African Dream by Rhona Gorringe
Goodness, fancy seeing you! Thought I had lost you! You look so young but I still recognise you; longer hair though but the same laughing smile I sometimes see these days.
As you see I’m settling into my new home. The people seem very nice. I shan’t be lonely.
Look, I got all my friends and one-time lovers here! Yes, maybe a bit tatty, torn jackets and scuffed edges but it’s what is inside them that’s so important. They’re my dear family now. I can’t forsake them. They were such company when I was laid up.
No, no regrets over this move. Must make the best of things. I’m not one to dwell on the past. Eddie, bless him, laughed and said I tired him out with all my mad ideas over our fifty odd years. He said I’d crammed in enough for two or three lives but, you know, we never managed the Big One.
I always, always wanted, ever since I was little in white socks and buckle shoes, to go to Africa and see the elephants. Lions, leopards, buffalo and rhinos are all very impressive but it’s the elephants for me. Eddie and I sat down with the old school atlas and looked at all those pink coloured countries. I tell you, not many of them now. We were both fired up and ready to go the following week! I got all the details from Exotic Escapes but you had to book well in advance. We would fly, take a little single engine safari link plane to a lodge in Amboseli National Park then a glider flight over those wide, wide open spaces, dusty plains and marshy swamps.
Bruce and Marjorie Fielding did it for his seventieth but they did a hot air balloon to Serengeti. Too touristy for me and my Eddie. I don’t think that shows respect for the animals, the noise would be too intrusive. No, I’d feel uneasy. Marjorie said it was a bit overcast and she was glad of her parka and Bruce almost lost his Tilley hat but that’s them, they’re very particular!
Giants, that’s elephants, Nature’s great masterpiece. Can’t remember who said that but it’s true. They are so majestic and noble, make me feel really humble, put me in my place. I’ve read all about them. They’re highly intelligent and look after their own. We could learn a lot from them.
Don’t suppose I’ll ever go now. Wouldn’t be the same without my Eddie anyway but it’s so real to me I feel that we did do the trip.
Must stop this chattering now and get on arranging my things. It’s been lovely to see you again. Apologies for using you as a book mark. I’ll get a special frame for you and put you on my window sill and we can chat again. I’ll never forget you – after all, you’re me all those years ago!
I wonder if I’ll ever stop talking to myself?
Simon says:
This is a highly effective monologue, with an underlying poignancy. The fact that the narrator is apparently speaking to someone who’s come to visit her in her new home works well. Slowly, the details of the main character’s situation are built up. She has been ‘laid up’, she doesn’t ‘dwell on the past’. And, clearly, she has lost her husband after more than fifty years together. We get a clear picture of the kind of person she is, energetic and stoical in accepting life’s reverses. In her new home, we’re told, she’s got all her ‘friends and one-time lovers’. At first, I thought she was referring to books, but the continuing narrative made me change my mind. Then we hear of the great unrealised ambition of seeing the elephants in Africa, with details about her friends, Bruce and Marjorie Fielding, who made the trip, but not in the style the narrator would have liked. Her love and respect for the elephants is well conveyed. And then we get the reveal… a strong payoff. She hasn’t been talking to another person. From the excellent line, ‘Apologies for using you as a book mark’, we realise that she’s talking to a photograph of herself ‘all those years ago’, a fact which is confirmed by the last line. A very neat way of fulfilling the brief – and one that would work well on radio.