Fun Day . . . not!

“Wear black!” Harvi Texted.

“I’ll look like a bouncer,” I responded. “isn’t it a meant to be a Fun Day? . . . “

“Black! . . . pick you up at 8:30am.”

“I’ll do what I can. Looking forward to it . . . I think!”

So, here I was on a bright and blustery bank holiday Monday morning, standing on my doorstep in a pair of jet black M&S jeans that I’d worn only once before (don’t ask – they have a certain shape, and it patently isn’t mine!) matched with an XXXL TK Maxx turtle neck I bought after a three day bender with my best mate Keith who’s registered blind; “You look fantastic mate, matches your sunny complexion,” he’d reassured me. At the time I had no reason to doubt him – well, actually, I had not the least power of reason at all, all my intellectual faculties were in a worse state than his retinas. But, this morning as I sneaked a sidelong look in the mirror I had more than an inkling why this particular item of clothing had remained pristine and folded in the corner of my clothing cupboard. All I needed to complete the look would have been a heavy gold chain. Very 80’s. Tribute act. Turn at the local WMC. I was hoping Harvi hadn’t the same idea.

Harvi pulled up a few minutes late. He handed me a bottle of wine stuffed in a Tesco bag wrapped inside a blue, non-proprietary carrier that looked like it had spent some time drifting along a muddy river bank. “Sorry for last night.” I didn’t know what he’d done wrong last night but here was a bottle of wine, so I smiled “no problem,” and shot back upstairs with my guilt gift. When I got back to the car he was revving gently, hand on the gear stick.

“Stab it and steer!” I said. By the look on his face Harvi hadn’t picked up on the reference. It must be a cultural thing, I thought, as he turned the CD up louder and started warbling along in Punjabi.

“Glorious morning!” I said, pointing out the obvious, “let’s hope it stays this way.”

“Weather forecast wrong again,” said Harvi, “thank fuck!”

“You’re not wearing black,” I observed.

“No, but you are . . . ”

After that exchange I just let him concentrate on the drive. It was far too early for conversation. And more than one of us was dealing with a hangover. I said nothing till we got to his house. “Bloody lovely,” was about the best I could manage, trudging up his gravel drive, pointing to a portion of the sky that contained no cloud.

Harvi opened the garage. “That’s a lot of stuff,” I said. “We’re not taking it all, Phil. I know what I need. I’ve cooked for a hundred, tops . . . Carry this to the car, the boot’s open.”

He handed me a couple of pans and something that looked like the beginnings of a musical instrument – or the end more like – something odd from the timpany section. “Put these behind the front seats then come back for the tables.” I did as I was told. Soon I had the back of the car stuffed to the roof with outside catering clobber. “Make sure there’s room for the gazebo!” shouted Harvi, popping his head out of the kitchen door.

The food smelled fabulous. Even with a hangover, and far too early on a bank holiday morning, the aroma of gently bubbling curry and freshly cooked rice was delicious. Harvi was debating with his wife whether the meat dish needed more chillies; “chicken tikka massala,” he chuckled, “authentic Indian!” His wife and I agreed that the food was spicy enough – there was all that cream, it already was a taste sensation, delicate but with a bit of a punch, wouldn’t want to scare the punters – so Harvi accepted our intervention and started worrying about the vegetarian option instead. “Are the potatoes soft enough? The cauliflower got enough bite? The sauce just right? . . . “ I tapped my watch. Perfectionism is very endearing and all that, but we had to get across Leeds and start setting up by ten. “We need to go, Harv. I’m sure the food will be fine . . . amazing . . . best they’ve ever had . . . so let’s make sure we get there on time? OK?”

We were taking the serving gear first, sorting out the stall, getting our pitch perfect. Then Harvi was going back home for the food before lunchtime to make sure everything was fresh and piping hot. This seemed like a good plan. I approved.

Bank holiday roads were reassuringly quiet. We got to our destination with ten minutes to spare, pulling into the car park with plenty of time to have bit of a recky. We weren’t in a part of Leeds either of us knew that well. The Fun Day was at a Working Men’s Club in the middle of a large council estate. The place seemed tidy and well looked after, decent enough, though it wouldn’t win any design awards, a one storey shed just off the main road with a large playing field to the rear. A man emerged from the front door carrying a brush and shovel. As he fussed over the tab ends in the gutter we approached and asked where we should set up. “Are you the bouncey castle?” he asked. While Harvi put him right about our part in the proceedings the guy continued to fret about the state of the Club’s exterior, pointing out a broken security light and some smashed glass scattered around the front door; “still, club’s doing great. Brewery bloody love us, packed every weekend. Should be a good day!”

