{"id":1582,"date":"2023-04-23T16:10:36","date_gmt":"2023-04-23T16:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2023-04-23T16:10:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T16:10:41","slug":"still-cooking-still-kicking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/still-cooking-still-kicking\/1582\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Cooking, Still Kicking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wednesday<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still<\/strong> take her a cup of  bed tea every morning and<\/strong> cook the evening meal and<\/strong> do all the cleaning…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chess looked at the blob-blank faces of his 2 drinking companions and raised a glass of Best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince that first morning of our honeymoon….\u201d Faces kindled in anticipation of the oft repeated salacious details to come. Except they didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c35 years I’ve done it. She just lies in bed all day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deprived of oxygen, interest flickered then died. Disclosure time, Chess decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur sex life is dead. That’s why I’ve booked myself a flight to Bangkok. One way. After Friday you won’t see me till I’m fully re-trained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eyes focussed, necks lengthened, ears strained, cheeks rosied. Gratified he continued but in a conspiratorial voice so low I could catch only occasional words –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJade Buddha, temples, lady-boys, kick boxing, massage parlours,\u201d -plus \u201cOhs\u201d and \u201cAhs\u201d punctuated with laughter.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Friday<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had arrived late .They were at their usual table. I took mine. To disguise my eavesdropping, I extracted my mobile, opened G-mail and focussed my gaze downwards on the Inbox. Gareth was holding the stage. After nodding to me he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI been once. .. with Frank, the boy, on access week. Thought he would \/ might respond to the  different culture. Daphne, the ex, wasn’t keen but the social worker had cleared it with their legal. Spent most of our time in McDonalds and The English Chippy. And Dream World ‘s haunted house. Might as well have gone to Barry Island.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot my<\/strong> style\u201d I heard Chess say as he stood up to leave. \u201cYou know I was in Special Forces. I leave tomorrow. Keep in touch boys.\u201d  And winking \u201cI’ll send photos!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday,- six weeks later.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some think the Old Lion much improved by recovering the leatherette seats, re-tiling the floor and painting over the loos’ (for me) educational graffiti. I must admit a sentimental attachment to the whiffs from old carpet soured with spilled alcohol and slobbering canines. I missed the familiar lived-in-and-loved nostalgia it had absorbed of celebrations, commiserations, assignations, declarations and altercations from tongues struggling for traction on a loosening slide of alcohol. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had visited every  Monday, Wednesday and Friday since Chess’s departure. He had <\/strong>sent photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFuck me, what’s he up to there? Looks more athletic than the Chess we know!\u201d It was Marvin’s rarely heard mouse-squeak of a voice as together they devoured Gareth’s phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chess entered, leaner, tanned, his limp was less pronounced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSaa-wat-dee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow’s things at home now? How’s Maureen?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaureen? Got her to join me in week 2. She’s a natural, so my old work-buddy Colonel Ratanaporn thinks. From a complete beginner got her to kick-box Khan level 2 in just 4 weeks. Transformation; she makes morning tea for me. No hiding place for fluffs, she just kick-boxes them into the dustpan.  Her Pad Thai is to die for.  And our sex life….\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday \u201cI still take her a cup of  bed tea every morning and cook the evening meal and do all the cleaning…\u201d Chess looked at the blob-blank faces of his 2 drinking companions and raised a glass of Best. \u201cSince that first morning of our honeymoon….\u201d Faces kindled in anticipation of the oft repeated salacious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[695,718],"tags":[8,12,723],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-april-2023-missing","tag-he","tag-my","tag-still"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-pw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}