A Barbed Wire Christmas Story - December 2006

There seems to be something very half-hearted about moving to a new country then returning ‘home’ for Christmas. I am staying in Prague to experience the season as it is celebrated by the Czechs. Both of my children have arrived – Arrian from Holland where he lives with his dad, and Sara from England where she lives with hers. Neither came alone; Sara is with her boyfriend, Mike, and Arrian is here with two American friends, Seth and Brandon. They are staying at a hostel nearby.

My friend Sara P, not to be confused with my daughter Sara, also has two of her children over from the States. Katherine and Nathan are, like Arrian, in their early twenties and it’s clear from day one that we are all going to get along like a big, happy, if somewhat strange, family.

It’s Christmas Eve and we are shuffled out of a restaurant at 5.30pm so the staff can get home to their families. All bars are shut, the streets are empty. Prague city centre is almost silent. At 6pm we are trudging home, cold and sober, while Czechs are in the bosom of their families, unwrapping presents left under the tree by Baby Jesus and eating their traditional Christmas meal of carp, bought live from the many roadside stalls in the preceding weeks and days. I had hoped to try this questionable delicacy, but it isn’t going to happen.

Sara P has been planning an American Christmas dinner – turkey and trimmings - at the house of a new friend. He has assured her that having his home filled with her family and friends on Christmas day will be a great pleasure. She has persuaded me – and in turn I have persuaded my children and guests – that this will be fun.

It’s Christmas Day and our group of six arrives at the end of the Metro line at the appointed hour and squeeze, along with much beer and a few bottles of wine, into every available space in our host’s car. It’s the first time I’ve met him and he is much as Sara P described; an older, corpulent Czech man who seems friendly enough. Sara P had told me that she has had to bat off a few amorous advances, but he now clearly understands that they are ‘just friends’.

We arrive and remove our shoes as is polite in Czech homes, and identify the designated outdoor smoking area. Two more of our friends, Laurie and Ray - both Americans, are already there. Sara P and her kids have been there since early this morning, so preparations for dinner are well underway.

Each of us finds our own way to be part of the party. I help Sara P who is still busy in the kitchen, and we chat and laugh and put the finishing touches on the meal. I’m surprised by a few comments made to Sara P by our host; we are both self-assured women, unused to the imperious tones of the Alpha male. We make allowances for his age and culture, but we are a little bit uncomfortable.

We set the table, but our host removes his cutlery setting and replaces them with a knife and fork - each wrapped in barbed wire. Not the decorative kind (if there is such a thing) but the real Steve-McQueen-hopelessly-trapped-with-motorcycle-wheel-still-spinning type of barbed wire. As we all take our places for dinner, there is an unmistakable tension in the air.

Nathan, Sara, Brandon and Seth are in the kitchen as there isn’t enough room at the main table to seat us all. The sound of a bottle smashing in the kitchen stops the conversation. It exploded spontaneously – probably a hairline crack succumbing to the change in temperature from the cold outdoors to the warmth inside. Nathan is already on the case, sweeping up glass and mopping up liquid. Our host storms from the dining room, barking orders and, though I can’t be sure, I think I hear the word ‘bitch’ used against my daughter. Things are getting tense.

Sara P and I volunteer to wash dishes, but our host doubts our ability to wash glasses without breaking them and we are accused of varying degrees of incompetence, which we are now struggling to ignore. We head for the couch and to join in the post-dinner conversation. Arrian, who has enjoyed several of the beers we brought, jokingly asks why it is that all Disney films portray foreigners, especially the English, as stupid or evil. The flimsy veneer of our host’s civility finally cracks wide open and he launches a verbal attack on me; I have hardly said a word yet I stand accused of being anti-American, even as I sit here with my seven friends from the U.S. It’s time to leave.

Laurie and Ray make a sharp exit - they brought their own transport. We still face a twenty minute ride to the Metro in our host’s car, too small for a single trip with our party of nine. We whisper our escape plan in terms of the chicken, the fox and the grain dilemma. We agree on the safest combination of car occupants and announce our departure with polite ‘thank yous’. “She doesn’t have to leave” growls Mr Barbed Wire under his breath, lecherous eyes burning into the back of Sara P’s head. We leave.

