, very few people had much contact with him, any of his respectable friends had either died or had begun to keep my father at arm’s length. The only people he had contact with were people who had stooped so low as to cadge drinks from him, but thought themselves so high that they were being kind to him. And of course me the one constant in his life, the annoying wayward daughter, she was still there.

As a child I ran in his footsteps. Walked the roads he walked, sat in the pubs he drank in and smiled at the friends he talked with. His cab driver friends knew me almost like their own.

He understood me then, my belligerent way with the children at my school. My refusal to accept because a child had Alice in wonderland hair that did not make them better than me and certainly did not make me want to be like them.

I was not in the clique, never wanted to be. I ran alone, ran amok, and created upsets and havoc, but always on my own. My father seemed to understand me, seemed to endure the constant visits to the school where teacher after teacher listed complaint after complaint. He understood my way of ignoring what was told because it only suited the adult who was trying to control me. The word autistic had not been coined then. The words difficult, awkward, disruptive and uncontrollable seemed to be used on a regular basis in these talks at school. He remained silent, if he believed them he did not say, he was there for me as a child who was at odds with the world.

But my relationship with him as I grew older became more and more confrontational especially as it became glaringly obvious I had no intention on settling down and marrying. I started to travel to more and more obscure places and we grew further and further apart. When I picked a country that was troubled to visit, he would say I was doing it just to annoy him, I wasn’t, I just wanted to visit troubled countries. A population of troubled people had to be investigated.

And then I seemed to become the coat hook for him to hang all his own failures on. Anything that went wrong became my fault. I became the reason he drank. I was the reason the taxi broke down, the crucifixion of Christ was my fault, the holocaust, my sister having her house repossessed. My brother going home to Tasmania. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders literally. And so I kept moving, I was a free spirit and the world was mine to explore and enjoy.

After a trip whale watching in New Zealand I phoned him waxing lyrical about my sightings of whales and dolphins , it was 6.00 in the morning where he was and he was drunk and then the enormity of his problem hit me, how could he be drunk at six o ’clock in the morning?

Travelling back  home via Australia, I was mugged in Sydney and naturally I tried to phone my parents, by making a reverse charge phone call, my mother was forced to refuse to accept the phone call, by what I now realise was a very nasty drunkard.

When I returned from my trip I went home and to see the transition was frightening, a blood stained drunk sitting in the corner of the room. Still in the same clothes that he had been wearing for longer than was acceptable.

Not long after that my mother left him. It took guts for her to do so, not only was he the love of her life, she was in her 60’s and would not find it easy to move on from nearly forty years of marriage.

I watched my father descend so low that it actually became too painful to watch, it ripped me apart in fact. It was eviscerating, a word I was reminded of when I worked in Madagascar – their largest carnivore the Fossa eviscerate their prey, usually a Lemur.  But I just couldn’t’t look away. Eventually stories would be passed to me of his drunken behaviour in a club or pub and it started to take its toll on me.

By now I was walking across the common in the dark 5.00 in the morning to walk the family dog and to turn the gas fire off where my father had fallen asleep slowly cooking his legs. Then a young girl was raped on the common by what later would become known as the M25 rapists. I knew something had to give.

I had a phone call one day to say he had collapsed in a car park and the mini cab driver had driven off and left him on the ground unconscious. Whilst he was in hospital I took our last family dog Branston to a vets and he was found a good home. It was not easy.

When I walked into the hospital I looked at a man with a purple face his bruising was so bad and yet he still rejected me. Nobody else visited him that night, just me and my guilt and my anger.

Nurses and Dr’s stared at me as if I had done something wrong. I realised what had happened was he had cooked his legs on the gas fire and they blamed me. I wanted to tell them that we couldn’t be in a room together he hated me but I remained silent and took their silent condemnation and agreed I was the worlds worse daughter, I had failed.

When my father returned home having rather ungraciously discharged himself from hospital, he came home to an empty house. He phoned to demand his dog back. I refused.

And then I packed my rucksack and took a one way Euro star ticket to Paris. I made my way down to the Languedoc region of France and thought I could hide from it all.

I embarked on a fling with an art student. I had met him “begging” outside a church, but it was his way of getting money to subsidise his fees. He was beautiful I could have stayed for longer. Lost in his eyes and his free spirit love.

I got a job as a waitress at a restaurant where the owner didn’t want to speak to English people. But even I knew that it could not be, to run away was denying part of what I was but to stay and watch my father’s self-destruction would take away a central piece of me.

But return I did, to find him lying in the living room, almost dead, skeletal but still defiant, as soon as I touched him he managed through his dehydrated mouth to say, “Leave me alone, stop mauling me.” Those words often linger in my mind, even when he was at death’s door he did not want me.

Whilst I was in France he had shown his last act of defiance. He had taken me to court to have his dog returned to him. Of course I was unaware of this fact and therefore did not attend the hearing. In my absence I was told to return the dog to him. After his death I had to explain to the courts that I could not comply with their request, at first they were most unsympathetic, but when I wrote asking how I could return an animal to a dead person, they finally relented and had the CCJ dropped.

I still am not completely sure why he had taken me to court. Was it to show me he still had some moral fiber left in him when it came to his responsibilities? Or was it to show me he still had reasons to live, I don’t know. I don’t bear him a grudge about it. And although painful to part with Branston I had acted in the best interest of the animal.

I miss my father of course. I miss the brutal honesty that we had, but I don’t miss that eviscerating pain of watching him slowly him kill himself with alcohol and how it took away the real Gordon. The kind funny person who everyone had liked and admired.

I hear people talk about their alcoholic husbands and fathers and I get the feeling with some that they use them to obtain sympathy from their listeners.

That is something I never want. I think I had an unorthodox upbringing, and I certainly wouldn’t’t have changed my childhood. But sympathy? No way.

I would just change those last minutes when I found my father lying on the ground, a shadow of a man, but still a fire blazing in his eyes, the bit where he hates me I want to change.