Harvi was happy with this news; “we might sell out!” he smiled. We decided to pitch up to the side of the pub, in the sunlight but out of the wind. We’d emptied the car and erected the gazebo when another guy pulled up in a big black Merc, switched his window down and shouted we’d have to shift; “that’s going to be car parking lads . . . don’t listen to Pete, he knows bugger all . . . let’s get you moved.” He called Pete over. We lifted a leg of the gazebo each and carefully manoeuvred across the front of the club. The wind threatened to turn the thing into a kite. I worried we might take off and end up entangled in the telephone wires, but we managed to manhandle the thing twenty yards or so, setting down right in front of the main gate. The guys seemed amiable, happy to help, glad to give us a good spot, concerned that we had a good time and made some money. Everything was going well so far. The sun was shining.

The people with the bouncy castle turned up ten minutes later. They were told to set up next to us. As soon as they started to inflate their first contraption it was obvious that space was going to be an issue. The front of the club was too narrow for us both. Kids would end up bouncing out of the inflatable into vats of simmering Asian food. Nobody wanted that. A few more members of “the committee” wandered over, scratching heads and muttering dire warnings, but not one of them seemed able to take any initiative or make a decision – if it’s not on the agenda, in front of a properly constituted quorum, duly tabled, noted and voted on, it’s not happening. Harvi was getting restive; “we can move easiest, just show us where’s best, it’s fine . . . “ The guy in the Merc looked relieved. He took Harvi off down the side of the building. The side still in shadow.

“We’re setting up next to the side door,” he grinned, “not a bad spot apparently. It’s the entrance most people use to get to the back field . . . where the games are.”

“If you’re happy,” I said, taking a corner of the gazebo. A couple of the committee rushed to help.

By eleven o clock we’d got it sorted. Because of the wind we had to borrow sellotape to stop the table cloth turning into a sail. Everything that could fly was securely anchored. Napkins, paper plates, take away cartons weighted down with the burners. Plastic cutlery in pint glasses. Brown paper carrier bags beneath a small brick.

Other people had arrived to set up too, and we found ourselves next to the Tombola – three massive tables of tombola prizes – and a lady selling an assortment of curious items; coriander plants from her allotment (Harvi bought a plant, more to be neighbourly I felt than for any seasoning emergency as the thing was dreadfully woody) gardening magazines, ironing board covers, small pottery animals, and tiny little dolls in pink boxes. She also put up a sign advertising face painting . . .

A green car pulled up to our left. A small army of kids tumbled out of the backseat, there must have been at least a couple of toddlers and maybe four pre-teens. Mum got out of the drivers seat and eldest daughter from the passenger seat, both carrying unfeasibly large cuddly animals. Within minutes they had erected a large stall groaning under the weight of a managerie of stuffed toys, handbags, radio-controlled cars, miniature Eddie Stobart trucks, and a fabulous amount of boiled sweets in transparent plastic tubs. Then they assembled a six foot clothes rack and filled it with dresses on hangers. I couldn’t work out how everything had fitted into an old Vauxhall Vectra. The children scattered, kicking several footballs. Mum sat on the car bonnet surveying her stock. Daughter unfolded a large sign and attached it to the building behind her with thick duct tape. They were in the home care business. The sign was misspelled, and the punctuation was erratic. There were only nine words on the sign. One of the words must have been their name. I had a black marker pen in my possession and a strong urge to apostrophise.

Harvi decided he had to go pick up the food. It was only half past eleven. I didn’t quibble.

I was on my own. Pete came by; “looking good so far, we’ll get busy soon,” he said, cheerfully. His fellow committeeman looked gloomy. Pete was corpulent, red in the face, wheezing, but seemed genuinely happy. Noel snapped a cigarette to his mouth, inhaled rapidly, and pointed to the tombola; “she can get her own bloody table, I’m not carting it around for her,” he said. I wasn’t conversant with the internal politics of the committee so I nodded, “Right.” Noel was short, thin, with newspaper yellow skin. He looked like the dark haired one from Robson and Jerome, had the dark haired one spent twenty years in an isolation cell with half rations in a place that never saw daylight. His clothes hung off him like a sack on a rake. He wasn’t someone I spontaneously warmed to. He seemed to want to talk, however. “Scott Walker?” I said, pointing through the door into the main room. The entertainment had started. “Fuck knows,” said Noel, “DJ’s a dickhead.” My conversational gambits were pretty much exhausted at this point. Finally, after hovering like a wasp deciding whether to sting out of sheer malice, he ventured, “cage fight in there last week . . . kid won over a grand. Nineteen year old. A grand!” “That’s nice,” I said. I hoped the cage fighter wasn’t a fun day kind of guy. I was getting scared. Noel shuffled away, flipping his fag end in the direction of the DJ.

