I often envy caterpillars that have their own on-site cocoon.
When I come out of my cocoon I’m no butterfly but pretty much the same as when I went in.
And then people say, “Your rest doesn’t seem to have done you much good.”
Take a recent example.
My cocoon and refuge of which I have often spoken and intend to mention again often as I feel like it is my seaside shack, known cynically among my family as bathrobe Mansion, with front facing bacteria and hot and cold running cockroaches.
But it suits me and I wander dreamily along its beach in my fishing clothes followed by a respectful cloud of flies, seagulls and small scavenging animals.
I was thus engaged recently on my beach when I saw some figures appear in the distance.
My not-inconsiderable intuition told me that they were friends; that they had winkled my holiday retreat out of the wife back home; that they had come over for a breath of fresh air and while they were here they thought they’d call on me.
And while they called on me they thought they might put up the tent and spend the night; and while they were spending the night they thought we might have a late session and they’d tell their interminable stories, drinking my tea to the last bag, consuming my biscuits to the last crumb, trying my patience to the last shred and borrowing most of my bedding.
You can imagine the sight of them caused me to take to the sandhills. But they had their dog, Alby, with them; Alby the Implacable; Alby, Leg Raiser Extraordinary Alby who could pick up my scent in a pickle factory, Alby who could track me through the Bolivar treatment works.
“Go find him, Alby,” they screamed.
At last the quarry was cornered.
“Look,” shouted a child, “there’s a big sandhill wearing a T-shirt.”
Moments later I was greeted with a gritty kiss by the panting young and a triumphant peck by their mother, Merciless Muriel.
“You cunning old devil,” said her husband, known among his enemies as “Hullo-Old-Friend-Old-Friend” Fred.
Back to the shack we went, so peaceful beside its sighing teatree, the soporific sea dim- pling to the sly suggestions of a sea breeze with the seagulls sitting in small disgruntled committees keening about the catering.
Oh we had a rousing night and my friends stayed and stayed and laughed at their jokes until the moon set and my head fell forward into the sugar basin and I had sweet dreams.
When morning came I was bellying my way over the rocks with the faint-hearted idea of hailing a passing vessel and escaping by sea but Alby, out for an early leg raiser, summoned a band of mini-Goths, shrieking: “Mum said you’d make us breakfast.”
It was a terrible time with children shouting for “lacy” eggs which proved to be those fried with a filegreed outer edge. I glared at them darkly through a hole in the toast. Merciless Muriel was just “dying” for a cup of coffee so I gave it to her in an instant and sprinkled her with soiled cereal which quietened her temporarily.
She then fell upon the Crossquiz which was always my Saturday joy and which I usually shared with a particularly erudite cockroach.
Now the air was filled with Muriel’s enquiries about the wives of Henry VIII and what physical feature had the biggest mouth in the world. I stood there swaying in my thongs and the answer burning my lips.
“Hullo Old-Friend-Old- Friend” Fred was astir in one of his glorious range of sensual T-shirts, the erudite legend Sun, Sex, Sand and Supper lettering his spilling girth. He was into the farm fresh eggs and poring over the sporting pages and calling for more toast and quarrying the quince conserve from its shrinking pot.
Meanwhile I stumbled to and fro among beach balls and in one awful confused moment mistakenly poured white anti-infra-red lotion into my cup and had a quick touch of suntanned intestine.
Then a child dropped a plate and I knew morning had broken.
Later I staggered with the garbage bag to the central rubbish area.
No wonder the garbage bag was so heavy. I found two kids inside it looking for bait.
Meanwhile Muriel had consummated the Crossquiz and Fred was old-friending a couple of campers and the child ren were ransacking my fishing box while my gentles raced for safety under the refrigerator.
The day proceeded to be one of those awful scenarios on the jetty, extracting splinters from kicking feet and longing for a tidal wave that would sweep us all into oblivion and at least wash a few faces in the process.
Muriel and Fred said: “We think we’ll stay another night. The children seem very attached to you.”
I must say my escape in the early hours was a planned withdrawal, prickling with tension, inching my way past the tent people and a slumbering, meaty chunked Alby recharging his kidneys for the morrow.
I left the area, my car lights off and my vehicle in low gear, using the back roads, until I was safe.
My wife was surprised at my sudden return.
So I took her in my arms and cried passionately, “Hullo old friend, old friend, old friend”.
Sometimes there’s even no place like home!
Max Fatchen