I love my dear Nana but when she asked a 19 year old me to go on a "holiday", with her, to meet her elderly cousins, to a small town outside Toronto for three weeks - I knew she was up to something. Through the magic of facebook and long distance phone cards the coven of septuagenarians [this means old cunts] had begun their unauthorised plotting of my life. Between them, it had been decided that I should move to Canada. This would have undoubtedly been in direct opposition to my mothers wishes, so Nan had to act stealthily. Dropping hints of a land glazed in maple whenever Mum wasn't around to listen.
It's amazing how obstinate the elderly can be considering how little time they have left. For months my petulance would torment Nan's stubbornness. Nan's admirable, defiant determination to remain completely unreasonable remains an inspiration.
"You must think I'm stupid Nan! What makes you think I wanna be pottering around moose country with you lot?"
"Don't be a fool. You need to show your great aunt & uncle how lovely you are. They might let you live with them."
"I am a lovely fool."
"Don't be stupid!"
Finally though, the old crow won. I told Nan I lacked the fortitude to handle three weeks away in her company but as I love her dearly, I might withstand ten days. This meant Nan would have to fly out on her own. She made a right meal of this but somehow Nan scrounged together all 70 years of her experience to overcome getting dropped off at one airport and being picked up at the other.
There was a performative air to Nan's behaviour. Like she was acting out some ill-conceived adaptation of her favourite book, Great Expectations. She was the mad woman and I was poor Pip, being groomed for a life beyond Dickensian Watford. The day before I arrived Nan called me in panicky hushed tones. "If anybody asks why you're only coming now, say you had to work!" I said I did work, I just didn't have to work. Nan, a little frustrated at my refusal to get immediately on board with this nonsense, tries again. "No Jakey.. You can't let the Canadians know you let me travel alone willingly, What Would They Think!" I said "Nan, I'm not even flying to Canada willingly."
So, eleven days late because I had to "work", I arrived to great expectations thanks to Nan. The first two of which were spent meeting relatives there's no name for, pretending I was the gentleman Nan promised. On Friday we all went down to the local Royal Legion. I haven't spent too much time in a Legion but they're basically 'Spoons for emeritus dossers (I was still in the profession). There was fucking line fucking dancing and karaoke. I'm not against singing and dancing (or lines) but my fear of line dancing remains very real. I was ready for bed before the winners of the meat raffle were called, which was a shame as Elmer reckoned it was a rollover.
The following day, I told the fam that I was going to a party and to not wait up. There was a house festival happening on Toronto Island. They were worried for my well-being, going off on my own to this strange metropolis like I was Babe the pig or some shit. All my great aunt and uncle really knew about me was what my nan told them. And all my nan knew about me is what I told my nan. This web of exponential family censorship meant they were two rose tinted bullshits from reality.
Most of the folks at the Legion struggled with my accent and great uncle Bobby had to translate, which is ironic. He went to school with Billy Connolly and sounds a bit like two Connolly's talking over each other. My great aunt Fanny & his wife of 50 years has a peculiar Northern Irish Accent. Peculiar because she is Canadian. I like to imagine it's because Belfast is between Toronto and Glasgow but who knows. When I asked her if that was why she simply responded "Aye, that's a goodun, eh!".
The festival is where I really discovered I spoke the wrong dialect. I understood Canadian, I just couldn't speak it. I tried ordering a beer but the barmaid asked if I was speaking English. "I am fucking English". She passed me the can of fizzy piss and said "You have to pay... do you know anyone with money?" And looked at me like she was serving a child Borat. I remember thinking 'I bet this is the exact sort of thing people get offended by except I lack the emotional range'. I gave her a five euro I had left in my wallet since Ibiza and fucked off into the crowd.
On the ferry back a Canadian couple, who mistook my bad dancing as intentional, asked where I was heading. I said back to Ajax. "Fucking Ajax? Fuck that! You're coming with us". Fuck that indeed. On the way to the club I phoned my great uncle from their cell. "Bobby, I'm not coming home tonight pal. Would you tell the girls not to worry for me please mate" He said mum's the word. I assumed this meant he was going to make up some sort of excuse but when I got back to theirs two days later the police had already been called. I said "What the fuck Bobby! What was going through your head when they were calling the police?" He said "Listen pal, either you get in trouble or we both do, an' I canny help you." This, of course, made absolutely no sense. But if I was worried about that, you wouldn't be reading this. Bobby is the sort of man who didn't tell his wife he retired for five years just so he could day drink in peace down the pub. You have to respect it.