It’s still early in the evening, and in the safety of the Metro station we heave a collective sigh of relief, laugh and share details of the most memorable moments of the day. My favourite was sometime after dinner, most of us still seated at the table. Katherine, doing her best to lighten up the electric atmosphere, suggested a game her family used to play when she was younger. “We all take turns,” she said “to tell our funniest or strangest Christmas story….”

A Real Friend - November 2006

I’ve been browsing the personals on the expats.cz website for a while. I do enjoy being on my own, it’s a luxury I’ve rarely had in the last few decades as a wife and mother, but sometimes I would really like to have a friend to hang out with. Preferably someone female, my age, someone I can relate to.

I’ve contacted a few of the people from the Personals Ads but so far I haven’t found what I’m looking for. Some of them seem to want to meet new people solely so they can tell them how terribly busy their schedules are; I don’t want to be pencilled into someone’s diary for a week on Thursday between three pm and four-thirty. Others suggest getting together at lively gatherings such as the ‘Dynamic Business Women in Prague’ monthly event. As I can only honestly lay claim to being a woman and, of late, living in Prague, I decline those invitations too. Then of course there are the many youthful travellers who want to go clubbing with some cool new people or, worse still, meet for a latte and a game of squash. My coolness rating would soon be discovered to be closer to the lukewarm mark when I ask the DJ to play some Abba, and the only squash I’m familiar with has the words ‘Robinson’s’ and ‘orange’ associated with it. I’ve also come across a few of the out-and-out freaks who stalk the Personal Ads world but they deserve a story of their own.

The ex-pat life is a strange one. Disparate groups of people brought together without the usual defining social factors - a hotchpotch of individuals, usually with an overdeveloped sense of their own uniqueness. Each has a story to tell but so far I’ve only heard two distinct tales.

The first begins with ‘Europe is awsome’ and continues with a list of countries visited that far exceeds the number of years the teller has lived on the planet. This kind of encounter usually transforms me into a badly acted character from a comedy sketch:; “Eee, when I were your age, Europe ‘adn’t even been invented. We thought we were lucky if we got a charabanc trip up t’end of our road on a wet Sunday in July’.

The second story begins with “I’ve just bought…” (or a variation –“my husband has just bought….”) and continues with a list of assets that many small South American countries would be proud to possess. In most cases, Prague is just one of the many cities these people live and work. They are the ubiquitous ‘consultants’ though I’ve never discovered who actually consults them, or why. As I am the proud owner of a small suitcase of clothes and very little else, the conversation usually ends with the last item on their inventory.

But today I am meeting Sara, a woman a few years older than me, American and also newly arrived in Prague. We exchange a few emails before we meet. She has to work tomorrow, but could meet today, in an hour or so. I tell her, ‘yes’. I already love the spontaneity and anyway, my only other planned activity for the day was washing my hair. I tell her I’m happy to delay this pressing task if she doesn’t mind being seen with someone whose hair is almost falling into dreadlocks.

I dash out, taking the metro into the city centre to a café we both know. As I’m navigating towards our meeting point, it dawns on me that we haven’t discussed how we are going to recognise each other. We haven’t discussed much at all really, so there are no clues as to how she might look other than she is around my age. With slight apprehension I enter the small café.

Luckily someone arrives minutes before me and is being served at the counter so I can use the time waiting to be served to scan the room. There are only two people seated. One of them is a man by the window working on a laptop; he’s about thirty, African American, long hair. The other is a woman, and – joy of joys – is smoking a cigarette! It has to be Sara. I eye her surreptitiously while I’m waiting and she glances up but returns to the paper she’s reading. I’m confused. She looks up again and this time she smiles, eyebrows raised in a questioning arch. I give a cautious nod, get my coffee and move to her table.

“Hello, I’m Daryl” I say as she stands and we do the awkward dance of cross-cultural greeting. I sit down and light a cigarette. “I’m glad you smoke’ I begin, just as she says “you’re a woman!” We laugh.