I once asked my father once why he couldn’t love me, we were in a pub, an alcoholics’ favourite place, they can hide in there for years, his reply was – “It’s like looking in a mirror with you.”

I should have guessed there would be no denial, no “Of course I love you, you are my daughter”.  I was never the family favourite, too much of a rebel apparently.  If I was my sister I would have played the feminine card and cried, and he would have perhaps patronised me and said something nice. But that was not his way or mine.

For years I stopped believing I deserved love or had right to be happy.

Of course years later I now realise it was himself that he hated so much. The shabby alcoholic he had become had taken all trace of the proud handsome man he once was. Apparently I am very much like him. He was a very strong man in all other aspects and very charming when sober, I am a very strong woman and apparently very funny when I want to be.

But sometimes when I take a sip of wine, I wonder is this the day that I will truly become the mirror of my father, that refection he so detested and slip into alcoholism? It’s a fear that can never really go away. I live with it on a daily basis.

Many partners have described being married to an alcoholic as a horror show, well for the offspring, it’s like walking through the hall of mirrors at the fun fair. Grotesque at one moment and then deceptively normal at another.

And how can you reject that which created you?

Now all these years after his death I want to draw a line under his own self-loathing and ultimately my own. I have got to move on. The last few years I have slipped to a place of darkness, of ghosts and demons. Creatures crawl through my mind constantly devouring my positive thoughts before they can grow. It’s not a good place.

The hall of mirrors I walk through hover now between grotesque and deceptive, not even normal anymore.

When my father died I did not grieve for him. For I had buried him deep within me many years before, but now it’s like a flood has washed away the soil on his grave and the bones of the dead are stacking up on the pavement for all to see.

I now have to start again, begin from where we left off. Move on from this place I have found myself in.

And Dad if you are looking down on me, I forgive you for not loving me. I forgive you for not liking the reflection you saw. I can’t make people love what they don’t want to but I’m going to learn to love myself. And perhaps eventually when I look at myself in the mirror I may just like what I see.

And Dad forgive me for making this so public, the bullet on the train missed me but the person digging around in my head , well they found a nugget ,but were too selfish to realise what they had found and threw it back as worthless.

I was asked recently was I sorry the bullet on the train missed me? No I was glad it missed the innocent person on the train.

How to cook locusts- Remove the wings and hind legs of the locusts and boil in a little water until soft. Add salt to taste and a little oil and fry until brown.

Gabra’s long ebony hands more suited to playing a piano then driving, caressed his stomach or the part of his torso where less lean men would have had a stomach. Animated pidgin words escaped from his mouth which I translated as thus – From out of the pages of the bible, Ethiopia was to have a plague of weird flying creatures that had cymbals strapped to their abdomens to encourage females to mate with them.

I imagined a hoard of singing creatures on a sexual rampage, clashing cymbals loudly before embarking on a lust fuelled evening of insect debauchery.

And yet however strange this image was, I was not sure how their mating exploits could possibly prevent me from going out in Gondar for Christmas Eve. Although Ethiopia was still at war with Eritrea I had so far managed to avoid any major conflicts with man or beast, perhaps now it was all about to change.

My armed escort that came with the driver was fortunately more fluent in English and he managed to explain the impending catastrophe more succinctly if a tad less quaintly. A plague of locusts was about to spread across the landscape, devouring everything edible in their wake. The cymbals were not I was rather disappointed to hear noisy musical instruments, but were tymbals and muscles on the abdomen of the male locusts popped them in and out to make a chirping noise so attractive to the females.

I had encountered many unusual phenomenon whilst travelling the world, but a plague of locusts was not one of them. I do remember as a child watching the “Natural World”, and one of the episodes filmed a plague of locusts somewhere in Africa, maybe even Ethiopia. I remember a living cloud creep across the land like the dark shadow of a giant and the barren wasteland they left behind them.

Now here in Ethiopia I contemplated how the new famine was about to begin and how quickly it would take Bob Geldof to fly in to begin his next “feed the world” concert.

The words of God, a page from Exodus 10 –“I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. They will fill your houses…..”

Gabra had suggested a “handful from god of flying creatures”.

I guessed it depended on how big Gods hands were as to how many locusts would descend on Gondar.  On our drive down from my hotel one solitary locust landed on the windscreen of the car. “One locust does not a plague make.”  I concluded. But how big the hand of God was I was soon to find out.

Gabra drove us to an innocuous looking café. The room was painted a pastel mint colour and was furnished with Formica tables and plastic chairs. A man sat in a corner table staring up a large TV screen; he barely acknowledged the two of us as we came in. But his eyes lit up when he saw I had cigarettes.

I had purchased cigarettes and cans of Heineken as gifts for making friends with the locals and had also raided the mini bar at my hotel  so was happy to hand a token cigarettes to the man.

But Gabra became agitated and finally hissed at me, “No gifts for him, bad man. He is a bad man.”

How did anyone know what a bad man looked like? How would I know? He didn’t have a tattoo on his forehead. I wondered what constituted a bad man in Ethiopia, a country that had had its fair share of wars. He must have been a soldier in one of those wars.

Gondar had played a pivotal part in many of the atrocities of war. My hotel room had a fabulous view of the Fasilida Castle, where once the residents of the city had awoke to find the bodies of

Insurgents hanging at the castle gates. Had this passed the order for such a deed? He seemed so unassuming so passive but who really knew the heart of any man?

Gabra introduced me to his cousin Rebekah and she took me to her room where there was a fridge for the cans of larger to stay cool. She then offered me Tej, the local Ethiopian brew a honey mead concoction which depending on the brewer varied in degrees of potency. Hers was pretty potent.

As the evening continued Rebekah our charming host asked several times if we could leave the room, as a “boyfriend” had arrived.  I became confused at the number of “boyfriends” she and a few of her friends had. But who was I to judge?

When asked to leave the room we joined the company in the cafe where the bad man was accumulating a pile of money from men that appeared to just walk in off the street. No words or very few words passed between him and these men. And he merely sat occasionally his eyes averting from the TV screen to me.  And his face would contort into a form of a smile.

