Right up the Limp Po-Po part IV

We continue to introduce the characters (or wedding list as Jen would have it) in our steamy new saga of The British upper classes in Africa in the 1930s. If you have missed earlier episodes go here:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

…………. meanwhile back in the bar Fred Hardcastle had woken up. He took a mouthful of his now flat beer, grimaced and spat it noisily in a continuous stream over the side of the veranda. ‘God that was bloody vile! Mboko where are you, you lazy bounder.’

Mboko’s head appeared above the bar. ‘Here Bwana,’ he boomed displaying his flawless dentistry.

‘I swear to God you rang my mother’s gardening draws out in that beer you lazy insolent man,’ bellowed Hardcastle, wiping his coarse red lips on the back of his sleeve and burping loudly. ‘Fetch me another beer and make it quick.’ Fred who owned an engineering works in Halifax was only tolerated in the club because of his wealth and the fact he was selling coffee processing equipment. Other than that the blunt Yorkshireman was seen very much as rough trade. Fred had been married once, but one day had come home early to find his wife rodgering the next door neighbour’s youngest daughter will an obscenely large, flesh-pink, prosthetic appliance. It was the first inkling that Fred had that his wife had been born with a left-hand thread as they said in the engineering business.

If he had not been so black Mboko would have turned bright pink. ‘Yes Bwana. Straightaway Bwana.’ He grasped a fresh glass and added a shot of the bleach used to clean the beer pumps. Looking diligent Mboko who was no stranger to racism reached down and grasped his 80 years old Aunt’s knickers that he had stolen from the laundry basket earlier in the week……

By now the major had retired to his bath and had begun to scrub his back with a loofah as he did so he burst into song - the melody was redolent of the Men of Harlech..

Other nations are before us
With their women and explorers
What can confidence restore us?
Naught but masturbation.
In the fields of Eton,
Former foes were beaten.
But today all patriots play
This game which needs such skill and concentration.
Through this game of skill and power
England knows her finest hour,
And her stronghold, shield and tower
Must be MASTERBATION.

Just at that moment twenty-two years old Lucy wearing an overly brief waitress outfit entered the bar, moving languidly like a beautiful black panther. The muscles under her flawless ebony skin moved alluringly, as holding a silver tray in front of her she headed for the bar. Lucy was the first member of the Fuqarewee tribe to ever receive an education beyond the age of twelve. In fact she had gone on to take a double first in Quantum Mechanics and English Literature at St. Andrews. Not that that counted for much here at the Quango-Bango Planter’s Club. It was the only job she had been able to find on her return home and she only obtained that because the interviewing panel had taken a fancy to her near pyramidal young breasts.

Lucy was six feet tall, slim and muscular, quite unlike most members of her tribe who were almost pigmy in stature. In fact the tribe got their name from their habit of jumping up and down in long grass and shouting ‘where the Fuqarewee!’ After St Andrews Lucy hated the humiliation of working at the club. She hated the condescension, she hated being patronised and she hated the often overt racism. Most of the men tended to be kind to her and showered her with small gifts especially if she attended to them with a flannel in the showers, but she reserved most of her ire for the women members of the club who she considered insufferable stuck-up bitches. She consoled herself that one day her turn would come.

Just then the sleepy routine of the club was broken by the arrival of a profusely sweating Lascar dragging a huge trunk covered with labels, which he allowed to drop to the floor at the entrance to the bar. ..... to be continued