Carol’s Column

Come and have a wild experience in Pretoria

IT ARRIVED in the post addressed to Carol Lazar and partner.

A beautifully illustrated invitation with a great wonderful elephant against a sunset on the cover.

‘Enjoy a Wild Experience’ it said — or words to that effect.

Ms Lazar and partner were invited to Pretoria on Wednesday night to enjoy this wild experience at the Toulouse restaurant.

Mysterious, exciting. It was irresistible.

If you were a mother of four whose wildest experience in life was baking banana bread at 4am, you’d also find such an invitation irresistible.

“I’ve got a problem,” I said to the kids as we sat down to a dinner of leftovers cunningly disguised as an exotic pie.

Four pairs of eyes gazed at me.

“So?” said Ralph, always the spokesman, “what’s the problem?”

“I’ve got this invitation to enjoy a wild experience in Pretoria.”

“So?”

“Well, it says Ms Carol Lazar and partner.”

I don’t think I mentioned my spouse had deserted to America for a lengthy business trip.

Four voices spoke simultaneously.

“What about Mr Lambert?”

“Take Gerrie Coetzee!”

“A wild time in Pretoria?”

“Ask Robert Redford and if he can’t come, John Travolta, he’s yummy!”

As you appreciate, being a mother has problems.

“Mr Lambert’s married,” I replied, “anyway, I can’t ask a teacher, he’d think I was trying for a higher maths mark. Gerrie Coetzee’s too tall. Robert Redford won’t make it in time. As for John Travolta, he looks undernourished. His mother should feed him chicken soup.

“No, what I need is someone nice who will enjoy a wild time in Pretoria.”

Nicky’s eyes sparkled. “Mummy, why don’t you ask Swifty,” she said. “He’s so nice. He looks like a hedgehog with his woolly hair and curly smile.”

What a wonderful idea. Swifty — sportswriter, old friend — would do fantastically. Mind you, it wasn’t easy asking a guy for a date. After 17 years you get out of practice.

“Swifty,” I asked tentatively the next day at work, “would you like a wild time with me at Pretoria?”

His eyes bulged out of his head in shock.

“Nicky thinks you’re wonderful with your hedgehog hair,” I added quickly, “she thinks we’ll make a wonderful couple.”

Swifty, a gentleman to his Dior socks and scuffed takkies, accepted with alacrity.

On Wednesday afternoon, after three hours at the hairdresser, manicurist and beautician, I paraded in front of the children.

“Mummy, you look beautiful,” said Nicky. Little girls love their mothers.

“Why are you wearing a beard?” asked Jamie.

I looked in the mirror.

“That’s not a beard, my false eyelashes have slipped.”

Our date was for 6pm — plenty of time to arrive at what I’d discovered was a launch of Amarula — a new all-South African liqueur made from the marula berries.

“If it shakes up the elephants — think what it’ll do to you? Do you think a sedate mother of four should be seen consuming vast quantities of marula liqueur?” Swifty had asked when I mentioned it to him.

Life is short — one should experience everything.

At 6.05pm, Swifty arrived clutching his neck from which blood spurted forth. “It’s nothing,” he said, rolling his eyes and frothing at the mouth. “I cut myself shaving. I think I’ve amputated my Adam’s apple.”

We set off to Pretoria, elegant and bleeding.

Shooting along the M1, we had just passed John Vorster Square, when the car shuddered and died.

The rushhour traffic whizzed past and I looked expectantly at Swifty who in turn looked expectantly at me.

“Do something,” I said desperately.

“Do you want me to bleed to death?” he answered in horror, “or worse, dirty my hands?”

There are experiences and experiences. This was not quite the wild kind of experience I’d been anticipating.

We slid sideways out of the car to investigate the engine, terrified to breathe in case our outstanding anatomies should be sliced off by a passing motorist.

I dropped a contact lens into the battery while Swifty muttered and mumbled to himself.

“Carol,” he said eventually, “I know nothing about cars, let’s walk.”

“What, to Pretoria?”

“You’re mad,” he said. “We’ll walk to the off-ramp and phone for help.”

Have you ever walked along a busy M1 at twilight? In high heels and a clinging silk dress? With a bleeding companion?

This is not the stuff dreams are made of.

“Stop clutching me so tightly,” said Swifty, “you’re bruising me.” Things were tense as he coaxed me along, step by step.

Just then, a light flashed and a police car drew up.

“You got a problem, hey?” said the handsome, young policemen sitting behind the wheel as he opened the door.

I almost flung my arms around him. “Help, save me,” I wailed and fell into his lap.

“What? Is he giving you a hard time?” said the policeman scowling at Swifty who was still clutching his bleeding neck.

“There’s been a disaster. We’re meant to be at a wonderful experience in Pretoria and our car’s died,” I explained hurriedly.

“So OK, climb in,” said our knight in shining tin.

I sat comfortably in the front. And Swifty — he sat not so comfortably, behind bars, at the back.

“Sorry about the bars,” said our officer whose name we discovered was Herman, “they’re for dangerous criminals.”

I heard a gurgle from behind but didn’t dare look at Swifty.

We arrived back at the office in style with Herman now a firm friend, and Swifty still behind bars.

Mind you, on him, the bars looked good.

As Herman drove off to fight crime in Johannesburg, his parting words were: “If ever I can help ...”

We staggered upstairs longing for marula liqueur and made tea in polystyrene cups.

My silk dress had wilted, as had my hairdo and false eyelashes. I’d lost a heel and was covered in oil up to my elbows.

“So who needs Pretoria for a wild experience?” said Swifty as he collapsed in exhaustion.

Only yesterday an invitation arrived in the post addressed to Ms Lazar and partner. It’s to a formal ball at the Carlton Hotel.

I wonder who I should ask.

Herman. Ah ... Herman where are you?

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