Legless in Essouaria

My family and I were on a short winter break in Morocco, staying in the coastal town of Essouaria, famed for its endless sandy beaches and permanent blue skies. It also boasts a lively Medina, the old, walled town, full of winding, enigmatic alleyways, buzzing souks and numerous craftsmen and tradesmen beavering away in their compact, hole-in-the-wall workshops. Shortly after arriving, I noticed that my jeans had developed a hole, compromisingly located in the crotch region. I knew, however, that getting it repaired would be a cheap and simple affair as I would only have to locate one of the many tailors that were bound to be dotted around the Medina, where it would be patched up on the spot for small change. One thing a country like Morocco has over us in Europe is the ease with which one can get anything fixed cheaply and quickly: the make-do-and-mend mentality that died out here in the UK shortly after the war is alive and well over there. I even noticed a tiny, dusty workshop piled high with ancient radios sprouting huge, glass valves, which an equally ancient man was diligently repairing; presumably the radios had been kept going for decades rather than ever being thrown out.  

My hunt for a tailor didn’t take long: near our rented house in the Medina I found a twisting lane full of them. They all worked from tiny workshops fronted with crumbling wooden doors, and inside each one was just an electric Singer (never foot-powered, I was disappointed to notice) and a pile of what appeared to be rags, but which were in fact endlessly patched-up clothes being patched up yet again. It was lunchtime when I returned with my jeans, and the tailors all seemed to have shut up shop, so I turned to leave when a passerby took my arm and led me to the only one still open. I peered inside the tiny alcove: it seemed dustier and more decrepit than the rest, and the ubiquitous pile of rags were somehow even more ragged. But a stubbly old boy smiled pleasantly at me from his Singer, so I handed over my jeans with confidence. After all, I hardly needed the slickest needle-smith in town to sew a simple little patch on an unfortunate little hole. I told him in my awful school-boy French that I’d return tomorrow for them, and skipped off to enjoy the simple pleasures of Essouaria: buying freshly-caught fish from the market by the harbour and having it grilled on the spot; building sand-Medinas with my children on the beach; strolling through the souks in the evening when they fill with promenading locals.

The next morning, content with a belly-full of croissants, freshly squeezed orange juice and café-au-lait, I sauntered down to tailor lane, pleased at the prospect of an intact pair of jeans. With all the tailors now open, it took a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to locate mine, but when I finally did I was met not with a gentle smile and a pair of nicely patched-up jeans, but instead a look of wariness and no jeans. The old boy spoke some words in Arabic and his look became sheepish and anxious. He twirled his finger beside his head in the universal gesture of craziness, then got up and left his booth, returning seconds later with a younger chap who spoke to me in French. My French being what it was, I understood not a single word he uttered, until, that is, the tailor finally rummaged about in his rag-pile and pulled out my pair of jeans. 

I experienced that rare sensation of being unable to believe what I was actually seeing. Something terrible had been done to my jeans: they had been transformed into some kind of grotesque jean-short hybrid, with one leg cut clean off at the knee, the other still intact. I stared at them in horror, feeling almost as if I had actually lost one of my own legs at the knee. Then horror quickly gave way to deep, deep incredulity. What on earth had possessed this man to butcher my jeans like this?? Especially since, as I could also see, he had repaired the crotch hole. And why just the one leg? I glared at the tailor, and he gazed up at me with a look of profound meekness and contrition, his hands clasped together tightly. “But why?”, I blurted out to the younger man, “Porquoi???”. He said something in reply, repeating the same twirly-finger crazy gesture. Sensing my incomprehension, he darted off and returned with a curious-looking, slightly effeminate chap with a blotchy face. This man spoke to me in broken, but rather camp English, explaining that he was a hairstylist (no, really), who worked nearby and had known the tailor for many years, and that he was a good, honest man who had never done anything like this before, and could I please forgive him. “But why did he do this?”, I demanded. “Why did he cut a leg off my jeans?!” The blotchy hairstylist exchanged some words with the crazy tailor. “He get confused.”, he replied to me, “he use it to repair other jean”. He uttered something to the tailor, who then rummaged about a bit more before producing a knackered old pair of child’s jeans consisting almost entirely of sewn-on patches, including an especially large one in the deep shade of indigo that perfectly matched my jeans. “Please forgive him”, the hairdresser repeated. I didn’t know what to do. Back home, if my local drycleaner’s had done such a thing, I would have simply demanded the full value of the jeans from them; in fact, they would undoubtedly have offered this straight away themselves.

“I need money for new jeans!”, I blurted out. Hairstylist spoke to Tailor, who simply shrugged. I looked at him and his shabby old workshop, and remembered that he had been the only one open when all the others were shut for lunch. This man was clearly eking out a living, probably supporting a family on just a few dirhams a day. I suddenly felt self-conscious with my wallet-full of cash in my pocket and my SLR camera swinging from my neck. But I could hardly say “Okely-dokely, I forgive you Mr Tailor! Gee, worse things happen!” and walk merrily off. I needed to salvage something from this sorry situation, not least my wounded pride. “But I’m here on holiday, those were my only pair of trousers”, I exclaimed, gesturing towards the shorts I was wearing. Hairstylist looked a bit more sympathetic, then the three men muttered amongst themselves. “Ok, he get other jean for you. Come back soon, as you like”

