Angel

Is there anything more embarrassing in the entire world than a lardy middle-aged man trying to belly dance? Yes there is: his wife filming the video. Fatarse is up there, for the first time in his life he’s the centre of attention and he’s loving it. His one remaining strand of hair is hanging over one eye while the other eye rolls creepily over the belly dancer. His fat arms are pointed skywards, fingers prodding the air like he’s time warped in Saturday Night Fever, and there’s enough sweat being tossed around to water the desert for a year. All the other middle-aged losers are laughing; bits of camel meat lodged in their receding gums. Wifey tries to get a close up of Fatarse but she’s drunk too much beer and trips over her fancy dress hijab so manages to film five minutes of sand. I can see the belly dancer squirming  while Fatarse pokes his groin at her and sings “Gimme some Lovin”. Even my mother stops smiling.

lilith

I do wish Angel wouldn’t make such a fuss about eating camel. Or at least that she would discreetly wander into the rolling desert instead of throwing up all over the precious hand woven rugs. The buffet is wonderful! Lamb, falafel, sharwarma, pistachios and rosewater – just heaven. After dinner there is a belly dancing performance which is terribly exotic and lots of fun. I must say the British are great at joining in and making sure everyone has a good time.

Angel

There is nothing fun about being on top of a stinking, ugly, hairy animal that would rather trample tourists to death than be forced to carry them around the same patch of dirt for hours on end. Our camel is so uptight. I make my mother go in front so I don’t have to smell its disgusting breath. It grunts and twitches and obviously would rather be partying in the desert with its friends. I tell it to chill out but it just farts its way back to the starting point, bends down too fast and dumps us onto the sand again.

Lilith

I make a mental note to write a formal complaint about Abdul.

I look forward to the camel ride. There is something endearing about a camel.

Angel

Abdul, the driver, is cool. The music is pumping and we drive into the desert at top speed. The three Aussies are screaming for Abdul to drive faster as he swerves in and out of the shiny new cars on the highway and laughs about the heaps of guys he’s made throw up on this trip. I don’t see one Suzuki Swift (which is what my clueless grandmother drives and which I absolutely refuse to be seen dead in). Abdul tells us there’s no speed limit in Dubai until you get to around 160 kph and your engine starts to smoke! But there’s plenty of sand and I secretly pray we won’t hit a sand bank side on and skid into the concrete barrier. Abdul drives along the shoulder overtaking everyone on the inside. He’s hilarious! We get to where they do the dune bashing – in 4WDs, on motor bikes and even on mini surf boards. Abdul rams the Black Panther into gear. We are like holding on to whatever we can – each other, door handles, fur - trying not to land on the floor upside down, going dizzy, hysterical, screaming!  And there is my mother.

Lilith

One of those ugly four wheel drives is parked on the kerb and I heave myself up into its red faux fur-lined interior.  Deafening Arab music explodes from the speakers and I notice the driver turns the volume up when he sees me. I can’t see his face as his dark glasses cover most of it but I can smell the hair oil. The honey scented air freshener has no chance. I already feel nauseous but belt myself in and resolve to enjoy the experience. The other three passengers introduce themselves. Australians. 

Angel

My mother yells at me that I’m holding up the whole bus and marches ahead with the little camel man who is trying to explain for the benefit of this stupid English woman that the camel is actually in no way related to the humpback whale.  Sensing he may lose out on a tip, he reluctantly concedes that yes, they do both have humps.

lilith

I had told Angel a thousand times about our safari booking. Obviously she wasn’t listening. Why am I surprised?

Angel

As soon as my mother starts snoring I go for a walk through the Old City, down to the river to watch the tourists being taken across to the gold souks in flat bottom boats. The men stare at me as though I’m from another planet and so I stare right back with my best baboon face.  I am so hot though, I decide I will just have to brave the leering and keep wearing my shorts and a sleeveless top. Hoards of Coca Cola kids wearing Chucks follow women in black and kick up dust in the markets. When I finally get back to the hotel after lots of wrong turns down some really scary alleyways my mother’s pacing round and round the courtyard followed by a weird guy holding a sign that reads: “Cheap Camel Safari”. 

Angel

The way the taxi driver leers at me in his rear vision mirror is disgusting. No wonder he can’t find our hotel and big wonder we don’t end up in the river. He charges us double what it says on his meter but my mother seems not to care. She’s fluttering her myopic eyeballs at him as though he’s Omar Sharif but he’s already pocketing his ten squillion dirham and on the lookout for another sucker fare.

Lilith

We land in Dubai very early in the morning and the light is exquisite... gold, hazy and heavy. The day is already hot. Our journey in the taxi to our hotel is a magical mystery tour. The poor darling driver has no idea where our hotel is and so we see most of Dubai in the first hour. He finally drops us outside the ancient walled part of the city and points quite seductively in the direction of what we hope is our hotel.