Harvi’s stall was piled with expensive equipment. I couldn’t let it out of my sight. Not that I didn’t trust these people with a bain marie – though with the soaring price of scrap metal these days, who can you trust! But I couldn’t risk any mishaps. I was trapped. I’d forgotten to bring a book. My phone was shit. I couldn’t tweet, I could barely even text. It wasn’t even noon.

More punters were arriving. Or, rather, the club seemed to be on the itinerary of the most frequented dog walking circuit in this part of Leeds. A succession of men with scabby hounds passed. Dog and owner were greeted with equal good humoured teasing. One dog, some sort of over-fed, under-exercised Yorkie particularly disturbed me. It moved with a jerky waddle that just screamed hip replacement. It had a blue/white eye that trickled a greenish gloop. Its left ear had been bitten and broken in some horrible canine cage fight. It’s coat looked like it had been regularly used as a boot scrape. As it tottered by people bent to pat and tickle the terrible specimen of dog-hood. It made me want to retch. When it came to our stall it stopped for a sniff. Harvi had left a box on the floor. There must have been something in the box that instinctually appealed, something that triggered an archaic reflex, switched an itch. The dog cocked its leg. I was aghast; frozen, appalled, sickened. What would I tell Harvi? What would I do with the box? What would the food hygiene people say? Fortunately the owner took control, clapping sharply and shouting “No, Sandy, No!” The dog de-cocked and gave me a dirty look, leaving me a little dazed and disconcerted. I mumbled a thank you to the guy. “He’s a little bleeder is that one” he said, aiming a slip-on shoe at the hounds padded behind.

Harvi wouldn’t be here for an hour. I’d either have to drink myself stupid or find some other way of entertaining myself. Sobriety seemed advisable given the circumstances. I settled myself into the shadows for a bit of a snooze. Who’d notice?

I kept my eyes open but let my mind drift . . . people milled around . . . everyone smoked . . . everyone carried a tray of chips spattered in watery tomato sauce . . . men had pints of John Smiths or bottles of Stella . . . women had halves of lager or bottles of Stella . . . I was hungry . . . I was dying for a drink . . .

Quarter to one came round and I noticed Harvi waving at me from the other end of the car park. “Grab a cloth, pans are hot,” he said, pointing in the direction of the boot of his car. We lifted the first pot gingerly and put it on the kerb so we could get a better grip. “Heavy!” I grunted. I think I heard the slightest tut. I am not at my scintillating conversational best when I’m hungry and sober it must be said, but I felt that tutting was unnecessary. He’d been home after all. Had a break. Probably had a nice coffee, some cake, a cuddle . . . well, home comforts and all that. I’d been here, minding the fort. The bloody gazebo at least. I wished it had been fortified.

When we’d carted both pots of curry and two boxes of rice back to the stall Harvi started giving directions. I hadn’t done this sort of thing before. I’m not practical. I was thankful for any indication what to do. When I attempted to heave the pot of chicken curry to shoulder height in order to tip it sloppily into the heated serving dish Harvi pointed to the set of small pans in the box on the floor. “Use one of those . . . then put the pan on the pot lid so we know which is which.” That made sense. Harvi lit the burners while I ladled. Then I made signs; Chicken Tikka Massala with Rice and Salad, £4:50 and Potato and Cauliflower Curry with Rice and Salad, £3:50. We were keeping it simple.

Pete passed by. “Gonna be a crowd soon boys, hope you’ll cope!” We’d manage we reassured him. We were looking forward to getting crowded. That’s why we were here we jested. Ho ho, all very jovial.

The wind was rocking the gazebo and making the burners sputter. While we waited for a queue to form I sellotaped some card to the side of the heaters to act as a sort of wind break. I thought that was quite inventive. A couple of people came by and told me what a clever idea it was. They were eating chips.

“Shall we have a drink?” asked Harvi. “Let’s open a bottle of wine, shall we?”

A wine glass had broken in the box so Harvi went to the bar for a spare. He returned with the smallest wine glass I had ever seen. It scarcely held three mouthfuls. Harvi took a picture of me with the minuscule goblet. I imagine it’s a very amusing image. I had to refill the glass every couple of minutes, which was actually quite tedious.

