HoneyCrisp 20. Jonagold

I am used to seeing YouTube reviews of vehicles where the reviewers use their left hand to open the right hand driver’s door or the reverse with driver's left hand door. The right hand will be holding a camera. Someone should teach these guys to employ more cameras for more angles. Imagine any one of the reviewers opening their fridge door. They will superimpose the left hand over the right, Oops baby I thought I had the camera in the right hand.

20. Jonagold

Someone had written a story about a male Zimbabwean’s experience in London. It was foggy in her memory. She was remembering it now. There had been a picture of a man near a sidewalk. She scratched at the inner sides of her brain that remembered what she had read. It was their first time in the United Kingdom. They had left their home country almost for good. If someone was going to stay in a foreign country for the whole duration it took to study, work, study, work and apply for citizenship, then to them it was a lifetime.

They at times had to work at skills in dodging the immigration or home affairs sections of their host country. Such tactics had been censored by all the foreigners being hosted across the world. They would only return with the red British passport. Satisfaction was getting to their own country’s International Airport, speaking the same indigenous language while the other person had to issue them with a visa into their own territory of birth!

Was it a television program? No, she thought. She was sure that they were two issues. There was an experience of the man in London the first years which she had read, in a newspaper or book form? It must have been a MacMillan Publishers African Writers Series (AWS) pacesetter fiction book. Then there had been a Zimbabwe crew who aired a program on television called Christmas in London. It was meant for Zimbabweans back home to see the joys of the former colony behind visa restrictions. The producers wanted them to see the goodies of having Christmas under snow in a foreign country.

It was being out of range of the political and economic system of the ruling party and government. Getting right in the middle of the British landscape, establishment, society, etiquette and system. Drinking imported tea with the perceived enemy of the liberation parties of Africa. The Tories, Greens, Christian Democrats, Labour or Conservatives as long as they were in politics were described as the enemy by many an African liberation party that had fought against racism and colonialism from an English speaking Caucasian minority! She did not know why Israel was listed alongside the former colonisers. Now they who were called racists, colonialists, neo capitalists were holding the largest diaspora populations of their former territories.

If she was to write hers, there would be a chapter where a customer had walked up to their industrial complex to ask for her by first name. After going through the bedecked garden like entrance to their office and show warehouse building motif, she went through all the sights, sounds and the smells especially of the flowers and shrubs only to reach the revolving entrance. The park like gardens with their automatic sprinklers soothed the mind. Part of the garden was enclosed in a plastic form that resembled glass. The customer, had been impressed by the way a team had done a certain job. Why did she pick Keisha? The team had about six individuals.

These excluded a film crew of two that produced and edited time-lapse videos for records and a copy to the customer. She wasn’t in. Staff had said she had toured the display after finding her quarry not in. Asked if someone or other customer liaison officer could talk with her, she said No, compressed her lips and made a U-turn going into the show house to see all they had for sale.

Keisha had received a message on her beeper, text and WhatsApp with the name and number. She had obliged. The lady, whom she didn’t know yet whom someone had recommended for her had received her call. After chatting for some time the customer insisted there was a game she wanted to watch before she could think and agree to a house rebuild. She gave her the weekend to chew over, waiting patiently. Keisha bit her lower lip and filed her nails thinking of another strategy to convince a customer without being a real bother. Her company could win the tender. If they did, that was commission for her besides that she loved her interior décor job.

House make overs were the in thing these days. A home rebuild was a cheaper alternative to starting from scratch or buying into a better neighbourhood. It was like pruning a tree that remained in the same ground firmly rooted therein. You could do whatever you wanted with the smaller branches leaving the main ones for support. Come the summer rains or irrigation and the sprouts started. Re-modelling, redecoration and home makeovers were like being given a row of vines. Getting to a vineyard, attention like weeding, manuring, applying pesticides and pruning changed their outlook. One day they stood tall and thin strapped to supports then when the rains/water dripped, they filled the valley with their green, brown and other colourations. What had looked like a dead end vineyard was so spruce and green the husbandmen could not worry anymore. That was her forte together with her other team members.

A customer could be given two choices if they had the funds. She had seen three to four year old trees or shrubs planted at a rebuilt, or new home to give a taste of difference. A team including Keisha would go over the old house plan to rebuild, renovate and restructure with everyone from the architect, electrician, plumber, painter, home décor working as a unit. There was a lot of liaising with the building inspectors of the local authority who had to approve extensions or changes in some respects. Some issues needed the consent of health authorities.

