Yet Another Day In Paradise

Yet Another Day in Paradise

A novel

Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Dedication

To all the Dreamers of the day who make their dreams come true!

to John & Shirley, Elizabeth & Dave, Lawrence & Ally,

Claude & family, Billy

and to Brian and Carol

Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Published by Timshel

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations in a book review.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Design and Layout: Nathalie Shrosbree

Artwork for the cover: Lawrence Moorcroft - Email: [email protected]

Cover design: Nathalie Shrosbree

Table of Contents

Pelican Island Yacht Club Who is Who

Start of Yet Another Day In Paradise

About Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Contact Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Other books by Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

Sample Chapters of other books

Interview with Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

PELICAN ISLAND YACHT CLUB

on the front lawn

Flaming Lil : Old Gordon with pigeon Elvis, cat Blanca and dog

moorings

Timshel : Ludwig, the actor, Mathilda

Sundog : Joe

Sunflower : Basil, Sally

Evening Cloud : Nathan, Bethanie

Solitaire : Dal

Merlin : Vincent & dog Tips

Lucky Star : Louis, Sophie

Nukani : John, the athlete, Madeleine

SaDaCa : Klippies, commodore

PipsyLen : Verandah Viking

Hoplite : Buttons, Tito, Vinka (+ parents)

on the hardparking

Eyimba : Ruben, Leila

Ilanga : Bob

Bumpy : Trev, Verandah Viking

Dreamer : Daniel

Lyonnese : Joelle, Delphine

in a boatshed

Gray & Tattoo, the cat

secretary Mariette

pub

Patti & Mloto, the parrot

honorary members

Stretch & Lofty (grey herons), Rosie & Rubie (hadedas)

+ all the pub cats

Not a member but featuring Nick, Verandah Viking

Plus other members & visitors

Old Gordon, in his boat Flaming Lil, stroked the dog on his lap, looked at his favourite painting in the cabin and said to the pigeon sitting on his head, You see Elvis, this is MAMI WATA the water spirit. She’s lots of things: nurturing mother, sexy mama, healer of ills, embodiment of danger and desires, risks and fears, challenges, dreams and forebodings. He sucked a thoughtful schluck of mate through his bombilla and put the dog down on the sole. Let’s go. A cat jumped off the bunk and followed Gordon, the dog and the pigeon into the cockpit, onto the side deck and down a wooden staircase. Gordon liked his staircase. He’d made it himself about 20 years ago when he’d moved onto the land. In his personal opinion he occupied the best spot at the Pelican Island Yacht Club. Behind the casuarinas on Flaming Lil’s portside stood the clubhouse with all its amenities only a 5 minute walk away and from the starboard side he had a fantastic view down the slope and across the Bay. His closest neighbours were the boats moored on A-trot. Nice to look at but far enough away for him to have some privacy. A man needed space, especially after having lived on the sea for 50 years. Gordon walked towards the beach. The pigeon on his head cooed softly. What a beautiful morning, hey Elvis, the old man said to the bird. The first sunrays lit up the bougainvillea covering a boatshed. Gordon walked past the palm trees and the oleander bushes, slowly, carefully watching his step. When you were nearly 90 your bones weren’t what they used to be and he didn’t want to sprain his ankle again, like on his birthday when he’d fallen over a fender in the clubhouse, but that had been with half a bottle of Old Brown Sherry in his guts and he still wanted to klap the idiot who’d left the fender there; anyway, it was better to watch your step in your old age even when you were sober. At the jetty, 2 grey herons looked expectantly at Gordon. The old man took a piece of boerewors out of a plastic packet and broke it in half. Stretch took his piece first. He was the alpha bird. Gordon had found him 9 years ago with a broken wing. Lofty had been half starved with a piece of fishing line tangled up between her feet. That had been 5 years ago…or 6? Gordon scratched his beard. Mmh…it had been just before his boat had sunk…8 years ago. Gordon looked past the birds to the end of the jetty where his Wind Song had been moored. Ah ja, the good old days! But Gordon wasn’t prone to reminiscence. He cast his eyes to the mangroves on the opposite side of the channel. Hundreds of egrets dotted the branches. It looked like a giant Iceberg-rosebush. Gordon squinted his eyes to improve his vision but it didn’t help when you had cataracts; the only thing you could do was to have an operation but he’d be damned if he let anybody fiddle around with his eyes. At least he’d seen the planet before mankind had buggered it up; he’d sailed the Seven Seas when the oceans were still full of fish instead full of garbage and when you could go to Galapagos without having to apply for a visa and you could stay there as long as you wanted. Ja, his had been a good life and still was. The other day, Patti, who ran the pub at the yacht club, had asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he’d said nothing. He was happy with his lot although during the last few days he’d been thinking…if there really was God the Creator up in the sky He could have arranged for old people to grow a third set of teeth. Ja, a new set of teeth was all he wanted in life.

