Cold and drunk.

..... but what I do remember from that night is that someone had a fire lit when we got back from the beach and we sat near it and did more drinking and talking that we thought was remembering but we couldn't remember too straight and just agreed with each other when we talked about people and places none of us had ever heard of but we thought we sounded well travelled.

 

In the distance we could still hear the waves pounding on the rocks and after that we needed the fire to see by as well as to keep us warm when things got dark. But the night wasn't cold - it was late June but we took it for cold because we were cold from three days not sleeping and with lying asleep on the beach after being in the water then wakening up shivering and with bad tastes in our mouths.

Beach, rocks or whatever.

..... and when we woke we piled into Jake's car and drove down to the coast. We were still bleary from the late night and dull from three days drinking but we could still all sense in what direction the sea lay. We found a cove with sand and rocks and clambered down from the road where we left the car, down through the bushes and an old wrecked bus all rusty and with weeds growing out of it. The waves were pounding. The spray was leaping into the air and gulls were flying like fierce kites in the sky. There was no need for any of us to talk and we sat stunned for a while. Jake ran into the surf. We all ran into the surf then spread all our clothes out to dry on rocks and fell asleep. At four o'clock the sun suddenly lost its heat. Our clothes were still not dry and sobered with the cold of the sea we felt silly sitting there huddled up and naked so we put on the wet clothes anyway and thought about getting something to eat but none of us was hungry. Back at the cabin .....

Dead flowers and constipation.

Dead flowers and constipation were all the rage in Rangoon when Oswald was stationed there. He didn't much care for the Generals and Colonels and secretly drank to their demise every time he lifted a glass at the Fitzgerald Club. What baffled him so much was how such a constipated society could continue to be all bound up when there was so much dysentery around. People complained of little else other than the state of the toilets and the scarcity of toilet paper when they met at the club, all very lavatorial.

The Earl of Ballymoney (Bertie Banks) was a regular at the Fitzgerald Club in Rangoon for many years, right up till it closed in the late 1970s. He was an odd sort of character, an embarrassment to his family, hence his exile to the outer reaches of the Empire. However when the British Empire suddenly shrunk in the 60s the Earl found himself all at sea in a country that turned against all things British, and all that was left to him was the Fitzgerald club.

The Generals tolerated the place partly because it was a convenient place for clandestine meetings with representatives of foreign governments with whom they officially had no dealings, but also because most of the Colonels enjoyed a good brandy.

So the Earl of Ballymoney lived out his sorry days in the dubious company of Colonels, diplomats and drunken reprobates till his money ran out and the staff would no longer indulge him. He only lasted a few days after that and now lies in an unmarked corner of the Fitzgerald graveyard in the grounds of the Club. Or so they say. Our family only acknowledge him if pressed on the matter.