Historic properties were a walking tight rope. Changes to their structure took time to be approved after checks and balances had been weighed. Specific details were needed for granting of permits. There were properties with wooden support beams that were still working after more than a century. You could not just throw such into the dump site. Wholesome destructions was forbidden for such. Preservation was the order. There was a dedicated team that knew the latest electronic equipment to modernize the house which they took in-store on agreement with the customer.

At the end, the family had a choice to see and offset redoing expenses then use the proceeds to move into a newer home or neighbourhood. Keisha and her team were supposed to make the family say No to moving but enjoying the newer, fresher and more expansive look. She now knew the suburbs surrounding Perth right into Freemantle down to the south west and north west and east.

If men could follow a woman right into a pool party to get her attention for a date, when they couldn’t swim, what was stopping her caressing this potential customer right into her “game” whatever it was? To win a date a man would learn about small dogs. They could befriend one little vicious monster in order to win the heart of the mistress. What stopped her doing the same? Even if everything was run by their public listed company, she treated it as an insult to be bad tempered or negative minded.

One satisfied customer at a time was her motto. A good customer was worth twelve walking out there. A good satisfied customer was like having a full bird bath in the middle of the flight path of birds in the desert. It was an experience to refresh others and share in their joys and sorrows. Good customers were like rearing a flock of injured birds, taking them out and setting them free. Then one day you would behold some of them perched in the territory they healed paying a visit, squabbling for a few fruit or food offerings.

You never knew how customers opened up to show wounds that healed with friendship. There were many medical ways to heal a wounded or injured person. Friendship and burden sharing topped the list. The recommendations would flood in good and due time. How had this one singled her out, just a foreigner learning the ropes? All their competitors were doing splendidly great jobs. The best way to compete was to have the customer on hook, line and sinker. Business was not good doing while checking out the competition. One would end up with ulcers or a rage of jealous. Every project had to be started from scratch. New ideas came floating from the ideas bank that never depleted. She telephoned the customer again. She said was coming to watch the game with her. It involved a commute of some time.

“Oh? I had said I would think about it over the game. Am I not being an inconvenience?” the customer had asked.

“It gives me time to refresh as well. I forget about work, work and more work. It helps the creative spirit,” Keisha had replied. “I also then get to know you personally. Making friends is great, you never know when you will have a flat tyre or you need a recipe. Some people make good hot cross buns!”

“I am fluttered. I make good fritters eaten whilst still hot, crunchy and spicy,” her quarry had stated. “I least expected you to join me in the ball game.”

“I will message you, so you give time and directions.”

“Thanks honey, I will.”

One pastor following on a potential church mate had gone into a pool of water to drag the potential candidate who had dived in as a reason to miss church. Both had emerged wet, exhausted and dirty. Both had attended church after going through baths and change to dry and warm clothes. The swimming candidate had later become a great preacher and evangelist! It was a motivation to keep trying.

She wasn’t into marketing. That was for the team which was professionally trained to follow would be customers. She acted on the spur of the moment. A spur could as well turn out to be a stupid costly decision to her professional or personal life. After all she was a foreigner on a work visa. She could not charge the expenses incurred on the company either. The foreigners were the first ones out when the ship was lurching in distress. Customers were a different type of fish for a foreigner adjusting to local condition. There were some who had traceable histories of complaining over everything to management. One needed just let their shadow pass over such. They could wail all the way to management.

In most instances, revocation of a work permit was immediately followed by cancellation of a visa. The next stage was being escorted by well-dressed and uniformed staff to go into a huge series of buildings. The victim would soon be coming out of another huge series of buildings. In between these two buildings was a lot of hot and cold air and water. When they were looking up, they were on home turf. All the friends they had angered would be having the last laugh. They indeed were the last out. When they were not booted out, the foreigners had a propensity of staying loyal to the limit.

She kept more than telephone contact without appearing to stalk. She advised marketing just in case. The customer had personalized her so it wasn’t their baby. There was protocol. That was why President Bill Clinton and every sitting United States president or British Prime Minister or monarchy had a chief of protocol on their staff. The chief of protocol was paid to do something at least. It was like they had said with a bored expression, yeah, yeah. Saturday in the afternoon she messaged the lady.

“I have free time,” she had rolled her eyes. She chewed pencil, grimacing just in case. “If you give directions, time and place I will try to be there.”

