hotel
7:15 p.m.
This is more like it. A huge driveway lined with hibiscus and palm trees and a fountain and then a hotel with about fifty-six floors. Tip-top hotel life. As soon as we screeched to a halt a millimeter away from the fountain, some chap in a uniform opened the car doors. He seemed vair vair cheerful, like someone had told him a really good joke. Perhaps he had heard about the clown-car convention. Or seen Uncle Eddie trying to park. He smiled and clapped his hands and said, “Well, how are you all doing? Come on in, come on in!!! Welcome to Memphis, folks. The home of Elvis—but this is not Heartbreak Hotel, no siree, this is your hotel!” Good Lord. I said to Uncle Eddie really quietly, “Put your foot down and drive like the wind.”
But Mr. Smiley Mad Pants had already taken all our bags inside. Still grinning. Like he was really pleased to see us. The receptionist (Candi) practically split her mouth in half, she was smiling and saying “alrighty” so much.
Whilst Dad and Uncle Eddie sorted out the rooms, Mum said, “Aren’t they all just, you know…”
I said, “Bonkers?”
Mum got all mumish, “No, aren’t they all so nice? Let’s have a little look at the pool.”
poolsidewise
Fabby pool all surrounded by palm trees and with miniature waterfalls and stuff. We tried out the sun lounger things. Libby gave Sandy and Scuba Diving Barbie a bit of privacy by putting them on their own special lounger.
As soon as we sat down a waitress dashed over. Blimey, sometimes days can go by in English restaurants before some complete fool comes ambling over to take your order, and then tells you they haven’t got it.
Our waitress (Loreen) was beside herself with joy at seeing us and said, “Well, howdy to you all, thank you for coming to Memphis. Can I get you ladies anything?”
Mum said, “Could I have tea for four, and perhaps a couple of ham sandwiches if that is not too much trouble?”
Loreen slapped her thigh and laughed for about a year and said, “With that cute accent you can have anything you want, ma’am.”
Mum said to Libby, “Bibs, would you like a little ham sandwich?”
Libby looked at the waitress and started snorting and grunting and pretending to be a mad piglet.
“Hoggy hoggy, piggy sandwich!”
And Loreen chuckled and said, “Now, aren’t you the cutest?”
Cutest?
Libby?
Good Lord.
ten minutes later
Jas is writing a postcard to Hunky—we’ve only been here a minute. She has no pridenosity.
Mum started taking her jacket off. I said, “I beg you, Mum, do not alarm anyone with your nungas.”
She is in such a good mood, and obviously expecting to see George Clooney any minute, that she just smiled at me and lay back in her chair.
Jas said, “I wonder what time it is in Kiwi-a-gogo. If we are five hours back from England and New Zealand is twelve hours ahead of England, that means…erm…let me see….”
I said, “Jas, please work it out in your head and don’t start talking about minutes to me. It makes my brain go jelloid.”
Once I have had a snack I will have the strength to get on the phone to the Luuurve God.
fifteen minutes later
Loreen has arrived with our “snack.” My sandwich is made out of two loaves of bread, chips, a huge gherkin and a piglet. Loreen said to Libby, who was gnawing her way through forty pounds of ham, “Is that alrighty for you, Miss Beautiful?”
Pardon?
Then, attracted by the gnawing, Cindi, a waitress with eight-foot hair came over and said, “Now you leave her alone, Loreen, she is mine.”
Then they had a bit of a mock minifight over Libby, shouting, “Now you give her here, she is miiiiine.”
Quite quite weird. We sat there chewing as Loreen and Cindi sort of pushed each other round. Finally Loreen won and she picked up Libby and gave her a cuddle. Libby didn’t hit her.
I was amazed.
We were all amazed.
It was amazing, that’s why.
She was cuddling my sister. My sister wasn’t biffing her.
Now Loreen was kissing Sandra. Blimey.
Then some bloke passing by with twenty-five pounds of sausages on his plate stopped and joined in. “How are y’all folks doing?”