On Timshel in D-trot Mathilda opened the hatch and climbed onto the bridge deck. She hit her head on the boom. Damnit! After 7 weeks on the boat it still happened. She pressed her hand against the growing bruise and, looking around her, immediately forgot the pain. The sun had just come up behind the bluff where red blossomed trees shone like flames in amongst the indigenous bush. A gentle breeze began to stir; the water in the Bay, still undisturbed, reflected the blue sky and the yachts; she’d counted them the other day, there were more than 40, their masts sticking up in the sky like trees of an outlandish forest. On the opposite shore at the dinghy jetty she saw Gordon feed his birds, that was what he did every morning. The tide was out and his dog and the cat were strolling along the beach towards the yacht jetty. On the lawn behind the beach somebody had unrolled a sail and further up the slope the clubhouse peeped out from behind the palms and casuarinas, hiding most of the container yard beyond the yacht club premises. Mathilda checked the neighbouring boats. Looked like on Lucky Star on the opposite trot Louis and Sophie were still sleeping, no trace of Louis’ sexy knee peeping out from the cockpit. On Nukani Madeleine was up the mast working on the cross trees. Dal on Solitaire was checking his fishing lines. All of a sudden the egrets took off from the mangroves in a mighty swish. Mathilda followed their flight down the channel, a swirl of white bodies and wings gliding perfectly synchronized past the fisheries and the turning basin towards the hills of the city.

A dinghy detached itself from a dark-blue ketch. A lean figure with long black hair wearing a straw hat and cut-off jeans was standing in it paddling at a leisurely pace towards the shore. A fish jumped. The reflections of the masts crinkled on the water. Here goes Joe, Mathilda thought. Joe, deep in thought, didn’t notice much of what was going on around him. He didn’t see the cormorant catch a mullet, or the pelicans hunting between the mooring lines. He sighed. Life had been easy – until last night. Fuck! He thought he’d left all the crap behind him. Hell! For the last few years, since he’d dropped anchor at the yacht club he’d been settled and happy. He looked after the moorings and sometimes he delivered yachts to exotic places. He had no worries in life plus the club had a pub, plus some lovely chicks. Sure, there were some smartarses amongst the members but he socialized with the sensible guys who realized that there was more to life than the rat race and status symbols. And now this. Hells bells! He couldn’t believe it. Why did life have to be so complicated? Maybe he should just ignore the whole thing…

Mathilda watched Joe tie up his dinghy and walk towards the clubhouse. He seemed a bit down; maybe he had a hangover. She felt a hand grabbing her backside.

Nice bum, her husband Ludwig said. Nice everything. D’you think we should do something with it?

On the hard parking Trev climbed off his boat. Hell, his mother must have bought his bladder at Pep Stores on a ‘special special’; he had to get up twice every night since he had been a lad but now in his 50s it was worse and you couldn’t piss over board on the hard parking – not once the sun was up. He walked past the sheds and stopped at the skip to have a look at its contents. Last week somebody had chucked out a genuine copper kettle, can you believe it? Some people didn’t recognize a good thing when they saw it; but one man’s poison is another man’s food. He lifted up some rotten planks and shifted some rusty tins – nothing worth taking. His bladder was talking to him so he shot past the row of parked cars into the ablution block. When he came out he checked, by habit, the top of the wall that separated the gents from the ladies… a half full packet of cigarettes with a lighter in it, can you believe it! It was his lucky day today. He went straight over to the phone booth to check if somebody had forgotten their phone card…and can you believe it? There was one lying on top of the little shelf. He stuck it in the slot, the phone went peep peep peep and announced that there was no money left on the card – but anyway, he could still use it as a scraper once he started doing the filling on his boat. Trev decided to have a look at the boats on the water. He went past the pub which only opened at 11, which meant still 4 and a half hours to go; unfortunately he didn’t have any money at the moment, maybe he would find some – things like that could happen on a lucky day, and if not, he could always charm the boots off Patti, who ran the pub, and get a freebee. It had its advantages to be good looking. Trev examined his reflection in the pub window. Ja, he’d been a strapping lad all his life. 2 metres tall, broad shoulders, narrow hips, blue eyes, a blond mane, a blond beard, proof of his Viking ancestors; and even though the passage of time had interspersed his hair with grey and he had grown a paunch on his once lean body, he still looked better than most other guys. He turned onto the stoep of the clubhouse and stopped dead in his tracks. There was something that shouldn’t be there. He stuck out his head to get a better look. Someone had suspended a hammock between 2 pillars, can you believe it? And it looked like that someone was sleeping in the hammock. Trevor tiptoed towards it and looked inside. Bob opened one weary eye and said, Do you think she’ll leave me?