I returned later in the afternoon with my friend Ben, who could speak decent French, lest Hairstylist wasn’t about. But this was possibly a mistake, as the first thing Ben had done when I’d told what had happened was to collapse in uncontrollable fits of laughter, and all the way to the tailor’s he was giggling like a school child in anticipation of seeing my jeans. The tailor fetched the French-speaker, and immediately Ben asked to see the jeans, before guffawing like a buffoon at the sight of them. This somewhat weakened my position as the aggrieved customer in need of recompense. I was further dismayed when the tailor pulled out the replacement jeans for me: a dishevelled scrap of snow-washed denim covered in vague but menacing-looking stains. I shook my head. “These are no good”. He thought for a moment, then his face lit up with his warm smile once more, and he spoke animatedly to the other guy, who in turn spoke to Ben. Between further fits of giggling, Ben said to me, “He can cut the other leg for you and turn them into shorts. He’ll even do it for free!”. I looked at the tailor, who gazed expectedly back at me. I could see it was the only possible solution. “OK”, I agreed, despondently. At once, the tailor clasped my hands, kissed them and uttered something. “He very very sorry”, explained the other guy.

The next morning, by now coming to terms with my sartorial loss, I strolled back down the now very familiar lane to fetch my freshly made denim shorts. The tailor beamed as he saw me, and presented me with the shorts, complete with beautifully sewn hems. Again, he took my hands and uttered his apology to me, to which I could only offer a weak smile. As I turned and walked back down the alleyway, with the morning sun rising above the minarets and satellite dishes of the Medina, flooding the cool air with its warmth, I knew I could never, ever wear the ridiculous-looking shorts, but at least my honour was intact.

Dead or Alive

 I was down the allotment the other day helping to show groups of young primary school children around the site. I wasn’t in the best condition to do so, suffering as I was with a rare and raging hangover (rare, because I rarely drink to excess these days, not because I’m some hard-nut immune to the effects of alcohol). Lynda, the allotment manager had just chirpily informed me that we’d be showing round no less than three large groups of kids, with each tour lasting a good hour. I gazed longingly down the track that led to the road that led to my empty and quiet house, where  radio 4 and the kettle were waiting patiently to soothe me. But they’d have to wait. For three, long, noisy, childreny hours.

 I slunk off to a nearby café to consume strong tea and plot escape strategies. But my guilty conscious got the better of me- I couldn’t leave Lynda alone with endless gangs of whippersnapper Penge tearaways, so I downed the brackish dregs of my tea, and slunk back again to be greeted by a  multitude of grubby-faced urchins in even grubbier blue uniforms accompanied by their care-worn teachers in fluorescent yellow tabards.  The plan was to begin by taking them around Lynda’s extensive plot, and I’d decided that I would just hover vaguely in the background, perhaps concealing myself a bit amongst various clumps of towering foliage in the hope I wouldn’t be bothered too much. But it wasn’t to be: Lynda introduced me to everyone and told them that I was an allotment expert who would be overjoyed to tell them all about  the different things growing. All the urchins stared up at me with such eager little expressions that I felt my second twang of guilt of the day, mingled with a vague feeling of dread: how on earth was I going to make rows of assorted vegetable plants exciting and inspirational to the youth of today? With small nails pressing spitefully on the backs of my eyes and my stomach churning gently like a pale of curdling milk? 

I stared at some potato plants. The children gazed at me, expectantly.  I glared at some beetroots, desperate  for inspiration. Still the children gazed at me, fidgeting a little.  So I did the only sensible thing that you can do when showing 15-odd 5-year-olds around a vegetable plot, and I started tearing off smelly leaves and passing them round for them to sniff. Tomato leaves, lavender, lemon balm: the kids loved them all. They loved the fact they reminded them of familiar things: lemon sweets, ice cream, mum’s cooking. I handed out poppy seed heads and demonstrated how, if burst open, a billion tiny black seeds flew everywhere. They couldn’t get enough of exploding poppies, and soon all of them had little black dots speckling their blue sweaters. I pulled off the large, white bell-shaped flowers of bindweed and showed them how to make them pop up in the air and drift to the ground like little elfish parachutes. I lifted damp logs to reveal thriving communities of bugs. The kids especially loved this- I think they could relate to the random, rapid movements of multitudinous insects, like so many excitable children in a playground. I pointed out the woodlice and solemnly informed them that they are officially known as ‘chiggy pigs’, a term peculiar to my childhood home of North Devon, but now hopefully part of the youth lexicon of south-east London. I created howls of delighted disgust when they noticed an old bathtub full of foetid brown water and I explained that I would be taking a bath in it myself later. And, all the while, I experienced a strange sensation. I found myself, bizarrely, against all expectations, actually enjoying myself. The kids made me laugh. They were sweet. They asked peculiar, random, yet often insightful questions. And the more I enjoyed it all, the more the fuggy shroud of hangover lifted. I actually began looking forward to the next two groups.

But then something happened that brought me crashing down to earth again. I had just escorted the group back to the gate, ready to bid them farewell and welcome the next group. We were loitering there, half the kids and a couple of the day-glo teachers, waiting for the rest to catch up. One of the kids, a sweet, smiling little girl who had been one of the keenest on the tour, pointed to some tomato plants and asked me, ‘If you pull them out of the ground, will they die?”: a perfectly sensible, indeed intelligent question for one of such a tender age. To which one of the teachers, replied, slightly condescendingly, “Well, how can it die if it wasn’t even alive in the first place?”, before addressing all the group with the question, “Are plants alive?”, in a tone of voice designed to elicit only a negative response. “No”, all the children responded dutifully. And the little girl stopped smiling, and looked just a little bit crestfallen.