Traveller’s Tales part II

The first part can be found: HERE

Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts

I settled into my seat and smirked as I always do when the pilot says he is ‘pushing back off the stand.’ I’m sure I never had such a dirty mind before I took to the internet. As usual we were requested to discard our reading material and give our undivided attention to the cabin staff while they flapped their arms and indicated the exits.



My air stewardess turned out to be an inordinately cute brunet, whose regulation pencil skirt hinted at delicious thighs, a sumptuously slow, slight swell of a tummy a collector’s arse all topped off with pert boobs. As she flapped, instead of indulging in the regulation thousand yards stare, her eyes met mine and lingered for perhaps a second too long. I grinned and she hastily looked away. As aircrew have a reputation of being as queer as concrete parachutes it hardly surprised me. Either way being a good girl I decided to give her my undivided attention. Seconds later her eyes returned before hastily looking away again. I responded by grinning and winking. I’m sure I could detect the beginnings of a blush seeping up her neck. I was enjoying this. Seconds later she finished her belt-buckle demonstration and looking at me quickly screwed up her nose, the tip of her tongue fleetingly appearing between her lips. Grinning I returned the gesture and completed my pleasure by watching her bend to pick the demonstration life jacket up off the floor.



Minutes later we took off and I relaxed to enjoy the adrenaline surge of being pushed back in my seat. I’d always wanted to fly fighter jets when I was younger, but as the Royal Air Force didn’t seem to encourage female pilots had abandoned the idea. I took a few snaps out the window and when the seat belt sign came off I plugged my i-pod in and settled back to listen to some Brahms.

Minutes later my aircrew cutie reappeared. Her badge said her name was Rosemary. ‘Would madam like something to drink she enquired,’ giving me a display of her flawless dentistry. She seemed to linger on the word madam far too long for my liking. Impertinence is the blight of the service industries these days and I was having none of it. As she bent I whispered: ‘do you know you have lipstick on your teeth?’

She coloured up and scuttled off and vanished behind the curtain. Minutes later she returned with my G&T. Bending she whispered ‘Bitch! There was nothing on my teeth.’

I grinned and raised a querulous eyebrow: ‘Do you always importune business class passengers in this unseemly manner Rosemary?’ Momentarily she blushed again and then saw I was joking joined me in a stifled giggle. ‘Look!’ I said, ‘I have a vacant seat next to me and there’s a blind, old dear in economy class, do you think you could get the chief steward to upgrade her?’

‘I am the chief stewardesses,’ replied Rosemary tartly.’ But as it’s you who is asking……..’ she produced a winsome smile and I concluded she’d make a lovely girlfriend if she wasn’t such a shameless flirt.

We went up to the curtain and I pointed Lily out. Returning to my seat I briefly wondered if Lily would accept, but two minutes later she arrived accompanied by Rosemary carrying her in-flight bag.

‘Hi!’ I said.

‘I might have known it was you,’ Lily said unable to contain a smile as she sat down.
She settled back and Aircrew Annie bless her treated her like royalty and began to ply her with G&Ts and cucumber sandwiches.

‘Have you ever been to Lubyanka before,’ I asked her. She fleetingly frowned and at that moment realised there was more to Lily than met the eye, but what I hadn’t a clue.

‘I’m sure Mrs. Malaprop would have been proud of you,’ she retorted, ‘but you should remember that a lot of people were never seen again once they’d entered into the basement of the Old All Russia Insurance Agency. You are young but those times were more terrible than you might ever imagine.’

I’d clearly touched a raw nerve. So as usual I tried to talk my way out of it. ‘I know there’s an old Muscovite saying that the basement of the Lubyanka is the tallest building in Russia as from there you can see Siberia……’

‘Yes I have been to Ljubljana several times,’ she smiled having apparently forgiven my mangled malapropism. ‘The first time was more years ago than I care to remember.’ She sighed. ‘I went with a Wykehamist, which proved a singular disappointment.’ It was clear that I was expected to draw some conclusion from this comment. I sensed Lily was testing me out. I knew from my university days that a Wykehamist was an ex-pupil of Winchester College one of England’s premier public schools. (By word of explanation for non-British readers, strangely ‘public’ schools in the UK are actually private schools where the wealthy send their offspring to be educated prior to university, whereas the schools the rest of the public attend are known as State schools). I focussed…… public schools were invariably single-sex boarding institutions where children from the age of five onwards are sent so their wealthy parents can lounge around and continue with their normal dissolute lifestyle. In the absence of girls, public school boarders tend to pick up some pretty unsavoury habits, whereby the younger boys have to act as fags (unpaid servants to the older boys) as well as provide other services………….. I laughed.

