Short Story: Three Thirty In The Afternoon

Short Story: Three Thirty In The Afternoon

It’s curious. Certain days seem to develop a certain feel. Take a winter’s afternoon. Not any winter afternoon but a Sunday winter’s afternoon in Africa. What about, “Three-thirty after a big Sunday Lunch” winter’s afternoon. You know the day that makes the whole world seem more pleasurable, the “looking through rose coloured spectacles” type of day. And the meal that makes you feel like a kid again without having to worry about those extra kilo’s you may put on. All that thick gravy that acts as a cover-up for any diet you may be contemplating. Some call it comfort food. I don’t know. Why do people have to make things so difficult? Surely all food is comfort food. Imagine going around calling food, “discomfort” food, restaurants advertising their greatest success, a four-star Michelin, “discomfort food” award. What next?

Ah yes. Back to Sunday lunches. Comfort food that speaks to me really loudly, are potatoes roasted to a crunchy mouth watering light brown crust, lightly salted, with slices of roasted underdone beef and a hint of herbs. There definitely needs to be green beans, looking like lost beads from a rosary in regulation slices, and a large salad with surprising contents.

Let’s not begin to debate the excellent wine that made this fare fit for a king! There is always something quite alluring about the sound wine makes when “glugging” out of a bottle. It has a familiar sound really. A bit like what happens occasionally within the old stomach after a good meal. A lot of gurgling and “glugging” going on!

Then there’s the colour. It transforms the wine glass into a magical rose colour which is probably where the idea of rose coloured spectacles originally came from.

That’s what made this Sunday lunch.

I perched on the garden bench, on the upper part of the property clutching a mug of hot tea after the meal. My thoughts meandered lazily as I rested. Grass in no-man’s land between the two houses on the property was still green despite frost touching lower parts of the city. The sun was hell bent on a race to meet the horizon to hide before the darkness, creeping up the other side of the sky could catch it. Long purple shadows from the bare trees etched a pattern across the lawn in a fine filigree pattern touching the edges of the lawn with spidery fingertips. Spinach planted in the flowerbeds acted as an apple green Chinese shadow puppet backdrop, for a host of bugs and sticks, caught in sharp shadow the other side of the leaves.

Around the edge of the garden, the naked looking shy white stinkwood trees kept watch. They seemed as if they had their legs crossed, exposed, and vulnerable without their clothes. My imagination took flight as I pictured a tailor’s workplace with pattern pieces having been caught in a freak wind, lying all over the garden. These now slowly decaying pattern pieces in gentle rust reds and burnished yellows were scattered both under the trees and on some areas of the lawn.

I love the feel of an autumn or winter garden when the leaves haven’t been raked up. For me, it is like entering a wood, still wild and untamed and seeing all the little creatures enjoying their hiding places among these leaves. Various beetles and never ending ants on their own missions lurk under leaf while here and there if you really search, you may find a slumbering toad, embalmed in the leaves until spring. The smell of decay and the woodiness of the slightly damp undergrowth, is so inviting. It keeps me in a place of expectation of discovery. Perhaps I would find a slow moving Herald snake, on the lookout for a toad as a meal? Perhaps even a delegation of white ants seeking their fill in any forgotten fallen branch or wooden railway sleeper?

Looking up at the sky made me think of the hot summer now passed. It seemed to have released its vengeance on the bleached sky leaving it looking pale and wan, like someone ailing on their sick bed. The sense of gloom that could have overtaken me was lifted as I observed a scene unfolding before me. It had me chuckling instead.

The tree’s branches were standing in stark contrast to the soft blue sky. Looking closely, one could see various sizes of birds, eyeing the feeding table, while holding on to their perch in the tree. They were easily identifiable because they had no place to hide.

”Was there anything there perhaps for me?” they seemed to say. They peered down at the table from their lofty heights like the women I have seen in the supermarket. The women's focus though, was usually looking at the display of cheeses or even the rich chocolate cakes, not at rotted fruit. The shoppers as well as the birds turned their heads this way and that, looking for bargains but also keeping a look out for the other shoppers just in case they had found something they hadn’t seen.

In the tree above the feeding table, was a dominant barbet. He had laid claim to any offerings on the table long before any other birds had ventured into the garden. He was also quite verbal in his harassment of any other birds that may have thought of finding some treasure. His beady eyes were focused not only on the feeding table of half moon apples, but also on his mate that sat on a branch a little higher in the tree. But it wasn’t his mate that was the major threat.

In one of the smaller trees in the garden, sat a much bigger bird. It was a grey lourie, known also as a “kwê” bird. His carefully folded grey feathers on his head, rose to the occasion each time he uttered his plaintive cry. I had the feeling that he would have liked to beg loudly and mournfully until he was rewarded with a morsel of apple. But the barbet had other plans. He swooped over aggressively to chase the lourie away but what he didn’t take note of, was another artful dodger. A glossy starling had seized his moment. He stole a piece of the apple away from under the flurry of defending feathers!

He did it with such speed and dexterity that the barbet didn’t even know that it had happened. He came back to the scene, full of himself knowing that a much bigger adversary, the lourie, had gone. He strutted up and down on the white guttering that surrounded the roof, fluffing out his feathers, and rearranging his butch and in control look. He was very pleased with himself.

I imagined him saying to himself, ”Well, that taught the blighter a lesson! He mustn’t think I am going to tolerate his stealing my food from under my nose!”

As I leaned back against the wooden bench, smiling at what I had witnessed, sipping my now steadily cooling tea, I could hear a dog barking in the distance. It was an unmotivated bark that just went on and on. It was not a “ noisy warning you away” bark, nor an “agitated afraid” bark but just one to keep himself company. A little bit of noise to hide his loneliness.

I glanced around the garden catching sight of the Japanese maple, still covered in dry light brown desiccated leaves. Hiding behind it, was a delegation of wildly extravagant red-hot pokers! Their erect heads were held high in proud abandonment knowing that they had the power to attract all the amazing little sugarbirds and their iridescent plumage. They were having their own orgy of Sunday lunch by flittering in and out of the flowers, long curved beaks left shiny with all the sweet nectar held in the bottom of the flowers. They didn’t make big noises about it all but rather chittering calls to inspire each other to seek deeply in the flowers for the next amazing taste.

Slowly the neighbourhood began to sink into stillness, a deep quiet. I imagined many a sleepy head beginning to be laid down on soft pillows, bodies curled up under duvets, warm, cosy while allowing sleep to overwhelm them. Tummies full. Dreams would come unbidden into the minds of those so toasty, as snoozing becomes the way to spend a cold afternoon.

The city traffic ceaseless in movement, continued to rumble, roll, and create a sense of energy far away. Occasionally one could hear a distant protest of hooters, but it seemed deadened by the cold and apathy began to reign..

There a different noise I heard. What was it? There it was again. The latest game of rugby was being broadcast on television and the sound was being gathered together from different homes to transcend the walls that separate the properties. It seemed to be the one time there was consensus among the neighbours, all wanting to watch the game.

In the park I could hear the strident voices of children, not yet overcome by too much food, calling to each other as another kind of game was played. It sounded to me being buried in the back garden that it could have been a game of hide and seek. I could hear one voice slowly counting out, “One – two - three” very loudly so all the other children could hide.

I sighed.

“Suburban serenity” I decided was a good title. Best found on a cold winter’s afternoon in May.