Blind Date at a Funeral Read Free Page B

hole in the toe of one of his socks and for some reason it endeared him to me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was an underlying sadness in the way Piet, the wiry farmer from Koppies, moved. Even though he had a bad limp, there was something very beautiful and touching about how he danced.
    Taki leaned over towards my bed and whispered behind his hand. ‘This is a hell of a farewell party, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Who is leaving?’ I replied, also in a whisper.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ said Taki.
    â€˜You said this was a farewell party.’
    â€˜Ahh, you didn’t know,’ he said, smiling at me broadly. ‘It was Piet’s idea.’
    Taki leaned closer.
    â€˜He wanted a farewell party for his leg,’ he whispered. ‘It’s going to be amputated.’

Found and Lost
    (Soundtrack: ‘The Long and Winding Road’ by The Beatles)
    She was crying when I first laid eyes on her all those years ago.
    She was sitting in the rain and sobbing so hard I couldn’t tell which were tears and which were raindrops running down her cheeks.
    She was perched, wet tissue in hand, on a low brick wall outside a café in Killarney, Johannesburg. I glanced at her as I walked past.
    Then I stopped and turned back.
    She looked so beautiful, drenched in her sadness, sitting there in the rain. Helpless. Hopeless.
    â€˜Are you okay?’ I asked.
    â€˜No,’ she said.
    â€˜What would make you feel better?’ I asked. I could not think of anything else to say. She was really beautiful and that scrambled my brain.
    â€˜A frozen Flake,’ she said.
    I looked at her, puzzled.
    â€˜You know those Cadbury Flakes?’
    I nodded.
    â€˜I like to put them in the freezer and then eat them frozen.’
    I burst out laughing and so did she. We talked for a bit and then she told me where she worked.
    I wished her a better day and I went back to work after getting coffee.
    Later that afternoon I scrambled from café to café and bought 100 Flakes. I boxed them up and had a friend drop them off where she worked, with a note that said, ‘I hope this makes you feel a hundred times better.’
    That was the beginning of a great relationship that turned into a wonderful friendship.
    She was so much fun.
    We would do crazy things like drive to Durban from Johannesburg for the day so that we could have a picnic on the beach. We sang the
Jesus Christ Superstar
soundtrack all the way there and back.
    She taught me how to ‘walk the dog’ with a yoyo.
    She taught me how to play ‘Heart of Gold’ on the guitar.
    We went dancing at almost every club in Johannesburg, from Barbarella’s to Ciro’s. From Plumb Crazy to Q’s. From Bella Napoli to Raffles.
    She liked to make out at the top of the water tower in Berea. And on the top of Linksfield Ridge, looking at the twinkling lights of Hillbrow.
    And, get this, on the Ellis Park rugby field in the middle of the night, which almost got us thrown into choekie. Not forgetting the Blyde River Canyon where she liked to climb under the waterfalls in the moonlight, which freaked me out, especially after drinking red wine.
    Just to qualify: this was making out only. She was not into doing the wild thing because she was going through a divorce.
    In retrospect, I’m glad it didn’t go further. Honestly. Because she was not ready for a relationship and I was a typical horn dog, and knocking boots would have ruined our friendship.
    We transitioned out of the pre-serious romance phase, back to the bestest friends era, which was great.
    I won’t lie. At first, I grovelled and begged and wrote her songs and sent her cute notes, trying at least to do it once. Just once. She did not buy all my countless, desperate reasons for why it would be a good thing to bonk me, so we became close, loving friends-without-benefits.
    We stayed very close until I moved halfway across the world a few years later