In his catamaran on the hard parking Ruben switched on the CD player. The melody of a tango floated through the boat. Ruben danced towards the galley and put the kettle on. For a big man he moved amazingly gracefully. Ruben looked like a friendly grizzly bear with big horn-rimmed glasses and a grey beard. He chucked some tea bags into the tea pot; his favourite tune came on. He improvised some dance steps and found he wanted more space. He climbed onto the cabin roof and got lost in a tango holding an imaginary partner in his arms, his wife Leila. He’d met her 30 years ago in Panama, where he’d stopped over during his solo circumnavigation in his first little boat and where Leila had played the harp in an orchestra, the same harp he’d built a special hatch for, to get it in and out of the boat, because Leila had announced she’d follow him wherever he wanted to go but not without her harp. Ruben had never heard of a harp on a sailboat – vessels like the QE 2 maybe had one on board – but if Leila wanted her harp he would make sure she could have her harp.

Down below Leila took the teabags out of the pot listening to Ruben’s baritone accompanying the tango. Love, tea is ready, she stepped on the bridge deck.

Leave the tea and come for a dance, Ruben opened his arms to her.

Leila smiled and joined Ruben on the cabin roof in the morning sun. The tune came to an end, Ruben and Leila ended their dance in a gracious pose. ‘The Girls’ on their wooden cutter clapped, people from other boats joined in. Trev coming back from the clubhouse let off an admiring whistle.

Good morning faithful citizens, Ruben bellowed and the hard parking exploded with laughter.

Looks like Ginny is going out, Leila put her tea mug down observing a slim, blonde woman climbing down from a catamaran. The woman loaded some bags into a car parked between the boats.

She’s got a face as if she’s going to the dentist, Ruben remarked.

You don’t normally take a mountain of luggage when you go to the dentist.

Ja, Ruben grabbed another rusk. I wonder what’s going on there. Where’s Bob? I haven’t seen him.

I don’t know. I just hope they water their plants if they’re going away. That honeysuckle looks all wilted. She cast a thoughtful eye over Bob and Ginny’s boat. Ilanga held several records at the yacht club. It was the biggest cat on the hard parking and it had been there for 20 years, ever since Bob had sold his house and moved the hull from his garden to the club. His first wife liked gardening and over the years flowerbeds had sprung up around Ilanga, honeysuckle climbed up the starboard hull and wisteria the port hull; they intermingled in a flamey, luscious mass under which one could only guess the exact shape of the boat.

When did Bob’s first wife leave him? Leila poured Ruben another mug of tea.

Lemme think, Ruben scratched his beard. It was roundabout the time we installed our wind generator…6 years ago.

They both watched Ginny, Bob’s second wife, go to the car with another load of stuff.

Oh gosh, Leila gasped. She’s taking the pressure cooker. That can only mean one thing.

Across the water on Timshel, Ludwig and Mathilda were lying on their bunk intertwined, snoozing in post coital bliss… They had built the boat, a wooden 40 foot gaff-rigged cutter themselves on their farm in the bush. Ludwig had continued acting in a soapie during that time but after 10 years of commuting to the film studio and with the boat finished, he decided to retire although he loved his job. At the age of 70 one never knew how much time one had left and he wanted to enjoy life now, without the stress of having to remember words, to get to the studio in time in the chaotic rush hour traffic and hijackings on the increase, without having to deal with hysterical actresses, cantankerous co-actors and wardrobe ladies who never got his shoe size right.