More people wandered by. I began to notice something peculiar. As people passed the stall – invariably stuffing themselves with deep fried, vitamin depleted, starchy stodge – they bent to look at the food and then read the sign out loud, slowly, as if trying to make sense of a crossword clue . . . chicken . . . tikka . . . massala . . . hmm . . . hmm . . . and then “curry!” with a look of excitement and wonder. Then they wandered away, masticating.

We sold our first dish at twenty past one. And two more, with an extra portion of rice, at just gone one thirty. Pete dashed by, “It’s all go . . . “ he remarked. Harvi raised his eyes heavenward. We had discerned as yet a deficiency of go. Any go would have been appreciated. Go was most definitely in short supply. “Let’s eat,” said Harvi. I spooned myself a giant portion of potato and cauliflower and digested disconsolately.

The first bottle of wine had disappeared by quarter to two. “I’ll go to the bar,” I said.

The room was huge, with enough space for three hundred comfortably. The bar was over forty feet across. I counted six bar staff. There was one bloke in the queue in front of me and a couple of kids messing about. I got served almost immediately.

“I don’t think they sell much wine,” I said to Harvi, handing him a tiny bottle.

“Not to men, they don’t” he said. “God, look at us . . . let’s hope they don’t get the wrong impression.”

I looked around. Then I had a moment of dread. There we were, in the middle of a council estate, surrounded by happy couples drinking beer and sharing chips, everyone studiously avoiding us, sipping daintily on girlish wine. “I hope they don’t think I’m with you,” said Harvi, “you’re an ugly bastard, I could do so much better!” We laughed and clinked glasses. There are probably not two more rampantly heterosexual men in the city, not too fellows more secure, certain and solid in their sexual orientation, or more comfortable with their chosen orientation . . . but, impressions can be deceptive. “I wish I’d bought Stella,” I said, “and I wish I’d not listened to you about wearing black.” I poured myself more wine and emptied the glass in one long gulp.

Pete went by. He said nothing.

At quarter past two Harvi decided it was time to reduce prices. I scribbled on the signs. We weren’t the only stall to do so. Tombola had several hundred ticketed objects left. The face painter hadn’t so much as smudged a patch on a pirates eye.The stall to our left hadn’t sold anything as far as I could tell. This may have been due to the fact that the daughter had spent most of her time simulating doggy style intercourse with a spotty youth over the bonnet of her mum’s car. She gyrated her hips for over an hour. I was frankly embarrassed. Her mum, however, seemed not to notice. Or her grandmother, who kept handing the spotty boy sweets as he dry humped her granddaughter. Perhaps she thought he needed the energy?

Pete shouted from within the club, “don’t worry lads, football’s almost finished. They’ll be famished, you watch.”

I got some more wine. “I’m going to have a look at the football, see who’s around,” I told Harvi, and wandered over to the back field. There were about ten guys on the pitch. Fifty or so sat around watching. Fifty or so plates of chips lay scattered on the grass.

“This is fucking pointless,” I told Harvi, slugging another glass. “Why don’t you start taking stuff home?”

I put my glass down on the corner of the table and started tidying. Just then a bunch of women came over and enquired what we were cooking. Harvi lifted the lid of the meat dish, enthusiastically explaining the ingredients, detailing the cooking method, expanding on the delights of Asian cuisine. As he was expatiating comically he tipped the lid downwards. A torrent of condensation poured from the corner directly into my wine glass. The ladies nodded, thanked Harvi, and went for chips. That was the final indignity. Diluted wine, tasted foul too. I told Harvi to hurry back.

While he was away I sold a curry to a guy with two dogs and no teeth. Pete slapped the guy on the back, “see, soon be flocking for food.” The guy said he wanted to go to the coast but “the lass is doing’t stall over there,” pointing to the leering face painter lady. The tannoy crackled and boomed, then announced that food was available from the chip van. Pete rushed over to have a word. The tannoy guy then mentioned “food from the Far East.” I was glad Harvi wasn’t around to hear that.

When Harvi returned he asked if I fancied another drink. “Here?” I snapped. It was my turn to tut.

We started to fill the car. I dropped a lid. I trapped my finger in a folding table. I spilled chicken juice down my jumper.

As we pulled away Harvi said that the guy in the Merc had avoided his gaze, “He was obviously embarrassed, I was going to shake his hand, commiserate, but thought better of it.”

“Let’s just go somewhere nice and talk about it,” I said.

We drove into town, parked near the Town Hall and went into The Victoria.

I had another large glass of wine and we sat in the window chatting and watching the world go by. There was no need to talk about what had gone wrong. It started to rain. Fun day, best forgotten.