But Gabra’s warning of him being a bad man stopped me from trying to engage in conversation with him.

After several glasses of tej I finally needed to brave the outside toilets. As I stepped outside into the courtyard the first of the visitors of the predicted plague had arrived. One landed on my hand, as I peered down at it I saw it was pink. I frowned was it the harshness of the lights strung up around the shack like buildings that had distorted the colour. I thought all locusts were brown. I inspected it more closely, what colour pink was it? Congo Pink, Pig Pink, Spanish Pink, Carnation Pink, Pearly Pink?  None of these seemed to describe the colour.

Even his antennas were pink and the lids of his eyes had a pink dusting like eye shadow, perhaps it was a gay pink locusts.

Variations of the colour pink paraded through my mind like fat can can dancers at the Moulin Rouge.

And then the spell was broken, his hind leg slowly kicked out and I felt a stinging sensation on my hand. I flicked him away and continued to the latrines. I could hear a whirring sound of insects in flight. The one insect was now plural and they had begun to flutter enthusiastically round my head. I was no longer interested in their colour.

When I came out of the toilet the night sky was filled with creatures and I started to ineffectually flail my arms in the air, the locusts landed in my hair, climbing like monkeys through trees I could feel the vibrations of their bodies on my scalp as they  chirped and whirred.

I rushed towards what I thought was the door the communal l room I had first sat in, opened the door and slammed it behind me whilst trying to rid myself of the locusts.

And then I opened my eyes and saw in the low light, two naked bodies on a bed. Both black. They literally stopped in mid copulation to stare at me. It finally dawned on me where I was the local brothel. All the money being handed over to the bad man in the cafe was for services rendered.

I stood embarrassed for a moment and then backed away to the door and opened it to be greeted by the sound of locusts.

The only way to describe the noise a swarm of locusts make is a gentle exhalation of air like a fart, hundreds of locusts farting in the air. And I had to run through the gamut of them, my hands covering my face I ran across the courtyard towards the light of the kitchen diner.

And then I could feel fingers slowly pick the locusts out of my hair.

A pan had been placed on the flames of an old belling gas oven.  Rebekah dropped locusts into steaming water then with a ladle, transferred them into a frying pan of hot oil as they hissed in the heat I thought they were still alive.

A plate of the insects was placed in the centre of the table and we ate Gabra, Rebekah, her three girlfriends and four men. For a few moments the sound of whirring hung in the air and then the crunching of food as we ate. “When locusts swarm we eat.” Rebekah finally said.

The crispy snacks of locusts seemed to be never ending as did the guest who paraded through the room. Each time the door opened more locusts for Rebekah to cook invaded the room.

Finally a bed was made up for me on the floor where the locusts that had crept under the narrow gap in the door now had set up their own form residence  the lullaby of farting locusts finally sending  me to sleep. Through the remainder of the night I was vaguely aware of the sounds of beds creaking in other rooms and distorted grunts of desire, but I slept and daybreak seemed to arrive too soon.

When Gabra and I left the room that morning it was Christmas day for me but not for him. For Ethiopia lived by a form of the Julian Calendar and Christmas day would not be until January and to complicate things even more they have 13 months in a year.

And I was happy to find out that I was seven years younger when I landed in the country as they are seven years behind us in the west!

My eyes became accustomed to the brilliant blue of the sky and the bright African sun there was a scrunching sound as a walked across the road to the car. Millions of gossamer wings still floated through the air. Under my  feet were the carcasses of locusts. Did they die happily in sexual congress? I knew not, but the sound under my feet was like the sound of walking on snow, deep and crisp and even.

I was headed to the monasteries on Lake Tana this Christmas day. As we drove away I didn’t ask Gabra why he had taken me to a brothel to celebrate Christmas Eve. But I did wonder what locusts would taste like if dipped in chocolate.

I can’t believe that it was so long ago that I first saw her. What must be over 45 years? The childhood memory is one of those few that are still vivid to me.

My dad was looking after the club known in those days as the “Hollies.”

It wasn’t his normal job he was a taxi driver, but he volunteered to run the place whilst Dougie and Millie went on holiday. I idolised my father and went everywhere with him, so I found myself helping clear up the club that particular evening. The one and only time I saw her.

My shoulders slumped immediately my father spoke. “Go up to the billiard room and clear the glasses up into the dumb waiter.”

“Can I take Candy with me?” I pleaded.

“Of course. But there really is nothing up there to be scared of, Pedro. It’s just us men blaming our bad shots on something more than inept snooker.”

His words didn’t make me feel any better and taking Candy our German shepherd dog wouldn’t help much either she was scared of the room as well.

The billiard room, everyone knew it was haunted. The men always spoke of how when they were playing snooker, suddenly the ball would shoot of at a different angle. Or how certain coloured balls would have been hidden in other parts of the room when they came up to play their first game of the day. Glasses moved from where they were placed and an atmosphere that could not be explained.

Although I had never seen her, I knew it was a she. And knew something bad had happened in that room.  It was strange that the ghost was a she. The club was a men’s only venue and it really was a stuffy masculine place. But the worse place was that room.

I dragged myself slowly up the huge staircase with Candy trailing reluctantly behind me, she was already trembling and by the time my hand touched the big brass door knob so was I.

I peered into the room, the lights were always dim and it just made it worse. The heavy oak wood paneling dragged the atmosphere down even more. A smell of cigars and stale beer pervaded the air.

I started quickly to pick up the glasses and place them in the dumb waiter. Faintly the scratching noise began, getting louder and more frantic. I tried to shut the noise out.

“Mice”, my Dad had tried to tell me the last time I heard it. “Place is infested with them” Bloody big mice I had thought, not convinced.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something. I figure in black and white. I swirled round, nothing. “Silly.” I said to myself she won’t show herself to you.

Candy was following me round like a bad smell, with one eye on the door ready for her quick escape. I had left the door open deluding myself that it would make things better. But the heavy oak door slowly creaked back on in hinges to shut itself and we were trapped for now.