One advantage of building a boat yourself was you could adapt everything to your own needs. When it came to the bunk Ludwig and Mathilda had agreed that it was a highly important space where one spent a lot of time – and not only sleeping. I don’t want one of those pisswilly yachtie bunks, Ludwig had announced. I want space. The result was a bunk 3 metres wide and 2 metres long under the foredeck across the whole width of the boat.

Mathilda stirred and slowly removed her left leg from Ludwig’s hip and her arm from his chest. Wake up, honey. It’s time to bail out.

Okay, let’s do it. Ludwig had been born with the pleasant characteristic of always waking up like a happy puppy. He jumped out of the bunk, stretched and got the electric bilge pump from underneath the nav table. Mathilda rolled back the coir carpet, lifted a plank and inspected the bilges.

Bloody hell, she put the plank to the side. There’s more water than yesterday.

I just don’t get it, Ludwig said. This boat shouldn’t leak at all. Marine ply sheathed in fibreglass, it’s like a bloody eggshell. There shouldn’t be one drop in there.

Looks like there’s about half a bath tub full in there and it stinks. Mathilda stuck the outlet pipe through a porthole; Ludwig lifted a board under the table, connected the pump to the battery and stuck the sucker into the bilge. The water moved noisily through the system, ran across the side deck and fell back into the sea where it had come from in the first place.

Hell, my joints are sore, Ludwig said when they had finished.

And there’s already water again in the first compartment. Mathilda put the planks back, unrolled the coir carpet, unclipped the pump and put the board back above the battery. This is driving me nuts.

Ja, Ludwig rubbed his aching hip. We’ve got to stop this leak. We’ll take the boat out and have a look as soon as we can book the cradle.

Bob climbed out of his hammock not looking forward to this day. Normally he would have jumped into the pool now but since yesterday nothing was normal anymore. It wasn’t the first time Ginny had told him to go to hell with his boat which would never be finished in a 1000 years; and for how long was she still supposed to live in this dump, surrounded by noisy machines, epoxy stinks and sawdust all over the show? Not to mention the shit that fell out of the sky when the wind was blowing from the direction of the coal terminal; and on top of that the neighbours were all bloody eccentrics and the showers never worked. He’d heard it all before but never as vitriolic as last night. Bob decided to be strong and to go back to Ilanga and face whatever there was to face.

At shed no 14 the roll-up door stood open. Inside, Gray, with a beatific smile that never left his face, was sitting on an old plastic chair stroking Tattoo, the cat. Dal, dressed in an ancient paint-stained pair of shorts, was pouring milk into 2 tea mugs placed on top of a pile of planks. Beyond the planks heaps of stuff were stacked up to the rusted corrugated iron roof. There were boxes with copper screws, shackles and turn buckles, several models of marine toilets, CQR anchors, home-made anchors, signal flags, flares, fire extinguishers, fenders, boathooks, paddles, charts, pilot books and girlie magazines – all second hand and for sale at reasonable prices compared to the chandlers where they charged you a fortune and thought that everybody who owned a boat was a millionaire. The only article that was not second hand in shed no 14 was the mampoer Dal stooked secretly on his boat Solitaire in C-trot. He only distilled small quantities for himself, his friends and a few selected customers who knew how to keep their mouths shut – not even the commodore knew about his little sideline and Dal wanted to keep it that way. Live and let live was his motto; he didn’t want to get into conflict with the law but a man had to earn some bucks especially if he planned to go sailing one day in the future. Dal handed a mug of tea to Gray who said, Here comes Bob, he doesn’t look overjoyed. They watched Bob trudging along the row of sheds, dragging a hammock behind him.

Oh boy, the shit has hit the fan, Dal commented. I wonder what it is. Maybe he lost his job.

Can’t be, Gray fed Tattoo a piece of sardine from yesterday’s lunch. He told me just the other day that he is involved in some townhouse complex project. Said he doesn’t really have his heart in designing little houses for middle class conformists but it’s good money and he needs it to pay maintenance for his kids.

Bob walked past the shed without even seeing them.

Hey Bob, want a cup of tea? Dal shouted.

No thanks, Bob trudged on without looking up.

Dal lit his cigarette and said, "Seems