I said, “We are doing as alrighty as…er…alrighty things, thank you.”
And he said, “Hey, miss, are you from Ireland? Well, begorrah you are real pretty and you have a sparkling personality. Now you all take care and have a nice day.”
Mum practically choked on her pig’s leg.
half an hour of alrighty time later
After our “snack” we staggered to the elevator and a complete stranger in tartan slacks and matching hat said as he got out, “Now you enjoy Memphis, you hear?”
On the way up to our room I said to Jas, “What do they want from us?”
inside
Mum went off with Libby into the “family” room and Me and Jas went into our room. I heard Libby saying to Mum, “When is the kittykat plane landing, Mummmmmeeeee?”
Oh dear.
our room
Wow and wowzee wow, it was HUGE. And it had its own private bathroom! No more chance sightings of my parents in the nuddy-pants.
When we got to our room the bellhop was putting our bags on one of the ginormous beds.
I said, “Oh, thank you very much.”
And he slapped his thigh and said, “Now where are you all from?”
I said, “Erm, we’re all from England.”
And he did a little bit of a dance and said, “Say something in British.”
I looked at Jas but she was busy walking in and out of the walk-in wardrobe.
It was really making me nervy having an ogling person ogling me from about an inch away from my head. Especially one who thinks that I speak British. Anyway, I said, “Do you know if there is a bus that goes to Manhattan, please?”
And he started hooting with laugher. I was just looking at him. Eventually he managed to wipe his eyes and calm down and went cackling off out of the room.
Jas said, “Georgie, look, there is like a cupboard thing with all drinks and snacks in.”
I said, “Oh thank God!!!”
But I was being ironic because I am so full of piglet I can barely move.
We lay on our ginormous beds and made a plan.
I said, “Okay, the first thing is we phone up directory enquiries and—”
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
monday may 23rd
8:30 a.m.
What in the name of arse happened? I remember putting on the TV and Mum and Dad coming in and saying, “We are just going to have a little zizz.”
I thought, “Hahahaha, now is my chance. I will just lie on my ginormous bed and have a little rest to perk me up for my phone call to the Luuurve God.” And then it was now. If you see what I mean.
But hey hey hey, this is our Official First Morning in Hamburger-a-gogo land!
Jas was awake looking at me. In her giant sleeping knicker ensemble and giant bed. I said, “Howdy,” and she said, “Alrighty,” and I said, “Gol’darn rootin’ tootin’, I’m alrighty.”
And we laughed like loons in Loonland, which we are.
9:00 a.m. hamburger-timewise
Jas was looking out of our two-hundred-million-floor window and I said, “Any sign of cowboys?”
And she said, “No, but I can see some bloke doing nuddy-pants gardening on a roof.”
Wowzee wow!! I leapt out of bed and went to the window and there was Mr. Rudey Dudey Nudey on the roof of another hotel!
I said, “Boo, he’s wearing tiny swimming knickers, or swimming panties, as we must say to get along with people here. I can’t stop to chat with you now, Jas. I’m going to use our phone to call up Masimo in Manhattan.”
Jas said, “Good luck. Hey, I wonder if I could phone Tom in Kiwi-a-gogo.”
It was really groovy h
aving our own phone for once.
I said to Jas, “What is the codey-type thing for Manhattan?”
Typically, Jas didn’t know. I don’t know what the point of coming top in history is if you don’t even know the simplest thing, but I didn’t say that because I am vair nearly in Luuurve Heaven City.
I phoned reception and an alarmingly cheerful person said, “Gayleen speaking, how can I help you, ma’am?”
“Oh, er, I would like to make a call to Manhattan, please.”
“You got it. Now you just wait, ma’am, while I connect you to the appropriate party.”
This was more like it. I said to Jas, “This is why I luuurve the American-type people. They DO stuff for you. Also they are very truthful—you know, like last night that bloke said I was beautiful and had a sparkling personality. That is again why I like them, because they are full of SINCERIOSITY!”
And that is when Dad answered the phone.
