Friday night
Matthew Simpson
Wi-i-ind down. Another week in the trenches has come to an end and I’m lying on my bed, sucking a cigarette, hoping Shan won’t notice when she gets home, because smoking in the bedroom is strictly forbidden. Right now, though, I couldn’t care less. I’m making plans. In fact, the plans already exist but I’m mulling them over, trying to figure out how we’re going to get things together.
You see Shan and I, in the great tradition of settled couples everywhere, are about to attempt a set up. At a Boo! gig. Not the ideal place for such an enterprise, but I haven’t seen Boo! before, they’re in Cape Town and I’m desperate. This is the first time we’ve managed to arrange a meeting, so it’s now or never.
Matt phones and tells me he’ll be at the Drum Caf around nine. The Drum Caf has become quite the little Friday night hotspot of late. The last few weeks have seen the likes of Boo!, Fetish and others of the local rock gentry strutting their stuff there. But nothing really happens before nine or 10, so Shan and I decide to stop in Observatory first for a bite to eat. Being teachers, somewhere near the bottom of the professional food chain, we try to conserve cash and have managed to find some excellent little places which serve superb food at el cheapo prices. Stews-R-Us is one of them. You have to buy beer from the bar next door, which suits me fine, as they have an extended happy hour where you can buy two for R5. After a butternut and honey beef bunny, we meet Jenny at a friend’s house and set off to see Boo!.
The choice of venue turns out to be a complete disaster. Jenny, a 30- year-old junior primary teacher, feels a little out of place among the post-pubescent carnival freaks that have crept in under the cover of darkness. Matt has brought a friend, Nick — a wild card we hadn’t anticipated, who has itchy feet and is bored with the uninspired rock being thrashed out by the opening band. Matt and Jenny exchange some pleasantries, but the loud atmosphere and their restlessness begin to make me nervous. This was a mistake.
I decide to ease the situation by suggesting a change of scenery, despite the fact that we’ll have to miss most of Boo!’s set. Matt seems to think we should go to Rhythm Devine. I fail to see how another loud smoky nightclub is going to put things right but I can’t tell him that. Shan feels we should go to Caf Carte Blanche in Obs. Matt likes the choice of destination and so does Jenny, so it’s settled.
It’s after 10 when we get there and Lower Main Road is buzzing. “A Touch of Madness”, Carte Blanche’s pseudonym, is the perfect place for what we have in mind, and Shan and I have been able to regroup on the way. Neither Matt nor Jenny has arrived, which gives me some time to book the lounge upstairs.
Despite the fact that this cosy late night restaurant boasts a bar and two eating areas, by far the best place to be is the lounge, decorated like an 18th century French boudoir or Bohemian opium den, complete with large grey cat. I settle in, light a cigarette and order a drink from an unusually polite waiter, while Shan waits at the bar downstairs.
When everyone has eventually arrived, the evening shows signs of improvement. Matt is alone this time and he and Jenny are at least speaking. But their conversation is stilted and forced, and I realise this is not the match we hoped it would be.
It’s early Saturday morning when we stumble out. Jenny and Matt give each other a perfunctory handshake. Seems we got it wrong -again. Like our friends keep telling us: “Just ’cause you’re both heterosexual, doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily like each other.”