Above one of the snooker tables the light flickered as if a bulb was going to go. And then I heard her. “I didn’t mean to. Please don’t put me in there. It‘s dark I‘m scared .Please no.” And then sobbing. And the scratching got louder. More frenzied.

I froze. Candy was cowering behind my legs trying to hide from – from nothing. There was nothing. Only the sobbing. And the scratching.

I bolted for the door and flung it open wildly. I ran full pelt down the stairs Candy overtaking me before we reached the last step.

As I rushed into the main bar my father must have seen the look of fear on my face. I ran towards him and he opened his arms. “What’s the matter Pedro?” he said softly.

“Nothing, I thought there was someone in the room and ….” I trailed off.

My dad smiled down at me benevolently, “There is nothing up there. It’s just a very creepy room. Too many male egos rest in there. I suppose I will have to go and finish clearing up there instead.”

He turned toward the same stairs I had just catapulted myself down.

“Daddy, if they ever pulled the panels down, what do you think they would find underneath?” I suddenly asked.

My father frowned, “Well probably pink walls. It was a girl’s school many years ago. Run by French nuns for the daughters of rich local gentry. Why? What do you think they would find?”

“Dead bodies. Something horrible happened in there I know it I can feel it. I heard her crying, they killed her. I know they did.”

My father had turned back, recognising my fear, a barely discernable frown on his face. “I think we will leave the glasses for the morning. Come on its time to go home. Mum will be waiting up for us. I shouldn’t have bought you out it’s much too late for you.”

We locked up together and walked over to his taxi. I loved his taxi. I loved the leather seats and the shinning black. I always felt special and safe in there.

As we pulled away I looked up at the window of the billiard room. And there she was, the face of her anyway. She stared for a second at me, pale as moonlight, she had an almost petulant look on her face, as if disappointed I was leaving her, but within seconds she was gone. I was about to tell my dad but thought better of it.

And now I’m back in my home town and each day I drive past the building and each time my head turns and glances up at the window. Do I hope I will see her? Or do I hope she was just my childish imagination?

One day they will knock the building down and then the truth of the place will be known. But for now I drive past and remember the scratching and the crying.

The wall of tears, was sobbing, a sound like the wind howling through stone. But there was no wind, only a blistering draining heat. The islands born from fire and ice were at the fire stage. Ice would now be a blessed relief. Perhaps that was why the Wall of Tears was crying, worn down by a heat so searing nothing could give any sense of liberty.  And this heat must have been stronger then shackles binding the slaves who built the “El Muro de las Lágrimas”. Something had drawn me back here; the wall had some magnetism for me in my delirious state.

It gave no shade from the sun there were no shadows to protect me even momentarily from the sunstroke I was now suffering from. Huge yellow tipped larva cacti were dotted across the harsh landscape as if grenades had been thrown in violent abandonment. And the explosion of land had been frozen in time with the needles of the cacti a deterrent to all but the totally insane.

Something moved slowly slowly through the landscape, an animal with his house on his back, moving ponderously a giant tortoise.

I needed water. Somehow I had managed to lose the group of fellow cyclists on the way back from our cycling trip on Isabella. Why had I agreed to cycle anyway? And in the 40+ degree heat I was never going to have enough water to stop my dehydration.

I can’t remember if I rashly had said, “You guys go on without me, I’ll catch you up.”  Would I have said that? And would they have left me? It appeared the answer was yes on both counts, because here I was back at the wall of tears alone, and without a bike, but even worse without water.

A searing pain was slicing through my dissolving brain like a knife through melted butter. I had intermittent seconds of clarity when I knew my situation was not good. And then redness blinded me and I could see only hell.

Now in a moment of that clarity I knew I had to go downwards not uphill as my delirium had driven me. I had to go down back to the coastline. Follow the trail back to the sea.

But there be dragons I deduced, red dragons of the Galapagos. I would have to face them if I was to have any chance of finding help. I had seen them on the journey up, when I had water and the last vestiges of common sense still with me. One had been at least four feet long and was a vivid crimson colour. I had stopped to admire them without fear and they had merely observed me without suspicion, interest or as potential food.

The sound of a bird distracted my already addled state of mind. From the corner of my eye I saw a small flurry of feathers. The small bird seemed to be singing louder than his little body would ever be able to accommodate. And he was taunting me. Of that I was convinced. Egging me on to something but I could not explain his true intent.

So blindly I moved down towards the sea. I tripped over something and fell to the black lava ground, the something moved, it was red. Its tongue flickered, licked at my skin. I lay with my face pressed against the black lava stones. The dragon approached closer his skin next to mine the red skin like sunburn.

He splayed his wings as if to take flight, but then he sauntered past me and merely flicked his tail provocatively as he went.

Relieved to establish that I was inedible to a dragon, slowly through gritted teeth I got back up and continued my descent.

I felt the stinging on my sun baked skin, was it the sting of the dragon, or was it the cacti needles? I knew not and cared even less. To the sea, to the sea, to the turquoise sea, like a mantra I murmured.

And as if in tune with me the bird I had encountered by the wall chirped alongside, running like a pygmy roadrunner. Was he encouraging me towards my destination or was he really mocking my stupidity?

The land under my feet began to change; the lava rocks gave way to sand. I saw shade of sorts from a tree, a mangrove tree, one that’s roots were buried under sand that at high tide the lower branches would hang in the salt water of the sea. Was this the coast line I was aiming for? Or had I once again veered away from the path of greater safety?

The sand shifted and moved in front of me. Black creatures – Iguanas slowly retreated from my path. I again tripped and fell; my hands stretched out and I grabbed hold of metal, the handle bars of a bike, the bike I had discarded. I was so numb it would take a few hours for me to realise that I had burnt my hands on the bars, the metal was white hot.

How many hours ago had I embarked on this fool hardy trip? Was the sun any closer to setting?  I collapsed under the minimal shade of the mangrove tree.