Without further introductions, and still laughing, Sara lowers her voice and leans towards me in a conspiratorial fashion: "I had no idea who I was looking for, so when I saw him sitting by the window I thought ‘Daryl','dreadlocks' wow! it's him!’. More laughter as we discuss the merits of the stranger with the laptop.

We talk and smoke and drink more coffee. She is bubbling over with talk of the job she’s applying for, her experiences since she’s been in Prague, her life before she came here. I am equally effervescent, so happy to find someone who not only understands my accent, but really understands what I’m talking about. Hours are passing by and we agree that we should move on.

As we walk towards Mala Strana, I’m barely aware of where we are are, we are so engrossed in conversation. Sara has three children, just a little older than mine. Like me, she found herself single, kids gone and utterly bored with the life she had. We stop for a beer and continue talking and laughing. Like me, on a whim, she packed up and moved to Prague for no other reason than she could. She arrived a month after me, with a little money in the bank and the determination that she could get a job and have an adventure. We finish our beers and prepare to leave.

It’s now evening – many hours have passed since we met. We agree to call it a day and meet up again. There is no question in my mind that we will, and soon. It’s a rare and special day; I’ve found a true friend.

My Birthday - October 2006

Today is my birthday. Forty five years old. Half way to ninety, as I used to say, teasingly, to my ex-husband as he approached the same milestone. I think of forty-five as wise, mature, confident, sexy. He thinks of forty-five as the first step on the road to death; one of the many reasons that he is now ‘ex’.

So, it’s my forty-fifth birthday, I’m feeling wise, mature, confident, sexy and – double bonus - it’s Friday night. But I’m all alone in Prague and know hardly a soul. I have three options before me.

I have been invited for an evening of bowling with my new colleagues from my language school. With a little imagination on my part I could convince myself that it’s my party and that I like these people and that I love bowling. The reality is that it’s a regular work get-together, my colleagues are dull as ditchwater and I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than spend an evening wearing ridiculous shoes and knocking down skittles with a dangerously heavy ball.

The second option is to stay home alone and lie to people about what a great night I had, but I’m not a good liar.

The third option is the least sensible option. Earlier this week I received a message on ‘My Space’ from a man living in Prague. He’s called Chris, he’s 60 and originally from Blackpool. Anyone who freely admits that they were born in Blackpool must have an innate compulsion towards honesty and truthfulness, so I have decided that I trust him. In his message he invited me along to the regular Friday night gathering of a group of ex-pats. He gave me the name of a bar in Vinohrady and said they’d all be there after 6:30pm.

7:30pm and I’ve decided to go with the least sensible option. I’m going to spend my birthday in a bar I’ve never been to, with a group of people I’ve never met.

So, dressed to kill - or at least with dim lighting and a few feet of drunken haze, dressed to maim – and with the map of Vinohrady seared onto my brain, I set off on my latest adventure. Changing metros at Mustek, I step out at Jiriho Z Podebrad, acknowledge that I don’t have a clue where I am and stride confidently into the dark night in the direction that seems most attractive. After five minutes I decide that I could end up walking to Brno and never meet my new friends. Best to stop and ask a stranger for directions.

An exceptionally tall, friendly looking man walks towards me. I guess he’s in his early thirties.

“Excuse me” I say - street savvy enough by now not to ask ‘Do you speak English?, a question almost guaranteed to elicit an abrupt ‘No’ - “Is this bar in this direction?” I thrust a scrap of paper into his hand with the name of the meeting place clearly printed on it.

“Hmmm,” he says, glancing up and down the street. “Yes, it’s down there, I’m going that way anyway, I’ll walk with you”. He turns 180 degrees, heading back the way he had just come from and crosses the road. My short legs work hard to keep up with his long ones.

“Where are you from?” he asks.

“England” I reply.

“Are you on holiday?”

“No, I live here, I’ve been here a couple of months”.

