Oh what a tangled web we weave…

Early last week I committed a somewhat unfortunate faux pas

At around 9am I happened to be passing in front of my neighbour (the other way… not George of the upwardly mobile combover), Ray the hairdresser’s house, when Ray himself emerged from his front door. He was accompanied by a young man of obvious far Eastern origin, whence Ray hailed me with: “Oh hi Lou, this is, I don’t believe you’ve met… ” (and I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name. Actually it sounded like Pok, but I could be wrong. Let’s call him “Pok” anyway).

I immediately replied: “Ah yes, I believe we actually did meet some time back at Ray’s party to introduce you to Malta and to us.” At which point Ray’s facial expression changed from smiley to somewhat contorted. He went rather red in the face, coughed once nervously, then said: “Er no, that was… I mean er… Pok has just arrived in Malta yesterday, so… ” No flies on me! Quick as a flash I replied: “So this is another… I mean er… how do you do, er…?” Then, and I swear this is true, when I extended my elbow for the now de rigeur elbow bump – Pok responded with a swift and soft elbowed response. It was the only time in my life that I have ever seen a limp elbow. This guy wasn’t just camp… he was positively jamboree!

I couldn’t really judge any of the young man’s other attributes since the elbow mince was the only contact we had. Pok grinned at me in a rather vague manner as Ray, while fidgeting nervously, had a stab at explaining his companion’s reticence: “He’s only just arrived from Jakarta and doesn’t have much English yet, so… ” It seemed that Ray was obviously keen to end the “discussion”; he caught Pok by the proffered rather flaccid elbow and ushered him towards Ray’s car, giving me a little nod as he did so. Well how was I to know that Pok was not the Asian guy we met at Ray’s party some months back?

Of course I received the expected bollocking from my wife for being “so insensitive” – and no I’m not going to fall into the trap of claiming all Asians look alike… well some do… Anyway, my wife then informed me that Raymond had told her that the one we met at his party had only lasted two weeks… something to do with them not being compatible or something. And since his departure… four more had come and gone from his life. Do you blame me for not being able to keep up with this crap? It’s like Ray has these guys “on approval” and if they don’t come up to scratch, he simply sends them back and reclaims his deposit.

Anyway, as a postscript to all this: Thursday morning I was leaving home for work when Ray’s front door opened and he emerged accompanied by a young man of obviously African origin. Ray and I kind of didn’t see one another – which was a blessing, we simply went our separate ways. But it did get me wondering… in a somewhat unwoke manner – whether our neighbour collected his gentlemen companions based primarily on a fairly wide chromatic scale. Just asking…