Rockingham

Now it is time for me to introduce Ann and Mike.  They were a couple who had got together during Caro’s time at the ANZAC flat in Edinburgh.  Now they were getting married, and had extended an invitation to the two of us.  Not only that, but Macca and Brownie would be there too, so I couldn’t really refuse.  For one thing I am scared of the two Lisas.  

Caro and I hopped on a flight from Sydney and began the long flight from one side of the continent to the other.  I hate long flights – I just can’t sleep.  I’m far too excitable, like a large dog in the back of a car.  It’s a good thing you can’t roll down the windows in an aeroplane, or I would have crossed Australia with my head sticking out of the window with my tongue out.  Caro, meanwhile, strapped on her blow-up neck pillow and snoozed happily while I suffered through the terrible inflight films and the even worse inflight toddlers.

Now here's a tip for anyone picking me up at the airport.  Let me get my bags first.  That is my time to gather my thoughts, shake the travel cobwebs from my thoughts and most importantly sniff my pits and maybe make a quick bathroom-stop to freshen up.

MACCA DID NOT ALLOW ME TO DO THIS.

She pounced - POUNCED I SAY - upon Caro and I directly upon 
disembarkation from the plane.  Not that I wasn't delighted to see her.  She is, after all, my fiancee (if you had forgotten - we have an agreement that I will marry her so that she can get my passport, and I get to point her out to other men and go "Woooahh, that's MAH woman!")  

That aside, all I will say is that she got a hug from me before I had a chance to check myself out and if that was an unpleasant experience for Macca, well she brought it on herself.

Macca took us to MacDonald's where Ann was waiting for us.  I had met Ann only once, about 3 years previously when she had poured me a beer.  I had come an awfully long way for another one.  Ann was lovely to me, and gave me another big hug (maybe these women like men who smell as if they've been farted out by a moose?)  

I should describe Ann as she is the star of this chapter.  She reminded me of Karen Allen, the spunky heroine of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and I sort of expected her to yell "LOOK OUT  INDY!" and shoot a German at any moment.

Disappointingly, this did not happen.

What I'm trying to say is that she's got that same sort of tomboyish charm thing happening and is training to be some sort of park ranger which shows that I was on the right track with my assessment.  "Does this mean khaki shorts and a four-wheel drive?" asked Caro with a snort.  I can see it.

Ann drove us to our rented house in Rockingham and we unpacked all our crap by the prescribed method of carefully taking out all the necessaries and lining them up on the dresser if you are Caroline, or by turning your bag upside down and shaking it, if you are me.  Then I got to meet Jo, TK and Sam who we were to share the house with.  They were all really nice - friends of Ann's from schooldays and all Kiwis excited to be on holiday.  

To complete the picture, Brownie showed up carrying a bag twice as big as herself and installed herself in the back bedroom.

Well, she wasn't there long.  What happened was this:  We went around to the other house that had been rented for Ann & Mike's friends from their days in London.  This too was crammed with Kiwis and I began to wonder if New Zealand had secretly annexed Western Australia without the Australians noticing.  Again, these were ex-Edinburgh flat people and they greeted Caro noisily and shook my hand while making the mandatory derogatory comments about Poms.  

I was just getting to know everyone when Ann's Auntie Zela showed up with her husband Mike.  "Ooh, I think I'm staying here!" she announced and promptly shot up the stairs.

Now then.  What Caro and I didn’t know was that this was the first time anyone in the house had heard Zela and Mike were staying there.  Moreover, Zela and Mike's room had been the "party room" and was full of empty beer bottles and a very prominent bong.  Consequently, Zela decided to stay with the old folk (us) and Lisa Brown got kicked out of her bed.  Fortunately, there was a spare one in our room.  

We didn’t mind.  It has now almost got to the point where Caro and I have trouble sleeping in a room that doesn’t have Brownie in it.  "She's like a pet," explained Caro to Ann.

Having Zela and Mike stay of changed the whole vibe of the place.  They took over our little house within five minutes of entry and made us feel as if we had to be on our best behaviour.  We were all fairly grumpy about this and then came the affair of the kimono.  Mike, who had previously come across as kind of a laid-back old gentleman, went for a shower and emerged 15 minutes later in full view of Caro, Lisa and the others wearing an EXTREMELY short garment.  

Caro noted it was decorated in good old 1970's style with swirls.  I think she was just trying to avoid looking down in case she caught sight of "some wizened old cock dangling out" as Lisa Brown so delicately put it.

So we took the very first opportunity that we could to escape the geriatric flashers and went to Ann and Mike’s house which is located in the small town of Rockingham, about 30 minutes from Freemantle.  There, we were to celebrate a traditional Kiwi bucks and hens’ night.  If you have never been to such an occasion, I can reveal to you that it involves getting drunk to Crowded House, and mocking Ann & Mike.  

Ann was forced to wear a thong outside her jeans and Mike emerged wearing a Viking helmet for reasons I still don't fully understand and a gigantic yellow penis which he was unable to remove for the very good reason that someone had padlocked it around his waist.

After a few hours of this, the boys decided to go their own way which was a bit traumatic for me as I didn't really know anyone and felt like I 
stuck out like a Big Pom.  However, we piled in the back of someone's ute and drove off to "The George and Dragon" which was kind of like a warehouse with alcohol but without the ambience.  Pitchers were ordered, including a pitcher of bacardi and coke which was duly passed around.  These Kiwis, they just don't care.