We continue walking – or more accurately, he is walking while I am jogging – and talking. He asks all the now predictable questions; do I have a job? what do I think of Prague?, why did I leave England?. Most of the answers I make up on the spot, already bored with the unadulterated truth that I’d spewed to strangers in the first few weeks of my arrival. He is really chatty and very handsome. A lovely fantasy is emerging unbidden. It starts with aborting my mission to meet strangers in a pub and continues with the two of us slipping into a cosy hospoda to spend the rest of the evening getting to know each other a lot better. The inevitable end of my fantasy is making me blush so I distract myself with the task in hand and force myself to concentrate on the buildings we pass.

“Just a minute – are you sure this is the right way? I say, checking the address on my slip of paper and realising that the building numbers are getting higher and we are on the ‘odd’ side of the street. “Aren’t we going in the wrong direction on the wrong side of the road?”

“Ah, yes” he replies, unsurprised, “we need to cross over. I’m sure it’s just up here. I’m going that way anyway.”

I’m a little confused and slightly perturbed by the fact that the way he is going has so far been in both directions up and down the street, but I imagine my fingers slipping through his long curls and my concerns evaporate like ether. We continue walking and talking. Up ahead I spot a neon sign and recognise the name of the bar, not far from where I’d emerged from the metro twenty minutes ago.

“It’s here” I announce, stopping outside the bar.

“Oh” he says, his eyes widening, then narrowing, in what I hope is a little sadness that our journey has come to an end, “well, it was nice meeting you.”

“Yes, it was nice meeting you too.” I reply.

Feeling my earlier reverie fading forever into oblivion, my brain makes a desperate scramble to call it back and make it a reality. With my best ‘regretful yet inviting’ smile I say: “I’d ask you to join me, but I’m meeting some friends….”

Full eye contact gives me a moment of hope, but words are still pouring unchecked from my mouth.

“…and I don’t actually know them, this is the first time I’ve met them, I don’t even know if I’ll recognise anyone when I get in there……”.

I trail off, painfully aware that I now sound insane. He smiles a smile with what I interpret as a tinge of regret for what might have been, though it may be a tinge of pity for an unfortunate, unhinged woman.

And so we part with cheery ‘goodbyes’ and a fleeting handshake. I push open the door to the bar, make my way by some mysterious instinct to a lively, crowded table and tap a likely looking man on the shoulder.

“Hello Chris,” I say, “I’m Daryl”.

Chris, many months later, with my daughter Sara

Home Alone - September 2006

I turn the key and push open the door with the ceremony and solemnity it deserves. These are my first moments of my first day in my first home that is all my own. It has been almost three decades since I wriggled free from under the parental wing and fell straight into sharing nests with boyfriends, husbands, children and assorted sisters. Never, until this moment, have I lived alone.

So, here I am, in my new Queendom, mistress of all I survey. The survey doesn’t take long, as the entrance hall is also the kitchen and—even without my contact lenses—I can see the adjoining bathroom, toilet and the far end of the living room just a hop, skip and a jump away.

As I shut the door behind me, I run a curious finger over the thick black plastic padding on the back of the door. It reminds me of a 1970’s cocktail bar, without the optics. The door boasts at least five security devices, including assorted deadlocks and chains. I have visions of myself squeezing past the inferno that the gas cooker has become, fumbling for keys and switches while banging on the vinyl door, my cries for help muffled by the thick wadding.

This, I discover later, is typical of the Czech attitude to Health and Safety. The ‘Czech Guide for Landlords’ is probably very short. Just one sentence; “Don’t rent to stupid or careless people”. Before another year has passed I will no longer be surprised to find a notice taped to an electric socket above a bathroom washbasin saying “If you’re stupid enough to drop your hairdryer into a sink full of water, you deserve to die.” Of course, the notice will be written in Czech and incomprehensible to any English-speaking tenants. But at this moment in my life the potential hazards, like a kitchen- stroke-hallway, is still a new and slightly scary thing.

I soon realize the advantages of a compact dwelling. From a seated position on the toilet, and with a good stretch, I can reach into the fridge, thus saving time in the morning by simultaneously getting breakfast, performing my morning ablutions and practicing some upper body yoga. When I’m in the bath and find that my potatoes are boiling over, I can reach out to turn them down without making a single wet footprint on the lino.