“Dad!”
“Oh, yes, I wondered how long it would be before you were on the phone to your mates, telling them what you are having for breakfast and what color lipstick you might wear.”
Donner and Blitzen!
And merde!
And also DARN!!!
Even on holiday Dad is so mad and unreasonable. He has told the hotel to put all our calls through to him!
I said to him, “What if I needed to call the emergency services?”
“I could call them.”
“But what if you had, er, fallen over your shorts and—”
“Georgia, shut up and just accept that you are not calling your mates on the hotel phone. You can use your own money in a phone box.” Then he hung up.
Sacré bleu.
The phone rang. It was Vati again.
“And don’t even think about eating anything out of the room bar or using room service without my permission.”
What was this? A holiday or Stalag 14 on tour?
Through the Fat Controller (Dad), Me and Jas ordered the “healthy option” breakfast.
fifteen minutes later
Me and Jas are sitting in the bath watching the mini TV on the shelf by the sink. It’s like on a stem thing and you can twist it around so you can watch it from any angle, even on the loo. (By the way, we were sitting in the bath not in a lezzie way, just in a in-our-jimjams way).
There was a knock at the door and our “healthy option” breakfast arrived.
I don’t know whose idea of a healthy option it was, but in my book twenty-five tons of porridge, four eggs and forty pounds of fried potatoes plus toast doesn’t suggest health to me, it suggests death.
The smiling person (Dolly) who brought us the brekkie tray said, “Now you all have a nice day, you hear?”
And I didn’t even say, “No, YOU all have a nice day.”
I have never been smiled at by a waitress in my life until I got here.
Creepy.
I said to Jas, “What is it these people want?”
11:30 a.m.
We all climbed into the loonmobile to go and explore Memphis.
Uncle Eddie and Vati are wearing baseball hats backward with their false Elvis quiffs sticking out of the front. There is no need for it. I said to Dad, “Dad, we are representing Her Maj the Queen and quite frankly you two are doing a really crap job.”
Uncle Eddie, once again at the “controls,” accelerated away so suddenly that we were forced back in our seats, like that G-force thing. Only in our case it was the Uncle Baldy force.
As we careered along there were signs all over saying, “Elvis the King dared to rock!” and so on.
Every time they saw one, Dad and Uncle Eddie would start singing another Elvis song and moving their shoulders about and saying “Uh-huh.”
I must find a phone box and set off to Manhattan as soon as I can.
Out of the loonmobile and amazingly still alive.
Memphis is blindingly hot and sort of groovy in a really loony groovy way. Everywhere you go there are Elvis songs blasting out of cafés and bars and shops and people dressed up as him. I never thought the day would come when I would say this, but Dad and Uncle Eddie were almost sane-looking in comparison to some. Is it normal for old ladies who are 800 pounds to dress in rhinestone jumpsuits and false black sidies? “No,” I think, is the answer you are searching for.
The grown-ups were all keen on going to look at Robinmobile headquarters on the outskirts of town. I said to Mum, “Please, please don’t make me and Jas go. Please, we’re only young, we have our whole lives ahead of us. Please, please.”
Eventually they agreed that we could have a look round town and they would go “check the scene,” as Dad pathetically put it, wiggling his dark glasses. Dear God.
As they went off he said, “Be back here, outside Elvis’s Rock Emporium, in two hours or say good-bye to ever going out by yourselves again.”
Cheers.
But at least we were free!!!
As they went off and got back into the car we waved and looked full of maturiosity. Then, when Uncle Eddie had careered round the corner in the Thunderbird thing, we did thumbsie upsies and a swift disco inferno.
I yelled, “Yes and three times yes!!! Good-bye, porky ones! We are off on the Luuurve train! Or Luuurve Greyhound!!!”
Jas said, “I am not getting on a bus to Manhattan with you. And that is final.”
I put my arm around her.
“Come on, my bestest little pally, one for all and all for one and all for me.”
“No.”
“Jas—”
“No.”