It was only a brief respite. I could feel my brains dripping down my face and onto the ground. How many brain cells would I need to continue this journey? None was the answer, for I could not complete this journey back to town without water.

Had the rest of the group seriously abandoned me? Had there been a falling out, or an accident?

Before I had time to consider just why I was out here alone suffering sunstroke the sound of a hungry dragon filled my now empty head. It started out as a dull rattle, but increased in volume and intensity. I was too weak to look for a place of safety or to be precise knew there was no place to escape the red dragoon.

My feathered companion was dancing up and down on the branch of the mangrove chirping ebulliently as if singing, “Now you are going to die, eaten by the red dragon, just by the turquoise sea.”

I lay back under the green leaves, the sunlight piercing through the green creating a dappled effect. And I began to recite Keats. The poem called Lamia, the one with the lines, – “She was a dazzling shape of Gordian hue. Vermillion spotted, golden green and blue: stripped like a zebra, freckled like a pard. Eyed like a peacock all crimson barr’d.”

Lamia moved ever closer, the noise rising to a crescendo of rattling and growling and then, then she beeped her horn. I don’t remember Lamia having a horn. Then there was a screeching sound and the banging of a door.

A shadow loomed over me, blocking the red and angry sun. And then the sound of a voice that I vaguely recognised as coming from Fernando, one of the guys from the Isabella Giant Turtle Breeding Centre that I was working at.

Water was splashed over my face and a bottle was put to my mouth. I felt the liquid flow between my parched lips. Lamia was not a dragon just an old battered jeep that rattled and the radiator steamed constantly.

I was maneuvered into the jeep by Fernando and David. As I slumped down in the seat, I wondered if they noticed that my brains were still dripping albeit at a slower rate down my face. If they did neither of them commented on it.

Later lying on my bed back at the Flamingo Hostel, having been given fluids and dehydration packets, I established how I had come to be separated from the group.

After reaching the Wall of Tears, where I had not climbed the steps to the lookout post, having complained I was too weak for the steps, we had cycled to a lagoon, where we had swum with the seals, a usual occurrence in the Galapagos.  David had moaned all the way from the wall of tears that his bike had a flat tyre. I had offered to swap saying, “I’m too tired to cycle back I will walk with your bike.”

By the time the group had realised I was not trailing behind them I had disappeared. After a brief but worrying search, they had returned as quickly as possible to raise the alarm for help.

Our gracious host at the hostel had at the start of our trip expressed her reservations of me going cycling with the group. She had merely raised a dark Spanish eyebrow at me and had said, “Vas a encontrar en una bici” – “You are getting on a bike?” That and the look on her face had said it all really.

And of course I had confirmed in my dehydrated state that she had been right.

Why had I found myself back at the Wall of Tears? Had the ghosts of the prisoners lured me to a possible death? I don’t know that part of my memory is lost.

My hands from grabbing the handlebars of the discarded bike were red and raw for a few days. The scar from the dragon’s sting remained a livid red for a few days but that too subsided. I recovered remarkably quickly from the sunstroke. As to the number of brain cells that melted beyond repair? Of that I cannot confirm.

There are no recorded sightings of red dragons on the Galapagos Islands. Maybe once there were red dragons, but today there are only two varieties of Iguana’s, the black marine iguana and the more colourful land iguana called conolophus subcristatus. But the Island of Isabella has the sub species called the Galapagos Pink Land Iguana, commonly known as the “pink morph”, which resides near Vulcan Wolf. I was too far from their range to have encountered these in my delirium. Yet I had am sure I had seen them on way up to the Wall of Tears before my sunstroke had started.  The bird that had taunted me through my ordeal was indeed the “mockingbird”.

How to cook locusts. Remove the wings and hind legs of the locusts and boil in a little water until soft. Add salt to taste and a little fat and fry until brown.

I had been trying to understand my Ethiopian drivers’ attempts to explain to me in his very broken English why we […]

via One Christmas Eve in Gondar. (Part One) — lenawaltonWAYWARDDAUGHTER

How to cook locusts. Remove the wings and hind legs of the locusts and boil in a little water until soft. Add salt to taste and a little fat and fry until brown.

I had been trying to understand my Ethiopian drivers’ attempts to explain to me in his very broken English why we had a problem going out for Christmas Eve as planned. I had employed Gabra for his steady driving, his cheek bones and lovely dark chocolate skin, not his conversation skills. Now it was apparent that perhaps I should have paid more attention to his command of the English language.

I had somehow interpreted his hand movements and his Pidgin English as thus. From out of the pages of the bible, Ethiopia was about to have a plague of weird flying creatures that had cymbals strapped to their abdomens to encourage females to mate with them. I imagined a hoard of singing creatures on a sexual rampage clashing cymbals loudly before embarking on a lust fuelled evening of insect debauchery. Even so however strange I didn’t really know how this would prevent me from going out for Christmas Eve.

Fortunately the compulsory armed escort that had come with the driver – Ethiopia was still at war with Eritrea when I travelled, spoke excellent English and he explained fully the problem.

A plague of locusts was about to spread across the country, devouring everything edible in their wake. The cymbals were in fact tymbals and muscles on the abdomen popped them in and out to make the chirping noise.

I had experienced many unusual phenomenon whilst travelling the world, but a plague of locusts was not one of them.

I do remember when watching the “Natural World”  as a child, seeing a program where a plague of the insects had been filmed somewhere in Africa, maybe Ethiopia, but all I can remember was the scene of the barren wasteland they left behind them.

Now here in Ethiopia I contemplated how the next famine was about to begin and how soon Bob Geldolf would be flying in for his sequel to his “Feed the world” concert.

Gabra had arranged to take me to his cousins home for an evening of Ethiopian hospitality, which would include for me the nectar of the Gods, traditional Ethiopian coffee, along with Tej the local brew of honey or mead wine would be available and special Ethiopian dancing to an instrument known as a massinko which can briefly be described as a one stringed violin.

