Von Smallhausen likes to furnish me with German quotes. The above is Goethe. It seems to translate as 'I am always some of that strength those the bad want and always property created'. Thank you, Babelfish, for yet another crappy translation. I'll ask him later what it means again. Anyway!
The last time he was really, really, really wanky to me was perhaps the best thing he ever did for me, though I didn’t see it at the time. Before I launch into the story, there are things you should know which would explain his reaction (well, some of it) a tiny bit. Only a tiny bit, since it was, for the most part, completely OTT.
I’m crap at not losing stuff. In the last year, I’ve lost, let’s see: one camera (not sure what happened to it. I was drunk, and er, well.), my bag. Which had my wallet in it, so that was a crisis. Cue me crapping myself, cancelling cards etc. It turned out that it was under my backpack. I had moved it about a bit whilst searching, but neglected to actually pick it up and look under it. Needless to say, I’m crap at finding lost things. When I do find them, it’s by fluke. Then there’s two cards I lost because Greek cash machines are designed to work to the usual Byzantine standards of Greece:
1) insert card
2) press ‘English’
3) chose whether to withdraw from ‘savings account’ ‘cheque account’ and a third one so useless, I forget it. This stumps a lot of people. I find savings account works. God knows what mysteries lie in the others.
4) Specify how much you want to take out
5) Get money, get receipt
This is where I went wrong. After the receipt comes, a screen comes up saying ‘do you want to make another transaction?’, and you reply accordingly, and get your card back. Or, like me, because you’re either hungover or tired:
6) walk off, leaving card in machine
Three times is taking the piss, and the depressing thing about the whole thing is that I shall probably do it again. What japes!
That doesn’t include the mobile phone which I think fell out my pocket (bloody annoying), various books and things, and oh, you get the idea. I am hopeless. I get this from my father. Like my father, we both accept our dire inability to keep things with a Churchillian stoicism. My mother is less calm; ‘oh BLOODY HELL EMMA NOT AGAIN WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GROW UP AND ACT YOUR [snip]’. Von Smallhausen isn’t quite so virulent, but he’s gone from being father (‘oh dear, Emma. Would you like to use my phone?’) to mother (see above, with added references to my childishness). I can’t say I blame him, really, but neither attitude really does either of us any favours.
I got drunk. Anyone who knows me knows that this is one of my favourite activities. I had been charged with ‘possible alcoholism’ by several people (all of whom, ironically, drink just as much as me, but that’s different because – get this – I’m only 22 and they’re not). So I declared I wouldn’t drink for a week. Not the easiest of tasks in a place such as this. Everyone drinks too much and it’s a bloody holiday destination.
But I digress. I did indeed give up for a week, without a problem. It was bloody boring though. He didn’t think I could do it, but was impressed as the week went on. ‘Emma, amazing! I couldn’t do it, you know, sitting with all these drunk people, speaking stupidities, being sober!’
‘well, I did say that I wasn’t an alky and that I wouldn’t drink for a week’ He was proud of me. He’d never say it, but he was proud. You could tell from the way he went round telling everyone and just being proud-daddish about it. Actually, now I think about it, we got on really well that week. No problems whatsoever. Which may say something...
So, one morning after I’d started drinking again, I woke up and realised that my wallet was awol. Again. So I looked around my apartment. Not there. Went to the bar – not there. Realised I was up shit creek without a paddle. First thought? I knew (more hoped, actually) he would help me, since the previous times he had let me use the phone, lent me money and so on. But I knew he’d probably tell me off. He did. ‘God, Emma. You’re such a child. I don’t help you now. Fuck off.’
‘Please?’
‘Go away’
‘Christ, you’re worse than my mother’
‘Yes Emma.’
I then sat down and read a magazine, thinking what to do. Cancel the card and so on. I was reading through when he came up to me, smiling. Well, not smiling, but his demeanour screamed ‘I have your wallet!’ at me. He tried, unsuccessfully, to look nonchalant. ‘So, er, have you found your wallet yet?’
‘No. I haven’t started to look yet’
‘Oh’
‘Anyway, I suspect you have it’
‘How much money did you say was in it?’
‘Erm, 20? I don’t know! Not more than 30, I think.’
‘Any more money than that, and it’s mine.’
‘Perhaps. Depends how much was in it.’
‘So, 30 euros! Is mine – and you keep the 20.’
‘I’m not that grateful! Where was it, then?’
‘Wait’, he said before putting his hand into his trousers and producing it from his crotch. Well, I don’t know. I was a bit surprised at this, since last time I checked, most people use their pockets. ‘Do you promise me? You will go now to the shop and buy a neck wallet’
‘Christ, but they’re horrible. Ok. Can I have my wallet, then?’
‘No.’ But he fished out 20 and handed it to me. Off to the shops I went, coming back with a ghastly florescent green neck wallet. He looked at it and said ‘Good, good. Now, you must take your card and take it home’. I duly did, annoyed that he hadn’t told me to do this at the same time as the last task. But it didn’t bother me too much. He had just found my wallet, after all.
‘Can I have my wallet?’