Then talk turned to "Zelda's" and some of the boys got very excited.  Zelda's is a strip joint where you can get a "toppo" and a "strippo" said a very seedy looking little man with cross-eyes called Rigny.  I'm not sure if it was all the strippo talk that was making him that way.  Rigny was quite special.  He had a greying mullet and a horrid little jacket that he never took off.  So, ok, we were off to Zelda's.  

Mike went off in another car, still with padlocked willy attached while I got back into the ute with Tom and Paul who entertained me with other "back of ute" stories.  I have just the one and consequently feel rather inadequate.  The back of my mum's hatchback just doesn't have the same ring somehow.

Now as it happens I've managed to go through my life so far without going to a strip club and was feeling pretty uncomfortable about it.  The fact is, going to a strip club is just not something I do.  I think there's basically something seedy about men all getting stiffies in unison, especially when Rigny’s boner is part of that throng.  

Consequently, I was feeling very out of my usual environment of my men friends back in Scotland who like to stand around in a bar swapping soup recipes.  Taking me to a strip club is like taking a Chinese panda out HIS native environment and - well - taking him to a strip club.

So I was more than a bit relieved when we arrived at Zelda’s and were told by the bouncer that, “some bloke in a Viking helmet" according to the bouncer had been barred for breaking glasses.  As it turned out, they'd gone to "The Swinging Pig" - a bar not far away populated entirely by teenagers. 

Am I giving you the sense that I felt myself a bit too old for all this?  I don't think it was just me, Tom also seemed pretty fed up by this stage.  As for Mike - he escaped!  One minute he was there, swinging his yellow willy about, and the next - he was gone!  We started to think this might be a good idea too, and Tom and I shared a taxi home.  I found Caro already in bed when I got back, but as it turned out, she'd had an even more exciting evening than me.

Caro's Exciting Evening
I should tell you something about Ann & Mike.  God they can drink.  I mean, they were usually already pissed by the time I met them, and I would think, “Well they can't possibly last much longer.”  As it turned out I was wrong.  Ann and Mike can just go ON being pissed for AGES.  

Ann, bless her, makes me laugh because her legs become very drunk very quickly, while the top half of her remains sober, carrying on conversations, eating and cracking jokes even while her legs go off wandering about drunkenly on their own, before depositing her in the flower bed.  It's the most bizarre phenomena.

Caro told me that after the boys left to go to Zelda’s, the shooters came out and before long Ann was in the toilets.  Caro went in to fetch her, having been sent in by someone called Cregwyn.  

Cregwyn was quite special.  She sported a mobile phone on a chain around her neck, wore vicious make-up and had the worst teeth I've seen outside a Deep South special episode of Jerry Springer.  Cregwyn informed Caro that the stripper had just arrived and therefore Ann had to be retrieved.  Caro found Ann propped up against the bathroom wall with her jeans half-unbuttoned, so she sorted her out, took her back to the party and tried to sit her down in the designated lapdancing chair.

By this time the stripper had put his CD on.  He was wearing a  shiny grey suit, with long permed hair and was gyrating to “You Can Keep Your Hat On”, but all this completely bypassed Ann who had noticed the music had changed from the obligatory “Best of Crowded House” that she insisted on playing over and over.

"What the f*ck is this sh*t?" she demanded and wobbled over to switch it off, meaning the poor stripper was in mid-gyrate when his music cut out.  Fortunately Cregwyn was on hand to explain what was going on, the music went back on and the stripper continued his routine.  The suit came off, the groin-thrusting became more frenzied and the whole thing took on an even cheesier air when he tried to simulate a blow-job by putting Ann's head into his groin.  The effect was spoiled due to Ann being so p*ssed that she kept falling over.  Cregwyn intervened at this point to hold her in position.

Caro and Lisa could barely their laughter.  The Rockingham Ladies went wild.

I've just asked Caro what the stripper’s name was.  She thinks it might have been Cody.  "It could have been Fuck-Head though," she added, which illustrates her opinion of him more succinctly than I have been able to do so far.

By this stage the Rockingham ladies had been worked up to a state of near-hysteria and, thus encouraged, Cody decided to work the crowd, and produced a bottle of baby-oil which he proceeded to smear on his chest.  The Rockingham ladies were practically ovulating with excitement, but unfortunately at this point he chose to zero in on one Brownie.  

I’m sure you were wondering what had happened to Brownie.  She's usually in the thick of it where foulness is concerned, so why has Symon left her out?  You were probably thinking.  

Well the truth of the matter is, Lisa wanted nothing to do with the sordid business and was quite happily pouring herself another Bailey’s shooter when an oily inner thigh was presented to her.  Brownie gingerly did as she was told and gave him a bit of a pat.

"I am NOT a pet," Cody complained, affronted.

Lisa just raised her eyebrown at this, complained that he was getting her pashmina oily and flounced off to get more drink.  Giving up on the awkward one, Cody decided to focus his attention back on Ann who promptly tried to steal his watch.  I think at this point the cd either finished or Cody had decided that enough was enough and make his exit to ecstatic roars of approval from the Rockingham women.

Cregwyn ran after him with the shiny suit to make sure he got it back on okay.  She was gone for about 30 minutes.  I'm saying nothing.

So when Tom and I got into our taxi, the driver was able to tell us the whole story.  He must be the only cab-driver in Rockingham, for he'd ferried the girls home too. "The stripper was really shit," he told us and I started to feel quite good that we never made it to Zelda's.