In the room that serves as my bedroom, living room and office, someone has built a desk with a multi-purpose underside that can, with equal effectiveness, rip tights, graze knees and bobble even the toughest of trousers. The accompanying chair is a simple square frame made of angle iron with an eighth of an inch foam padding for a seat. It is so uncomfortable, defying any natural sitting position, that after ten minutes it becomes an instrument of torture. Wired up to the mains, it could easily convert to an electric chair, with victims begging for the power switch to be thrown because they would rather be whacked with 50,000 volts than spend another moment in the torture seat.

I spend many hours there, glued to the Internet—my only lifeline to the outside world—numb from the waist down. This circumstantial epidural proves useful however, as the temporary paralysis means that I don’t notice the pain in my knees from the constant friction of the desk until I wake up the next morning.

The bed is another quaint homemade construction. Six feet square and two feet high, the base is made of chipboard and divided into two perfect right-angled triangles. Each triangle has a cut away section in the middle complete with lid, creating two triangular storage boxes in the centre of the bed. The whole lot is covered with foam—this time the good stuff, more than an inch thick—and is upholstered with some roughly woven nylon-based fabric. I will spend many a bored moment pondering the bed’s design and the mind that created it. Why go to the bother of making a bed which splits into two diagonal halves? Could it have been designed to accommodate a tall man and his tiny lover? By a couple who didn’t expect the marriage to last and were dividing the furniture even before the ink on the marriage certificate had dried? Like so many things in life, this is a question that I may never be able to answer.

But in these first few glorious hours of moving into my new home, my thoughts are centred on making this place my own. I empty my small box of the few possessions I have brought with me and fill it instead with the ubiquitous rented flat knickknacks of ceramic smiling stars, miniature vases, off-the-shelf mini pictures and a wooden plaque carved with a vowel-less Czech phrase, probably ‘welcome’ or the Czech equivalent of ‘chez nous’. Later, the too-long grey net curtains and too-short red chintz curtains join the shoe box in the secret hidey-hole in the underbelly of my bed.

Exhausted, and with a whistle-stop trip back to England to pick up the remnants of my life looming early tomorrow morning, I tip out the contents of my suitcase onto my bed and throw myself next to them.

This is the one and only time I dare such a reckless act; the friction burns from the fabric combined with the bruises from jumping on what is essentially a chipboard box teach me to treat this item of furniture with appropriate caution and respect. I vaguely recall that even apparently solid matter, such as the human form, is actually made up of a mass of constantly moving particles and soon discover that this subtle movement alone is enough to create skin-damaging heat from whatever fabric this bed has been covered with. I lay a protective layer of shirts for a sheet, bunch up some jumpers for a pillow and pull my winter coat over me for a blanket, then sleep the soundless, peaceful sleep of an independent woman happily living on her own.

Leaving England - August 2006

Walking through the corridors of Manchester airport, I should be feeling all kinds of things – excitement, anticipation, sadness, joy. Instead I have the curious and possibly unhealthy experience of trying to think how I ought to feel. I’m finding it very hard to engage with the moment. I stare at passers-by, wondering if they are wondering about me. I want to shout: “Look at me! I’m a single, independent woman! I’m having an adventure! I’m leaving England and I’m not coming back!” I don’t of course, because I know that would be really silly so I just keep walking.

Instead I try smiling enigmatically but I suspect I just look smug. Next I try looking bouncy and cheerful, but a passing glance at my reflection makes me realise I look slightly insane - like a woman from a shampoo advert. The calm and confident stride is too boring and I lose interest in it after a few minutes. I scramble for more emotions that just won’t come, so I stop thinking about how I ought to feel and concentrate on getting to the check-in desk.

On board the tiny Easy Jet plane reality hits me in the form of a high-pitched wail. I’m in an aisle seat and a few rows in front of me I can see a young woman with a baby that is writhing like an angry boa constrictor. It turns to look at me and lets out another scream. I read somewhere once that a baby’s cry has evolved to be the most agonising sound to the human ear in order to maximise its chances of survival. This baby could survive anything. It’s going to be a long flight.