I resisted the temptation to kick her stupid legs and decided to use my famous charmosity.
“Jas, let us just go and find a phone box. I can phone Masimo and say ‘Ciao, Masimo, your dreamboat has landed’ and you could phone Hunky and ask him how many boring…er, I mean how many fascinating bits of wombat poo he has found in Kiwi-a-gogo and so on.”
Jas perked up then.
“Oh, yeah, I could, unless you think it’s sort of, well, you know, keen…but I am keen, aren’t I? And I have got his phone number—well, at least I’ve got the number of the farm he is staying on.”
Good Lord. She is sooo, you know, pathetico.
And I say that with deep loveosity.
We had to wait to cross the road with the other Memphis-type people. One enormously friendly person, who clearly had eaten all the pies, said there was a phone box in the “drugstore.” Can you imagine it being called that in Shakespeare-a-gogo land? Anyway, as we waited at the lights they changed and instead of the “Beep beep beep” thing it had a woman talking in a Memphis accent! Honestly! She said, “Now you all are safe to cross the road.”
A shop next to the drugstore had a notice on its door that said NO DRINKING, EATING OR FIREARMS IN THE SHOP.
Wow!
in the drugstore
We asked the drugstore man how to use his telephone thing. He gave us loads of quarters or something. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, as he was eating a hamburger at the time. I did hear him say, “Are you going to phone Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace?”
What is he talking about?
telephone box
The telephone is a bit low. Are there a lot of tiny people in Memphis? I was a bit phased about asking the operator for numbers in Manhattan as my first go at the phone thing, so I thought I would try phoning Rosie.
Jas was looning about being an unhelp. I said, “Are they five hours ahead?”
And she said, “Well, if it’s yesterday tomorrow in Kiwi-a-gogo, well, that makes it…er…”
As she was rambling on I picked up the receiver and it made a really funny dialing noise and then I had to shove in tons of quarters. Then it made a funny ringing type noise. It was almost like I was in a foreign country.
Perhaps no one was in.
Then Rosie answered the phone.
Yesssssss and three times yesssss!!! Contact!!!
England! England! A person who sp
oke my own language at last!
Rose said, “Bonsoir.”
“Ro Ro, it’s me and Jas!!!”
Jas was trying to get the receiver off me and yelling, “Let me say hello. Let me.”
Vair annoying.
I let her have a go, though, because I wanted her to do stuff for me. She was ludicrously excited, like we had been away for years in the Antarctic and had just found a phone on an ice floe.
“Rosie, it’s me, Jas, in Hamburger-a-gogo!”
She rambled on for ages, saying stuff like, “What is the weather like there? Oh, is it? Raining? Is it that light rain that soaks you right through? Yeah? Right. Not really raining, more like spitting? It still wets you right through, though, doesn’t it? It’s boiling here. The money is different.” Really really boring stuff. For ages.
I said, “Give me a go, Jas, before the money runs out.”
She handed the phone over to me. I said, “Ro Ro, guess how many people over here have said they love me?”
And Rosie said, “None?”
Happy days. Back to normality.
I luuurve my friends. Rosie is growing dreadlocks and Sven has had his thumb pierced.
After we had said good-bye to Rosie, Jas went off into another booth to speak to Hunky.
I took a deep breath, got my coins ready and got through to the operator.
fifteen minutes later
Do you know how many Scarlottis there are in Manhattan?
A million.
I could spend the rest of my life phoning them.
Jas came out of her tiny-person’s booth to get more change, and I said, “It’s bloody hopeless. There are about a billion people called Scarlotti in Manhattan.”
She said, “Why don’t you use sort of psychic luuurve bonding and just telepathically think of where he will be and choose that number?”
fifteen minutes later
I have made many many new Hamburgese friends, all called Scarlotti. One of them seemed a bit on the Chinese side and I think I may have ordered egg fried rice to go, but that is life. Oh, I have laughed, I have cried with my new mates, I have talked about central heating and so on, but I have not spoken to anyone who knows Masimo. And I have spent almost all my money.