This was not a tourist venue, it was going to be a group of local Gondar people who were happy to invite me to their home. An opportunity not to be missed, and all I had to do was supply cigarettes and a few cans of Heineken from my hotel mini bar.

It was the coffee that swayed it for me, that and the fact my parents had lived through WW2, if they could survive Nazi bombs I could survive a few locusts.

Gabra had suggested a, “handful from God of the flying creatures”. I guess it depends on how big Gods hands were as to how many locusts would descend on Gondar.

And so we left my hotel and drove down to the city of Gondar. On our drive down one solitary locust landed on the car, and I thought, “One locust does not a plague make”.

How big the hand of god was I would to find out later!

The “home” we arrived at was from the front an innocuous looking café. The first room we entered was painted a pastel mint colour and furnished with Formica tables and plastic chairs. On the walls were ubiquitous pictures of that hero of all Ethiopians and Jamaicans, Haile Selassie.

As I sat down a saw a dark man sitting on his own, he looked up but did not smile. I immediately thought, need to put the hand of friendship out and offered him a cigarette. Gabra’s face showed he was not happy, he took me aside, “Bad man very bad man, why you give him cigarette?”

“I didn’t realise there were going to be designated cigarette receivers. How the hell do       know who a bad man is?”

Gabra continued to be agitated, “No cigarettes for that man. Bad man, he’s a bad man.”

I looked across to the man, tried to read his face. Who was he, perhaps ex-army? Perhaps he was one of those government officials who hung men outside the gates of the palace of Emperor Fasilidas. I could only guess why Gabra didn’t want to include him in my making friends with the locals.

At that moment a lady of grace and dignity walked across the room, she held her hand out and gave me the traditional handshake that all of the countries men and women would give. It was like a Masonic handshake and I returned the hand shake in the same manner.

“I am Rachel.” she introduced herself.

And so the evening’s entertainment began, I handed cigarettes out and the cans of Heineken, under Gabra’s careful surveillance. He chose who received my gifts.

The bad man sat watching and I looked at his face I could see something dark about him, not the colour of his skin, the colour of his heart. He didn’t smile at me and I didn’t smile at him.

As the evening progressed I found myself confused by the number of men that seemed to come in and out of the front café. The “Bad Man of Gondar” sat watching the proceedings in silence. At regular intervals men came up to him and gave him money. He seemed to be collecting quite a stash of Birrs, the currency of Ethiopia.

At one stage I need to use the latrines. As I stepped outside the back of the café, I was surprised to see a complex of single level shack like homes rather like Pontins holiday homes. I guessed perhaps the bad man was some kind of land lord and that was why he was being given the money it was rent night.

As I crossed the square I heard the whirring sounds of insects in flight. The one locusts earlier was now plural and they were fluttering around my head.

As I came back out of the latrine the air was filled with the creatures and I started to blindly flail my arms in the air, batting ineffectually at the cicadas as they landed in my hair and I could feel the gentle vibration on my scalp. Not something I could say was that pleasant.

I rushed toward what I thought was the café door, opened it and slammed the door behind me whilst continuing to bat at the insects in my hair.

And then I opened my eyes and saw, two naked bodies on a bed. Both black. They literally stopped in mid copulation to stare at me. As surprised to see me as I was to see them. I stood embarrassed in the half light of the room. No one spoke for a second and then the man smiled and waved his hand as if to say come and join us.

I backed toward the door and opened it to the sound of locusts. The only way to describe a swarm of locusts a gentle exhalation of air like a fart. It is like they are having one big farting competition. Loathe as I was to step back into the night, I knew my place was not in the room with the two naked bodies.

I closed the door, cringing as I exited and turned to face the farting insects. (To be continued……..)

Lisa couldn’t remember the last time she had swayed her hips with such seductive abandonment and so close to a gorgeous young man. It felt so easy, so natural and so, so tempting.

She had stopped counting the beats of the music, mouthing the numbers in Spanish “uno dos, tres cuatro, cinco” and the faster “seis, sete, oche…” so much in tune was she now with her sexy dancer.

And she had become oblivious to her surroundings, that if it were not for the odd sound of gunfire punctuating the atmosphere, for the few brief seconds of silence when the music changed she would have forgotten she was on the Columbian border in the rather infamous drug dealing town of Lago Agrio.

It was just her and her beautiful young lithe dancer Miguel.

They had barely said two words to each other since meeting in the restaurant across the street from her hotel. But now here in the Salsa bar they had found a way of communicating that defied words.

After her initial reluctance and shyness to even step on the dance floor, they were soon in slow dancing embraces, drawing each other together and then flicking away and in Sevilliana swirls to meet again in each other’s arms. Her hips sashaying like a young precocious teenager. Enticing young hot males to her mercy.

As the first refrains of “Amor de mis Amores” played out, Lisa was lost in the moment.

The room was full of Salsa dancers but they receded into oblivion as Miguel teased his hips close to hers and their body heat was the only thing between them. By the time “I like it like that” was being played Lisa realised that yes she did indeed “like it like that”.

Occasionally there was the applause of fellow dancers and laughter rang through the hot smoky room. The sound of shoes taping on the wooden floor.

Only stopping for mojitos, laced with salt and lime, they danced late into the night and finally it was the musicians who stopped playing and Lisa saw that she and Miguel were the only two left in the bar. The band packed up their instruments and made a very swift exit from the back of the building. Avoiding any possible involvement with the drug fuelled actions going on in the main drag of Lago Agrio.

It was then for a split second Lisa felt vulnerable. But that was easily swept away like tumbleweed as Miguel with traditional Spanish machismo put a protective arm around her. With a casual “Haste Luego” to the owner of the venue Miguel led her out back into the main drag of the town to her hotel.

Once back in her hotel room they continued their slow, slow dancing. While the bright white neon light of “Hotel Agrio” flickered and buzzed outside the bedroom window, they slowly undressed each other, peeling of the final traces of any of her middle aged inhibitions.