‘Oh, it’s too late now’
‘But…oh for fuck’s sake’
‘Tonight’
I should add that he had left it at home because he was going to a beach with some French people. They were quite nice, except for a Breton called Pascale, who opined – not to me, obviously, but Von Smallhausen – that I was ‘mentally handicapped’. Apparently she works as a child psychiatrist. So that’s all right then. Needless to say, we didn’t get on very well. When she found out about my wallet, she said ‘I don’t find zees vairy funny, eets childeesh. Ees not good.’. (why does everyone call me childish!?!?)
How is losing something childish? Well, maybe it is. I don’t see it myself. It just shows me that well, I’m crap at not losing stuff.
So that evening I popped round to get my wallet. ‘Later, Emma, I’m busy!’ he was cooking dinner with the French. I couldn’t be bothered, so went for dinner, returning after dinner. I was pissed at this point. All I remember is that the dialogue went something like
‘Wallet?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Want today, pleashe’
‘Fuck off’
‘Cunt’
Probably. Maybe The French threw her own tuppence worth into the ring. Probably did, the sanctimonious old bag. So, I fucked off and went to the bar to Be Angry about not having a wallet.
So, the next day I popped round. Again. He was watering the plants. ‘Hello! Can I have my bloody wallet now?’
‘In a minute’ (bloody hell, am I ever going to see it again?)
‘But…God.’
This is where the whole thing descends into chaos. He started with a fatherly approach; ‘Emma, you must be more careful and try hard not to lose your wallet again. Why did you lose it? You must think about it and [snip. Boring.]’
‘I lost it because I was pissed and it fell out my pocket because it’s a shallow pocket’
‘Emma! NO! BLOODY HELL, LIKE A CHILD ALVEYS MIT DER EXCUSES!’ ok, he didn’t lapse into a comical accent, but he did spray me with water.
‘And it’s not childish to throw water all over someone because….Christ. Grrr’
‘Go!’ he said, slamming the font door behind him
‘WALLET!’ I screamed, dripping and severely tested. He opened the door angrily, and thrusted the wallet into my hand.
‘Child.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Fuck off’
‘No, you fuck off. Wanker.’
You get the idea. So I went to the hostel, opened my wallet, and sure enough, he’d stuck to his word and taken all the money out. At this point, I grunted with fury and threw the wallet at a wall, giving several people a heart attack in the process. ‘What’s wrong?’ they asked. I told them the story. Then he arrived, making a beeline for us. ‘This child is so childish, and you know why?’ (nice tautology, I always thought), and tried to explain why, but was pretty much drowned out my mantra: ‘pissoffpissoffpissoffpissoff’, and Maria telling him to fuck off and mind his own business. He slunk off and perused the paper. Then the awful Pascale joined him and they spoke in French, as I fumed and worked out how to get the 30 back without sticking to his plan: ‘You can have it back in three weeks, after you have worn, all the time, your neck wallet. Furthermore [oh God…], it must be inside your shirt. If I see you once without it, I keep the money’
‘That’s a crap plan. Do you seriously expect me to stick to it?’
’30 euros’, he smiled. I glared at him and conspicuously took it off and placed it on the table next to me. He, however, was not looking and missed my heroic, revolutionary act of defiance/childish behaviour (pick your own interpretation).
Of course I got my 30 euros back. He never intended to keep it, and the whole plan was a poorly designed device intended to help me not lose things so often. But as per, he chose the worst possible method. As I keep on telling him. That night, relations were at a low. We went to the souvlaki, sitting at opposite ends of the table, watching Sweden play Denmark, glowering at each other. At the end of the night, fuelled by raki and cheap white wine, I had a drunken epiphany – ‘hey, if I go and talk to him, everything will be ok! – or some such bollocksy idea. Needless to say, we had an undignified argument in front of everyone (but everyone was a friend, so they knew the script well enough to ignore it).
‘Fuck off, Emma! I don’t talk to you for three days!’ He likes his arbitrary periods of Not Talking. But he never sticks to them, because he misses me too much. As I do him.
‘No!’
‘Yes!’
‘No!’
‘Emma, yes!’
‘I’ll go if you give me my money’
‘Fine! Just go!’ he fished about, found 30, muttered angrily and tried to throw it at my hand. The money, of course, fluttered and fell on the floor. In a repeat of yesterday’s bin emptying, he then scrabbled about to pick it up and give it to me. I then marched off triumphantly.
The next day, I went to get my bike from his house, where, despite the ructions of the past few days, I’d kept my bike. He was watering the plants. He said he never wanted to see, talk, hear, etc, me again. This is perhaps the fourth time I’ve heard this speech. I replied that I was going to England for a couple of weeks, and that I wouldn’t make the slightest effort to contact him, and once we’d all calmed down we could talk about it. ‘No Emma’
‘Oh, whatever. Have a nice fortnight’
‘Goodbye’
That was that. I came back, popped round to his house and well, it was as if we had never fought. Everything was exactly as I had predicted. It was a week after this that he asked me to move in with him. But that’s another story. Why was it the best thing he ever did to me? Oh, the sheer wankery of his behaviour jolted me from my blind adoration. Hell, I still would. But I’m not mad about the boy anymore. We’re just friends now. Great.
I wish he’d stop walking about in his (tartan) underwear, though. It does funny things to my concentration. Whilst I’m not wondering why he wears such ghastly underwear.
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