Part 2.5: A Slight Detour.
Any comparison with real life characters is purely coincidental. Only the names have been changed to protect the very guilty..........
I've been asked, how I know that Thelma had split with her husband and was later living with a refugee from Somalia.
Well......... we have coffee to thank for that.
I love a good cup of coffee.
I will hunt out places that serve a good cup. Good coffee, strong coffee, black and with no sugar or any adjuncts. Plain and simple strong bitter coffee.
I heard that there were new cafés owned by some refugees in town, in one particular area.
So on a quiet afternoon, or Saturday morning you could find me sitting at a table with something thick, dark, and bitter.....(Insert your own joke!) whilst I perused the Guardian.
I luxuriated in the differing ways that non-European's would produce my caffeinated high.
One place that became a regular haunt for me was called Qaxwa, and I liked how that coffee hit the spot, and after a while I raised a regular chat session with the owner: Saadiq.
Saadiq liked to talk about football, and various aspects of English life. I tried to help him where I could, about English manners, stances etc. He was in his late 40s and a very intelligent and charismatic man.
His spoken English was good, but it lacked the nuances a native speaker would use, he often queried me on such things as the correct usage of such terms as "easy as pie" and "a piece of cake", and I looked forward to our frequent chats.
He loved smutty English jokes, ones that had been circulating here for many years, but were new to him. It helped him understand some of the sexual mores in England. When he had found a new one, or I told him one that particularly liked, he would guffaw with great gusto. I heard that laugh many times.
He told me that since he had arrived in England he'd enjoyed how English women had reacted to him. He'd particularly enjoyed the way women dressed, their short skirts, their heels, and their stockings. Things he was not used to in his homeland. He was also the willing recipient of their extremely lose morals, especially compared to the more chaste Muslim women he had known.
I laughed and agreed.
His words were often peppered by his colourful opinions of Christian women, which he had initially formulated when he had first studied at an English University in his 20s, before returning to Somalia.
He then, quite without affectation, told me about various English girls who had been very happy to welcome him, as a refugee, with open thighs. We swapped stories about our conquests.
Once we'd found our common ground he was delighted to share details with me.
For easiness (I hope) I've written his comments without the inevitable stumbles and missteps a non-native English speaker makes, but I know you'll understand what he meant. I've taken his words and formulated them into this narrative so it reads more like a novelised sequence of events than an interview.
Since settling in England he'd found that many Christian churches had outreach programmes, advocating pastoral care for refugees. Some families invited him to their homes for a meal, and hospitality. Even some single women invited him home.
He was confused at first. In his homeland, if a single woman invited a man to visit her, then she was offering her body to him. And as a visitor to our country, he expected to take full advantage of that.
He told me of one who had seemed very drawn to him. Each time he visited the church she had made a point of talking to him, and over time they revealed a little bit more of themselves to each other. He talked about the civil war in his country, and his hurried escape, and finally how he arrived in this town.
The girl told him she had become very active with the church after her marriage broke up, spending a great deal of her time and energy with their outreach programmes.
Her body language gave her away. Her lips slightly parted, her sideway glances, the times she 'accidentally' brushed against him or touched his arm. The slight downward tilt of her head when she spoke to him. Add in her rapt attention when he spoke to her...well he was sure this was an open door that he would be pushing at.
He then let slip her name, Thelma....
I mentioned the surname of the Thelma I had known, and one or two of the particular things I knew about her, (including her devotion to her church) and sure enough........it was the same woman.
He was even more delighted that he had met me when he talked about how Thelma had been explicit that it was that second boss (me) that had had given Thelma her first real sexual awakenings.
I confessed that I'd just showed her how to please me, but that I'd had a sneaking suspicion that others would benefit down the line, and I was glad that he appreciated my efforts.
"That laid the groundwork for my success with her" he said.
He asked me if I was interested in hearing the highlights of his encounters with the girl we had both 'known'?
I said I was very interested, the Thelma I had known had been delightful company.
He then set out what had been going on for the past 9 months or so.
Inevitably, having lacked much physical attention since her husband left, she was vulnerable to a concerted attack on her defences. He sensed this and during one of their chats in the church he pushed this issue by inviting himself to her home. "I will call round and visit you tomorrow morning. You can make me some English tea" he told her.
"She seemed a bit confounded" he said "a bit tongue-tied but she soon agreed".
The very next day he was knocking on her door at 8.45 AM for what was an agreed 9.00 AM meeting. Hoping to catch her a little off balance.
He succeeded.
She answered the door, a little flushed, a shy almost guilty half smile on her face, and admitted him into her home. He watched as she walked in front of him, a black pleated skirt that fell to her knees, a red blouse, red heels, and what he anticipated were black stockings... and as he followed her he realised those stockings were seamed. Her hair was in her usual pony tail, hanging to just below her shoulder blades.
He knew enough about English etiquette for her clothes to strike him as a bit overdressed for this early in the day, as was the makeup she was wearing. She hardly ever wore makeup to the church events, but today there was eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick.