Passengers continue to board. A middle-aged couple head towards me, counting down the seats. The woman stops in front of me and smiles contritely. As she squeezes past me I understand the apology in her smile; I am now standing face to face with her husband and he’s the size of an adult male grizzly bear with only slightly less body hair. His face is a mixture of embarrassment and resignation; he’s done this before. He grins and begins the awkward manoeuvres necessary for him to claim his seat. I stand well back trying not to stare as he does a strange dance of tiny steps in a small arc which move his frame through forty-five degrees. His head is bowed to avoid hitting the overhead lockers but he looks like he’s intently monitoring the accuracy of his dance steps. Hovering, he begins to lower himself into position. I have visions of him getting stuck, semi-upright and mid-seat, with me having to push and tuck him into place. A few minutes later he’s down and I sit beside him. He turns to me and smiles; “Sorry” he says, making me feel mean.

The last few people board the plane and the doors are closed. I lean far out into the aisle, politely feigning fascination with the safety demonstration while my travel companion grapples with his extended seat belt. Once buckled in, he places both hands on the headrest of the seat in front and there they remain for the rest of the flight. If he dared drop them to his sides I would find myself dangling unconscious in the aisle while his wife would be enjoying an unplanned free-fall via the plane window. He heroically maintains this pose for the whole flight.

Fortunately I’ve brought a book and take up a position hanging over the left arm rest. The baby in front lets out another wail which seems to cue the taxi to the runway. I loose myself in my novel - ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ transports me timelessly to Letište Ruzyne.

Leaving the plane I try once again to think about how I feel; still no overwhelming sense of adventure, no nervousness that I can discern, no profound thoughts to mark my first step on to the runway in this new land. After picking up my bags and heading for the exit, I panic that I might not recognise the woman who has been sent to meet me. Will she be holding a sign with my name on it? Should I have a sign with my name on it? I have a pen and paper in my suitcase and it crosses my mind to scribble one out quickly though I can’t recollect anyone arriving at an airport waving their names to the waiting crowd.

The moment I walk through the sliding doors I recognise her face from the photograph on the language school website, and I can tell she recognises me too.

“Hello, Daryl, I’m Hana, welcome to Prague’ she says. Finally, I feel the sustained heart-flutter and the tingle of excitement. The adventure begins.

Newly arrived in Prague with Madhavi, another student at the language school

An Introduction

I'm hoping that, like a cat, I have nine lives, because I'm already on life number five.

In life number one I was normal enough, though my mother once told me I was the ugliest baby she'd ever seen with a head that looked like it had been painted orange. I don't remember much at all from that life; hazy stills from a Famous Five existence in a Beatrix Potter setting, that's about all. It ended when I was fourteen years old.

That's when life number two began - the onset of puberty catapulted me into the stratosphere where I floated on clouds as Daryl the Hippie, even though the year was 1976 with Glam Rock in full sparkle. I married at 18 in the trance of the excessively romantic and naive then floated through another hazy period, though this time the haze was largely drug induced and, happily, relatively short.

Life number three came about at the age of 22 when the tenuous substance of my existence evaporated, and I found myself free-falling into the deep ocean of my next. I floated, swam and nearly drowned until I surfaced in Holland, where I married again and had my first child, a boy. Having time on my hands to contemplate life, its meaning and my navel, I did everything from tree hugging to dream workshops to jumping around in naked 'meditation' with a bunch of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh disciples. I worked as an Astrologer. I became Daryl the Mystic. For six years life was strange, but interesting.

I'm no longer sure why this life ended, it just did. I felt the compelling need to return to the safe dry land of my birth where the long and sometimes arduous life number four began. I did all the solid, sensible, earthy things that you are supposed to do when you grow up; I got a degree, a driving license, a good job, a mortgage, another husband, a daughter. In short, I became Daryl the Sensible. This life crumbled when husband No. 3 ran off with The Younger Woman.

And so, in October 2005 - a few days after my 44th birthday, life number five began with both passion for life and passport renewed. I set off with a burning mission to experience life in all its blazing glory. First stop was Prague, where I've lived for the last two years. However, this is about to change as I'm about to embark on stage two of my quest in a location as yet unknown. It will be this, and the recollections of my time in Prague, that will be recorded in my blog.