There was a group discussion program for two hours of serious study for her first. The lady customer gave her directions around mid-day. She took a bus heading towards the tip of the state to a town called Albany. It was an easy ride on state route 30 to Albany to the south along the coast. The ride was more than four hundred kilometres. She had thought it was a hundred and fifty. The South Coast Highway from the north east passed through Albany.

Keisha found herself in a small city stadium. It was barely made for five to ten thousand people. It was elaborately well built. Something about the teams contesting provided information that it was not her normal thought patterns of a soccer match.

She messaged her quarry again telling her she was in the stadium now. She submitted a photo of what she was seeing. Her quarry replied by sending her a photograph to guide her. In it was a big billboard advertising some product. The lady had advised her she was on the entrance, she should go under a passageway then turn right. The next photo was of a lady wearing jeans trousers, blue top and a yellow sunhat sitting with other older generation people. The stadium was almost half full.

The game was on when she walked along a lawn covered embankment that rose majestically allowing fans to lie down watching the game from different angles while ending their thirsts. It was easier for fans to walk up and down unlike the rigours of the terraces. The terraces had sheds which helped against the sun however. The mass on the grass could move back to their seats on the terraces if the weather played a joker on them. A jean clad lady started waving her sun hat at her from the top of the grassy ridge. She recognized scenes and people from the photograph. Someone had come down about three metres to take the perfect shot.

“Keisha!”

“Brenda!”

“You are here at least.”

That was her quarry.

“I thought it was a soccer match,” Keisha enthused.

“I said cricket.”

“I read Braves versus Warriors. I thought it was a human head like round ball chased by twenty men plus a referee with two assistants to the side.”

“No, it’s a much smaller one batted by two men surrounded by about eleven opponents and two umpires who don’t blow whistles or show yellow/red cards. The crowds don't throw plastic bottles at them. They respect their decisions. Ladies, Keisha, Keisha meet Laura, Sophia, Eustene, Jill and Patricia.”

“Pleased to meet you. Sorry, I am used to talking. Give up the information you know about the teams. I have been missing this game.”

“I heard you play a very good game of golf. You kept an elderly friend of mine on her toes with your two strokes,” Brenda said.

She knew that her recommendations could have come from a job or a golf game.

“I have been since I was a young girl tugging my father’s hand onto the links. I impressed from picking out lost balls and getting rewarded to eating ice cream then playing golf. It’s a sport that I think I understand. It’s next to swimming and tennis for me naturally. Don’t be charmed by my big body. I run between the nets.”

She watched the rest of the match. There was a break for lunch and afternoon tea in between. She, Brenda and her team delved into the game. She knew its elements very well though she didn’t know the players as much as Brenda. Brenda and her friends had details and statistics going back years. She wasn’t consulting any electronic media device either. Their ages were between forty and sixty. It was a tightly knit circle of oldies who remembered the times gone by including every bushfire that had threatened to consume their communities.

It was as if they were was reading off their laptop. To these laptops were modern conveniences but they share a rich history they discussed reaffirming, making corrections and remembering things again. Keisha did not talk about her subject matter. She went all hands on deck onto the game of cricket. All her reserves of what she knew came back. A round of golf would have been more apt. As soon as three weeks ago she had beaten two customers on the fairways.

“That player who is bowling arrived straight from Arusha or Nairobi about two years ago. He is normally a reliable all-rounder. I just hope he doesn’t shave off the cream of my team in his very fast bowling attacks. The last time he held the city record for the fastest ball. That isn't impressive when you are playing catch up to win,” Jill had informed.

It didn’t take ten minutes for such a fast attack to come. The batsman dispatched the ball. He caught it by the nick of the bat. It curled upward spinning. The batsman went backwards heading for the other end with his eyes on the curling ball. The ball now followed the dictates of gravity. A fielder at mid-on rushed to snap it with a dive. He slid down the turf holding his hand out. It was like a trophy. The umpire raised the finger with no qualms.

It was like a state president saluting a rifleman. He would have no option but return the salute. OUT! Ouch, that was below the belt against her customer.

“I said it, that man can change the form of his batting from mild to fast pace. He can vary the spin of the ball! When a ball is short or a full toss, you entice the batsman. That is like a sausage dangling in the way of a small terrier. It is a temptation too juicy not to take,” Sophia suggested.

“Yeah you did prophecy Jill. The very next time you have free time on a Sunday definitely or even Saturday, Saturday depends on my diary, you can take me up on golf. Do salt water crocodiles invade the links? Maybe the appearance of one could affect my game.”

