“Oh you know. The thingy … with the orange and red doodads. The one we both love; don’t you remember, we bought it at that street market!” This is bloody ridiculous. “Jees, we carried it on the plane, as hand luggage, all the way back to Darwin.”
I dig deeper, the grey matter swirls; I look behind a memory of us in Albufeira, on the beach, the beautifully coloured fishing boats lined up on the shoreline, the crystal-blue water, mirror-still, reflecting the surrounding town, but the name of that ‘thingy’ refuses to land in my conversational grab bag.
I remember we both got very drunk one evening. I mistakenly committed some transgressive no-no when I rang that little bell hanging in the bar and consequently had to shout the roomful of fellow travellers. What’s it bloody called?
I retreat further into the couch and contemplate my failing faculties. I briefly consider dementia; I voice my concerns and am reassured that we all do it. That doesn’t assuage my inner doubts, fears of … what do they call it; ah yes, EOD – Early Onset Dementia. Now, how can I remember that, but not the name of the other thingy?
So many of the minutiae of that long-ago Portuguese holiday flood back. We had flown down, keen to leave the dank autumnal grime of London for a couple of weeks, meeting up with Steve and Janet, fellow expats and all wanting sunshine, booze and laughter.
We outlay several gold bricks one evening, sangria by the bucketful, and that absolutely wonderful seafood Cataplana, a local cornucopia of chorizo, muscles, prawns and white wine. The fifty kilos of garlic fairly brought the house down, and I distinctly remember a gaseous discomfort as we caught the train the next day. There was that stranger who got up and moved into another compartment!
Do you remember us venturing up into the hills behind Oporto, chasing a factory that specialised in the manufacture of cork floor tiles? We had the idea, stupid when you think back now, of buying enough to cover the floors in our new Darwin house. I’m not sure if we ever contemplated the reality of a Portuguese export industry, the subsequent purchase of the tiles in the Darwin homewares emporium. And we were still carrying that large whatsit: huge backpacks and this awkward package, usually under my left arm.
I glance at the bedside clock. Two in the morning. I needed a pee, a glass of water and fall back into bed.
Rooster! It screamed from my unguarded subconscious!
It’s the bloody rooster. Of course; that wonderful ceramic Rooster of Barcelos that we both instantly fell in love with at that Faro street market. How could I not remember that little omen, the Portuguese symbol of justice, peace and good luck?
Maybe I wasn’t going mad, just a lapse of memory, overlaid, possibly misfiled in the murky depths of an old man’s mind! I sink back into a deep, contented sleep.