What will today's gig turn out to be? I turn off the engine, tuck
the road map into its pocket. So this is the Rest Home! It is small and
tucked away in an inner suburb of smog city of sprawled and heartless
urbanity flocked to by thousands. They ignore the hours spent idling on
motorways, the violence, the racism, the poor, the oppressed, and .....
God, what isn't wrong with the place?
People who come here need their heads read!
But I came here. It was my choice. Or was it choice?
This is where the work was. The work has gone but I remain.
Nowadays you can be Yuppie here. You can live in an inner city
apartment which has just had its sea view built out by a new high rise.
You can touch it from your kitchen window! and you can breakfast in
breakfast bars, eat at Macdonald's, wine and dine through joy to
oblivion, flounce your sex, be in fashion. Oh to be in fashion!
The world is yours. Never a trace of reality, the good earth, the
source of what you eat. It is of not the least concern. Only dollars,
dollars and vivacity all the way.
How the head aches. Must be the greatest time we ever had! But
these folk have passed that. These "up and comers"' of their day are
hobbled.
Their hair is light against the orange brick facade. Inside is
warm as tropics. They need it but it is too hot for the younger. And
there is a smell of "slightly off".
A huge TV screen looks blankly at you from a wall. There is a picture
of the Last Supper beside it of benign Jesus at a long table, with the
disciples. It is a different age.
We in our small troupe of six are diffident! We are in strange
surroundings. Three women in white dresses with plaids and three men in
kilts. Kilts of varying tartans. There should be eight of us but only
six could come today. We sidle up the corridor timid for the unknown.
Rhona who leads knocks at a door.
She is nervy. A South African woman welcomes us. (I have to add
white or you will think otherwise.) Evidently she drew the short straw
for this Sunday. She ushers us into the locker room with a toilet
across one end. We change into our ghillies, shed our overwear, walk
through the complexities of the six dances we will perform. There is
some pre-stage toiletting. It is the most suitable room they have.
Rhona and a couple of the others tremble, visibly nervous. Yet they
need not for not much rides upon this, it is just another gig to
provide variety for some of our Senior Cits. We do this every now and
then.
The South African lady knocks and asks if we mind if
the accordionist plays first. There will be an accordionist and a
pianist. He was to have gone first, she second. Now they are swapping
places. Immaterial to us, we go out and listen. She looks ancient but
stands solidly upright on her own and pumps out some of the good oldies
like Isa Lei, Waiata Poi. The sound and the spirit of the music is good
if occasionally a little over-emphasised. The South African lady cues
the applause at appropriate times and desultory clapping follows.
It is time for our first bracket of 3 dances. We are introduced
and Rhona gives a few words before starting the tape player. The
audience seems to like what we do. Some are asleep, some look out the
window; but that is what you expect. A few smile or tap to the beat and
that is good. It is success to add something, anything, to these lives.
We march out to one side. The dining room is a continuation of the
lounge.
There is a man there on his own well separated from the rest. A
high walking frame is by him. It has arm rests that he could rest on
even while standing. I speak to him. He asks me if I ever have trouble
with my underpants?