Miguel was a hot Latin lover and he took Lisa greedily and selfishly. She enthusiastically clung to his warm, soft brown body. Fluid hip gyrations and slow twirls gave way to a more frantic rhythm, rigid back arches as Lisa dug her nails into Miguel’s muscular back.

She licked the final traces of salt and lime from his lips, from the mojitos that they had drunk so easily earlier in the evening.

Twenty years of marital boredom was shed away from Lisa in that first tryst. All those years of clinging to the sham of her marriage, to his cold, cold lies. Like a snake peeling skin to be regenerated, Lisa felt her old self go with her moans of sexual delight. By the time she reached her climax all traces of any remorse for her cheating ex-husband Alex had gone too.

When she awoke a few hours later, he had disapeared, and for a moment she thought that she had dreamt him. But she could still smell his body on the sheets, and a faint tang of salt on her lips. In the shower she sighed almost with pain as she watched the water take the final invisible traces of Miguel from her body.

Her slow dancer had gone from her life, Salsa’d away from her in Sevillian swirls and now all she had was the memory of his hips as he had led her so deliberately in the dance.

She fell back onto the bed, her arms outstretched, slowly a grin formed at the corners of her mouth. There could be many more Latino lovers like Miguel before the end of her trip. More slow dancing like at Lago Agrio.

Perhaps life as a divorcee would not be so bad. The memory of Miguel was already fading, as was the taste of salt and lime on her lips.

Back in the seventies the shopping chain Woolworth’s in my home town of Epsom used to have an open cheese counter. One Saturday my mother sent my sister and I with my dad shopping. A rare event in itself. He wanted maggots for bait for his fishing trip on the following Sunday and mum had asked for him to buy some cheese for a cauliflower cheese dish. Knowing that we would be going to Woolworth’s my sister and I had already cajoled dad for a bag of pick and mix sweets on the way out.

Dad purchased the maggots from the fishing shop that used to be at the bottom of the high street. And then we walked in to Woolworths. My sister and I both eying the pick and mix counter with high anticipation of a bag of specially selected sweets on the way out.

Once at the cheese counter my father handed the box of maggots to my sister Karen to hold. Karen with a squeal of disgust flipped the box towards me with the back of her hand saying “No, I don’t want them, you have them” as I put my hand up to deflect the oncoming box my hand hit the lid off and the box rose high into the air. Slowly the contents of maggots swirled like snow flakes down to their resting place on the slabs of uncovered cheese.

Our father meanwhile had sighed with resignation as he had watched the maggots flying through the air. Without a word he walked round the side of the counter, picked the box up that had landed with a clink on the floor and began to pick the maggots up from the buttercup coloured slabs of cheese. The assistant who had stood spellbound by the sight began to assist him, both remained silent as they completed the task.

Meanwhile several customers with their mouth’s open in bemusement stood watching the scene.

My father showed no flicker of embarrassment at all.

When it was apparent that there were no more grubs to be rescued, dad secured the lid on the box, walked back round to stand along side us two girls and then politely said to the assistant. “ Can I have a pound of the extra mature cheddar please?”

Both my sister and I wrinkled our nose’s up and grimaced repulsed at the fact he still bought the cheese that the offending maggots had been resting on, but we remained silent. At the same time knowing all hope of our pick and mix bag was disappearing rapidly.

As if it had been a perfectly normal turn of events the sales assistant cut the cheese and wrapped it in the paper and handed it across the counter to my Dad. With a polite thank you the three of us turned round and walked out of the shop. I glanced mournfully at the sweet counter as we passed. The sweets shone in pretty coloured wrappers like jewels, purple, orange, green , bright red, all dazzling hues protecting the chocolate and sweets hidden within.

That evening my mother cooked dad his favourite meal of cauliflower cheese which he ate with enthusiasm. My dad was half French , of course a few maggots would never put him off eating cheese. Now as an adult I am so glad it was a selection of English hard cheeses that were on display, the sight of a juicy runny camembert with maggots settling in would have been just too much. Neither my sister or I could even stomach the smell let alone taste it. And even today the sight and smell of cauliflower cheese has us both wrinkling our noses’ up and brings back to me the incongruous sight of maggots falling down like fat snowflakes on yellow cheese.

I have often been described as having no fear and in all honesty there are many times when that could be said as true. But there are equally as many times when my courage has escaped me and left me ashamed and unable to look someone in the face. This is one of those moments when bravery ran rapidly out the back door like a skulking cat!

I arrived in the capital of Java known as Yogyakarta at the end of Ramadan – a weekend of partying was ahead for the locals. But for me,well I was trying to survive the humidity that the city blanketed me in as soon as I arrived. I had booked into a Losman run by a local family and the owner immediately suggested that I get across to one of the islands in the chain known as Pulau Serebu also called the thousand islands. The winds from the sea would be cooling and it would be great place to snorkel and relax he assured me.

His daughter and a friend were going across and I could share the air conditioned car to take me down to the ferry. The two girls were then going to be taken across the Java seas in luxury, in a yacht called the Java Jewel.

I watched the two beautiful young girls clamber aboard the luxury yacht giggling with happiness and excitement. I in turn clambered onto my less then salubrious public ferry, but was already breathing a sigh of relief as I caught the first of the cooling breezes. The ferry followed in the wake of the yacht, it soon disappeared in to the horizon.

My journey across to the island I had booked to stay on was long and slow, the ferry stopped off like one of our London buses at every place somebody stuck their hand out for it, but eventually I arrived and booked into my beach hut. Dumped my luggage, stripped down to my bikini and hit the beach!

It was not long before the two girls found me and demanded swimming lessons. The Losman’s daughter was she told me 15 and her friend 16, both had a very good command of the English language. We spent the afternoon swimming in the crystal clear waters of the Java Sea, the seabed littered with sea cucumbers.

As the afternoon wore on I started to realise something was terribly wrong. The older girl told me she had been paid to come across with the group of men sat on the beach. Koreans, rich, fat and by the looks on their faces arrogant.