The following weekend there was a contingency plan in place to ensure that I did not go 'missing' again. The contingency plan's name was cousin Brad Junior. Brad is eight years older than me and a junior partner at Brad Senior's law firm. The Brad's owed Bobby a favour for some indiscriminate reason, and I was that favour. "Take Jake to a baseball game and try not to lose him. He flies home with his Granny tomorrow". We caught a double-decker train, grabbing a 6 pack for the short journey. Then at the brewery before the game he introduced me to his buddies. I told them about the previous weekend and they immediately adopted me. Brad said "Ohhhh that makes sense now. By the way they were talking about you, I thought you were mentally disabled or something." I said the night was still young. Brad's orders were simple: spend as much money on me using his dad's card as possible.
*Some of Jake's memory of the following events have been involuntarily redacted*
Hello! & Welcome to Jake's permanently damaged hippocampus. Jake randomly recalls those awesome margarita beers. Jake's memory has been through the shitter. And most of what you'll find here is merely proof that memory is subjective, so good luck. We had a couple beers at the Moosehead brewery. We had those bastard two pinter beers at the baseball game. A couple of them two pinter beers. And then a couple more. We went back to the brewery after the game and had some more beers. Brad made it very clear that I was not allowed to pay and it was all going on his Dad's card. I'm not sure what favour they owed Billy but it was not less than 15 beers worth. That's when we jumped into his friends car and headed back to whereeverthefuck. I was let in the club against the better judgement of all those present. I drank some shots to perk me up then drank some beer to sober me up.
'Soon as I wake up I know I'm in trouble. Eyes still crusted shut I jolt off the sofa & immediately fall over. As a seasoned lowlife I know time is crucial - I'm still drunk and pre-hangover. I get to my feet and look around, searching for some familiarity but none comes and hit survival mode. I'm not sure if you've ever combined survival mode with a hangover but it's something of an oxymoron and you're reminded of this with every misstep. I have no memory of the baseball but there are flashes of some nightclub. I'm in the biggest house I've ever been in. My phones dead. There's a swimming pool beyond the patio doors. I need to get my whereabouts so I look for the front door. There is no front door. There is no people. Where the fuck am I? I have no choice but to go upstairs and seek help.
This was beyond the grasp of a young chap from Watford but I was in the gigantic basement of a split level house. I stagger my way up the stairs. Stumble over the top step into a landing. My eyes fix down the hall. There is a woman making pancakes in an ostentatious, shitting big kitchen. I don't make a sound hoping that she doesn't notice the drunk intruder. Clearly I was in the wrong house and my thoughts on Canadian gun laws are interrupted by panic as she looks down the hall and spots me. Suddenly it dawns on me that my initial plan of 'be invisible' has some holes in it. So I freeze mid-step, completely still in genuine desperate hope this woman can only sense movement. Plan B also fails. She goes "You must be Jake". I say something like "werejbkgrjhgrhjwe" (I had intended to say yes). She asks "Would you like some water?" Now I say yes.
I was at the Brad's. Brad Jr was asleep. I don't know what happened the night before but I never saw him again... but I was about to meet his old man. Brad Junior Senior came downstairs and introduced himself, he wasn't giving me pancake vibes. "Hello, JAKE." The emphasis on my name suggested that he wasn't too happy about being strong-armed into spending a small fortune on some cousin he didn’t know he had. Mrs Brad Jr Sr got a box of aspirin out the cupboard and a glass of water. I assumed this was meant for me but he took it. No doubt thinking I paid for his headache, let me enjoy it. Br Jr Sr questioned me, a cross between a job interview and a police interrogation. I did not get the job and I was most definitely guilty.
I like to hope this was the morning Nan & her cronies realised I wasn't bound for greatness. We flew back together as Nan re-evaluated. True to Dickens, a couple months later we experienced a Christmas Day blessing when we handed Nan her present. She opened the box and out popped a little puppy. Finally, she was able to invest her efforts into a far more promising gentleman. She named him Pip.