‘You mean his idea of romance didn’t extend much beyond reversing the charges,’ I laughed.

‘That would be one way of describing it,’ Lily replied. It was a gentle put down, but a put down none the less. I realized I was going to have to rein in on my normal flippant repartee.



‘Have you been to the Balkans before?’ Lily enquired.

‘Apart from Dubrovnik and Greece, not really,’ I replied.

‘Are you on business?’ she enquired having now moved onto white wine.

‘Yes!’ I replied and briefly explained what I did.

She sipped her white wine slowly. ‘What do you know about the Balkans?’

‘Not a lot other than every other man is called Slobodan, that they give a whole new meaning to ‘family butchers’ and when they are not killing each other they spark off world wars so we can all join in.’ Inwardly I cursed. I was doing it again. This time Lily smiled.

‘Well Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and as you will see a very pretty capital. Geographically it’s only half in the Balkans although politically it is seen as a Balkan state. It’s a small country of some two million souls and historically has been part of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. After World War II, Slovenia was a founder member of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Then following Tito’s death the ideological glue that once held the union of disparate republics together vanished and as the world now knows things became seriously unhinged. All the old suppressed political, ethnic and religious differences came boiling to the surface again. In April 1990, Slovenia held its first democratic elections and in 1991, declared full sovereignty. The following day the Yugoslav National Army attacked them. With the advantage of far superior tanks, guns and aircraft the Serbs quickly made big inroads. To begin with it appeared that it would be a repeat of the bloodshed already underway with the Croatians, Bosnians etc., however after ten days the advancing Serbs withdrew and to this day nobody quite knows why. Today, of course Slovenia is a member of the European Union.

‘So why do you think the Serbs backed off? They certainly didn’t show any reluctance in getting stuck into the Bosnians and Croats?’ Lily certainly seemed to know her onions when it came to the Balkans

‘Nobody really knew, my best guess is that as Slovenia shares borders with Austria and Italy, Milosevic and crew wanted to do keep their dirty work a bit more low key. Another factor was that Slovenia was a far more homogeneous country compared to the others and while a secular sate the majority of people were Roman Catholic so there wasn’t much room for ethnic cleansing.

By now Lily had moved on to coffee and as she rummaged in her handbag she dropped her artificial sweeteners on the floor. I got down on my knees to retrieve them from under the seat. Just at that moment Rosemary reappeared as my head was level with Lily’s knees. Rosemary paused in a theatrical manner, smirked and moved on. She’d clearly got me down as a granny grabber. Struggling back into my seat I saw Rosemary grinning at me wickedly.

Feeling temporarily flustered I turned back to Lily. ‘What about language,’ I asked.

‘Well you will find over half of the population speak English which is quite something,’ Lily replied, ‘although you will also find Italian, German as well as a huge hotchpotch of other Slavonic languages and dialects spoken too. The official language is Slovene. It is quite a complex language which interestingly also has a dual grammatical format.

‘Dual? What does that mean?’ My image of Lily as a retired school teacher was beginning to show serious cracks.

‘Well as you know virtually all languages have singular and plural forms such as woman and women often with corresponding verb agreement. Well, in addition Slovene has a dual form specially used for two objects or people..’ So you would have wolf – volk, wolves- volkovi and two wolves- volkova not surprising when you reflect how much of human endeavour involves two people or things……’

I grinned and nodded my head in agreement.



Tiring of the history lesson Lily moved on. ‘Did you know Slovenia is where the famous Lipizzaner horses used at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna are bred? The Lipizzan breed dates back to the 16th century, when it was developed by the Habsburgs. The breed takes its name from the stud farms established near the Kras village of Lipica (Lipizza in Italian).’

It was becoming increasingly obvious that was more to Lily than met the eye. Little did I know that there were more surprises in store.

Lily suddenly changed tack. ‘Anyway this is awfully kind of you to look after me, although I must warn you are aiding and abetting my absconding.’

‘Absconding?’ I repeated like a dumb parrot.

‘Yes!’ replied Lily ‘I’m running away.’

As she said that the plane began to turn and descend into the bowl in which Ljubljana nestles at the foot of the Slovenian Alps….. to be continued.