Mestre

Sunday 22nd January 1984

See yesterdays blog for a list of characters on the Magic Bus.

We crossed the Jugoslavian border during the night with a quick passport inspection and a dramatic briefing from Keith Richards, who told us to “keep quiet and don’t smile”. The snow seemed to start at the border and white fields slipped away on either side of the track during the night. We stopped at about 04:00 hrs. at a Jugoslavian roadside restaurant where Nellie took the spotlight.

“I’ve done this trip 14 times”, she wailed, “and they have never left the light on or played loud music after dark”. Her sincerity was undermined by her mad ironic cackle and a devil-may-care smile. She’d then light up another fag and either have a secret drink or just pretend to be intoxicated and adopt a drunken air.

Glamour Puss flitted from one male dominated table to another like an exotic butterfly, lingering sufficiently long enough to arouse sexual desire without inviting close inspection of her supposed femme fatale projected image.

Back on the bus I started reading “A Falcon Flies” by and a sleepy afternoon ensued with the characters of this play sitting stupefied with a hearty lunchtime meal, gathering their energy for tonight’s performance. A Falcon Flies is a novel by Wilbur Smith. It was the first in a series of books known as The Ballantyne Novels. The Rhodesian Bush War of the 1970s inspired Smith to research and write a book set in historical Rhodesia. He originally planned it as one novel, but it ended up as a trilogy.

The ponderous stupor was only momentarily disturbed by Ratty stealing a kiss from Totem Pole and following up with threats to expose his debatable proof of manhood. The landscape outside of this rolling menagerie, this careening circus, continued to consist of snowy fields, shadowy lines of indistinct trees, snow covered houses and a thick grey heavy sky.

The road at points caused Keith Richards, who was now at the helm driving the bus, to slow down and drive carefully and cautiously. We stopped twice. Once at a quiet place covered in snow and again at a lairy ski resort where we had a meagre meal as the Greeks cursed at the destruction of their illusion that the Drachma was the universal currency.

At the border between Jugoslavia and Italy the snow seemed to stop, giving the illusion that the snow was purely a Communist affliction. A protracted passport inspection and a random baggage search, which included George and I, served to increase the tension that evaporated in the mobile madhouse at the coach set off again into Italy.

Glamour Puss started the ball rolling with a frenzied verbal attack on, of all people, innocuous Auntie Bertha, who she accused of talking Italian contrary to Keith Richards instructions. Her final accusation that Auntie Bertha was a whore brought Reggie Weeble and his mum to their indignant fat feet, got Jim’s Mum up on her seat to watch the fun and had Ratty positively vibrating with an eagerness to join the fray.

Keith Richards upped the volume on the in-coach cassette player bringing the Greek equivalent of “You’ll never walk alone” to ear-shattering level and pitched in with religious zeal. Ranting and raving drowned our senses as Glamour Puss ducked out to leave the others to fight for domination of the debacle.

Auntie Bertha also kept her head down as Reggie’s mum moaned and bewailed, feigning tears and overacting like a petulant prima donna in a tantrum. Reggie was up, blocking out the light, as Totem Pole and Ratty chipped in, the latter taking the opportunity to grope and caress Soapy Green as he stuck his verbal oar in.

Prince Andrew kept a low profile in the ruckus although his dumpy bird refereed in true boxing style in a heavy Australian accent; her delight at the distraction from the days boredom being quite transparent, and her white banded head bobbed up and down with excitement.

George and the English Kid took it in turns to smother the music speaker next to us with the palms of their hands in order to protect our ears. True to form, we had also copped the overhead seat light which didn’t work and the non-openable window.

The fervour gradually died down and petered out and our coach party settled down to a semblance of normality when we reached our next stopping point. This was an Italian supermarket cum cafeteria with a deceptively duty-free air and an external warning sign to “distrust abusive pedlars” of items which the shop stocked at vastly inflated prices.

We changed American dollars in the Exchange at 1,450 Italian Lira per dollar and bought expensive apples and beer. We had a growing suspicion that you would require sponsorship from a substantial backer to even exist in Italy.

Another dozy four hours on the coach brought us to Venice with a sense of relief that was short-lived due to the unwelcoming rain-washed loneliness of the Venetian streets. We were expecting the stuff of legends, Venice is a famous city in north-eastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers.

The mobile carnival rolled off into the night and left us outside the “Hotel Centrale” in Mestre (pronounced May-stray) which is the nearest mainland town to Venice. Ratty scurried off into the darkness and we joined Prince Andrew and Dumpy Girlfriend in the hotel lobby.

Our joy at being free of the crazy, headlong situation comedy of the coach soon gave way to despair as we trudged the deserted streets in search of a hotel that offered a cheaper double room than the 30,000 Lira (£12.50 Sterling) charged by the tourist trap Hotel Centrale.

We were forced to desist our search after a footslog around the empty streets of the town revealed that this was indeed the cheapest we were likely to find. We booked in resignedly at 00:30 hrs. on Monday morning and settled down to an idyllic and well-deserved night’s sleep.