“It’s Ok, no problem. At first I hated it, but the money is good and now mother always demands jewelry when I return back to my village. I get taken to expensive hotels and eat in fancy restaurants. It’s easy money.”

The story however for the Losman’s daughter was clearly different. This was her first time.

“I don’t want to sleep with him. I like his son. See, the one sitting under the trees? There.” she pointed across to the solitary figure.

I returned my gaze back to this young girl and my heart sank. She was stunning, not just pretty but beautiful. Pale skin and jet black hair falling in tresses around her shoulders. Beautiful almond shaped eyes. And an innocence that I suddenly realised would by the end of this weekend be gone.

Did her father know what was about to happen? I decided that he couldn’t possibly know, he had been so attentive to her that morning, so fatherly. He really did think she was going on a weekend jaunt in a big yacht across the Java seas.

As the sun slowly set and evening descended I made my way back to my hut, showered and changed for my evening meal. I grabbed my book A Suitable Boy, assuming I would be eating alone and headed to the Al Fresco restaurant.

I was immediately ushered to the group from the Java Jewel. They had caught a monster of a fish earlier that morning on their jaunt across and wanted to share with me. By the looks of the number of empty bottles of beer and wine their end of Ramadan was going very well.

A large glass of wine was placed in my hand I gulped rapidly and then my eyes caught the face of the Losman’s daughter. She had a pained smile on her face and was holding a larger tumbler of what I could smell was whiskey. She was too young for that kind of drink, I thought. She came and sat next to me. We tried to have a normal conversation. About her education, (she was attending a local Catholic school) her hopes, her dreams but it was futile, her fate seemed set now.

One of the men explained that the best part of the fish was the part just at the back of the gills and this was offered to me.

The fish was I am sure exquisite but my taste buds seemed to have disappeared down into my stomach where they were brewing up a storm of sickness.

The Korean whom I assumed owned the Java Jewel continued to stare at me smiling with a way too polite expression on his face. I stayed for as long as it was considered acceptable, drinking too many glasses of wine and then I excused myself, retreating back to my hut on the beach.

As soon as I got into the hut I grabbed my own bottle of whiskey and gulped a large portion down.

Jesus what could I do? The man had paid for her. What could I do? Nothing. I was useless. I could go back and hurl obscenities at him but what would that do. Anger him? Make him feel he had to prove his manliness with this young girl? Make the whole thing worse than it already was?

I took another swig of the whiskey, flopped back on my clean white sheeted bed and stared up at the ceiling fan rotating round.

I slowly dozed, falling into an angry and impotent sleep. Vaguely I heard someone knocking on my bamboo hut door. As I awoke I realised it was the Losman’s daughter. I opened the door to a distraught girl. She stumbled in reeking of whiskey and something worse.

I closed the door. Tried to comfort her. I had almost calmed her from the hysteria when my hut door was kicked open and three Koreans stood in what was once the door way.

Drunk and angry they mumbled something in slurred and badly formed English.

I met the eyes of the biggest of the three. “Get out. You have no right to come barging in here, this is my hut. I have paid for this. I didn’t invite you.” I screeched.

With one powerful slap across my face that sent me sprawling across the floor ,the fat Korean grabbed the Losmans daughter and said, hrough whiskey breath, “ Yes and I have paid for this, and I will have my money’s worth.”

He dragged the girl wailing like an injured animal back in to the darkness, her howls hanging in the night like torture.

The remaining two men stared down at me, their fists clenched almost willing me to get up off the floor so they could hit me. I attempted to climb to my knees and I felt the first thwack, dizzy with pain I shook my head, a childhood trait, whenever I had a headache I would shake my head. I felt another smack and then the fear set in and then for once in my life I stayed down. But the anger remained. I waited for what felt like was minutes, but was in all probability a few seconds, one spat at me before turning round and walking out of the hut. Followed by his friend.

I stayed on the ground. I cried. I hit my fists on the matted floor and raged at my complete and utter uselessness. Finally my anger spent I got up and grabbed the bottle of whiskey, finished off the bottle and fell back on the bed in drunken stupor.

The following morning I prayed that I wouldn’t see any of the Java Jewel group at breakfast. I ate as much Nasi Goreng as my hangover could accommodate and packed my luggage to get the ferry back across to Yogyakarta.

My head was pounding, a mixture of a hangover and a bloody battering from the Koreans.

When I tramped down to the ferry stop I could see the large shape of the Java Jewel rocking gently in the sea.

The ferry was ready for boarding I climbed in. I was suddenly aware of someone waving and calling me. I looked up, it was the Losman’s daughter waving from the yacht.

I smiled and waved, glad that she was still alive. From where I sat I was just close enough to see her face, but couldn’t see if her lovely smile reached her eyes.

My last image of the Java Jewel was her hair waving in the breeze, black like the wings of a dark angel.

When I arrived back to the Java side there was no air conditioned car to drive me back to my accommodation. I got a taxi and whilst in the back of the car I started to wonder what the girl’s father would say. Would he blame me? Would he feel I had somehow let his lovely daughter down?

Fortunately it was his wife who greeted me, but my relief was short lived. I looked at her, round her neck a stunning display of black pearls. I barely managed to meet her smile. But I saw her gaze rest on the bruises that had now appeared on my face. Her demeanor was gracious, but it was wasted, the black pearls answered everything.

The Koreans words echoed back, “Yes and I have paid for this, and I will have my money’s worth.”

“I can’t stay, “I explained, “I need to get back into the city center. Can I just settle up? My taxi is waiting?”

“Of course.” In silence she wrote out my bill, I paid and I ran quickly back to the taxi and left.

I booked into a hotel called The Rainbow, air conditioned, well stocked mini bar, TV, shower, room service. I chose not to take up the offer of a personal masseuse.

So you see, no traveler’s tale of bravery, no rescuing of the maiden in distress. Just a bloody bruised face and a crashing hangover. And a sense that I had failed.

I hate black pearls. Fortunately I have never been given them as a gift. I hope to God I never will. For the price we pay for certain things is not worth the real cost.