Brenda laughed.

“He misled him into thinking he could get another boundary.”

Within thirty minutes the Arushan all-rounder was back on his sixth over. In it, he cleanly whacked the bails with the batsman missing the ball by inches. In cricket an inch could save a batsman from dismissal. Keisha did not take tally of the overall score at the end of the day. She had an appointment for a home re-do which she wanted to show marketing.

The home was set in an enclosed residential unit on a mountainside with a commanding view of the sea. It wasn’t the view that sold a job. The tender meant this was going to be like a show house to twenty-plus other families. Maybe they would say something better than, yeah, yeah.

She checked the Albany newspapers on the morrow. Sure enough her sight was good. She knew one of the players.

“Keith,” one of his team mates had shouted.

They were dressing up. He had been through a cold shower on a cold day but dry day free of rain. All the sweat and heat of running around was gone. He felt as fresh looking as an actor in a men’s perfume advert. Several parts of the body ached from diving, falling and running. Why did they appear so good on television adverts?

“Yap that is me.”

He was packing up. He was almost ready to leave for the team bus. There was a drive back to the hotel which was slightly out of town. They had a tour of the mines at night after supper. The town was impressively hot in terms of weather. It was like walking into an oven that had been simmering.

On the return journey he knew he and even his teammates would spend half the time asleep. The heat and seasons did well for siestas especially to aching bodies and muscles and tendons. Or he could listen to the lapping ocean against the rocks on the beaches, the hum of the air conditioner or the talk of the team. He always remembered as a young man how fascinating it was to travel from place to place watching the disappearing topography. The innocence of travelling as a child had been rudely awakened when he became due to pay a fare. Then it was more economic to leave him at home. Maybe his eyes would be fixed on the vegetation disappearing behind the coach. Travelling had its own fascinations. He was tired from all the activity.

A game was physical strength, hands, knees, tendons, eyes, ears and mental capacity. One had to judge in milliseconds whether to whack an incoming ball or to scram to safety. A good hit on the body could end a career while a good block could earn a few runs. A bad block could have him caught and bowled. When all or some of these crushed, there was no athlete for the crowd to cheer. Quick decisions was what made the game exciting. This is what thousands of spectators paid to see.

“There is someone to see you at the change room entrance. I am sure they are not trying to sell you insurance or cologne for men. I am serious. No jokes. There is someone to see you. They asked if you were in here. They say they are tied for time so be quick before the bus egresses for the hotel. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

“Me?” he queried.

“Are you not Keith?”

“Okay,” he had replied. “I think it’s a case of mistaken or switched identity. The guy called Keith, I murdered. Keith is my pseudonym. I want to confess. I am a phony. I actually come from Mars.”

“Maybe some fan wants to know why you were not called out when you missed that ball by inches. The fan probably thinks you clipped it while the umpires think there was no sound of bat on ball. They want to argue with you on the decision of the umpire when you were batting so that next time you will be whacked out. If we hear a gunshot we will come to restrain the irate fan. I promise to call the police after my shower.”

“Or the cousin of the umpire wants to book a date, male or female doesn’t matter I don’t know your preferences yet,” someone suggested. “Make sure she/he is not from the environmentalist party. They would chew you for eating salad. Don't touch those fans, especially their hind quarters or front shock absorbers either. They will sue you for sexual harassment years later.”

“Beware of weirdoes too. Believe you me I have met my lot of them.”

“Maybe someone wants your autograph. I once had some woman ask me to write over her chest protectors. If I bent down and looked up, I couldn’t see her blonde hair.”

“Why didn’t you ask her out?” Keith asked.

“I had too many dates. I didn’t want to mix and clash them. She didn’t do it with that intent of moving me though. She just didn’t want to remove the shirt which would have been a crime. Some of these fans love the game. They power and powder it.”

Was it an exuberant fan? He had been handing over autographs. He had partaken of so many fan selfies he didn’t know the number. His social media accounts followings were growing steadily. He was hardly keeping up especially when the weekends had tight games. Did someone know that all he did was scheme through the posts from the rich assortment of uploads he was making to a cricket fan who managed his accounts from Johannesburg?

The fan was more professional than he could have been. Technology had made it that every move could be shared on social media if one had a following. Humourists, reviewers, artistes and sports personalities were having a heyday. He ambled towards the entrance with his shoulder bag beside him.

© Copyright tmagorimbo July 2017