Angel

I’m not going to lie: the men creep me out. Where are the stubbies and knee high socks?

Angel

We hit the tarmac with a bump and I wake. Are we there yet? My mother smells of egg and I want to vomit.

Lilith

I have a wonderful night’s sleep and wake refreshed to find my daughter collapsed on my shoulder. Snoring. The steward arrives with breakfast and manages to deliver it into my lap. I don’t like the way he smirks as I scrape scrambled egg and orange juice off my very expensive leisure suit.

Angel

The first night of many of my mother’s embarrassing habits: She snores. Loudly. It would be a night from hell if not for the continuous supply of vodka and lemonade that a very cute steward supplies. All the passengers are complaining about my mother so the steward wedges a big wad of paper napkins under her chin to try to prop her jaw closed. It has no effect so I try stuffing them in her mouth but she spits them out.  She doesn’t even wake up. My ipod runs out of battery a few hours into the flight and so I watch three films in a row.  My ears will now have to be operated on because with my mother’s pig imitations and the drone and pressure from the cabin noise I have to have the film soundtrack on full volume and am now stone deaf. Before breakfast is served I pass out.

Angel

With thirty minutes to spare Mum and I run to Gate Twelve (which is somewhere between Check In and Hamilton) ignoring perfume, handbags, shoes, jewellery and everything that makes my life meaningful.  So far this trip is a nightmare. 

Lilith

We make our way to Gate Twelve which is very close to a bar. I knock back a brandy but our names are being announced on a very loud speaker by a very bad-tempered woman and so I leave my homeland in an oddly alien state: sober.

Angel

Rose is a selfish bitch! I arrive at the airport looking like I’m flying to Stewart Island on a tramping holiday. My best friend, Roy, is there to say goodbye. He bursts into tears and clings to me until my badly dressed mother drags me to the Check-In. Roy screams at her for taking me to the other side of the world. He does a perfect imitation of my mother as Joan Crawford because he thinks my life is hell and that sends my mother into spasms. I tell her to chill out but by now she’s throwing back more HRT tablets because stress brings on her sweats and violence. Security sees Roy lying on the ground and my mother popping pills and comes to investigate.My mother demands they arrest Roy. The last I see of my best friend he's being dragged to the bus stop by a nazi with nasal hair, sandals and bobby sox. I hate my mother.

Lilith

Darling Rosie's driving is always agonising. She deliberately slows down at green lights and hardware stores.Today is no exception. She spies a lethal looking Black and Dekker 100000 watt chainsaw for Gavin. "The little runt will never be able to control that", she says. "Brilliant". She kind of wedges the car between a bollard and a disabled person’s scooter and disappears into the hardware store. Angel is furious. "Mum! We'll miss the plane!" she screams.“Don’t start, Angel” I say. “One slip with a chainsaw may mean Rosie won't have to have sex till at least xmas". Rosie doesn’t drive us to the airport.She hates goodbyes and decides it will be easier, emotionally, to drop us off at a roundabout somewhere in Mangere before she sees any signs with drawings of planes taking off. Angel’s language, as we trundle our four suitcases a kilometre along the sheep-lined highway to the international terminal, is unprintable.

Angel

I hope my grandmother dies while we’re away. It would be easier on the environment.

Lilith

We leave Auckland in the usual panic. Angel blames me for the traffic, the rain, her hair, and for making her kiss her grandmother who has halitosis and severe gas problems.

Angel

My mother’s always late. Two hours before the plane is due to take off, her thick friend, Rose, sits chain smoking with the car engine idling in the driveway while my stupid mother wrinkles her skin even more – if that’s anatomically possible - in the bath.  This is, she says, to calm her nerves because I am already stressing her out. My bags are packed and I am trying without much success to find a place to dump her new travel outfit (I will die if any of my friends are at the airport and see my mother in pink velour track pants and matching top). She races in and demands I squeeze her volume of “1001 Ways to Meet an Italian Divorcee” into my suitcase. I rip open my case and point: “Are you serious?”  There isn’t one square centimetre of room left in that case and I am not about to set a precedent by lugging her crap around before we have even left the country.

Lilith

My demented 84 year old mother has hidden my passport. We are leaving in exactly three hours and I am slightly tense. She has spent the morning making a list of everything I have ever done to annoy her and has left her solicitor a message that she wishes to change her Will. Apparently I am not due a life of my own. I threaten to kill the budgie if she doesn’t hand over my passport in the next five minutes. Five. Four. Three...

One hour later:

My mother retrieves my passport from the fridge and I put Billy back in his cage. I take another pill.

Angel

As we are staying at my uncle’s place I can’t have a party there so we go to a nightclub in town. Chrissie tries to pole dance but she’s so un-co and forgets to hold on. She lands on this old creep’s head at which point we drag her out. She can’t walk properly because of the burn marks on her legs so we end up getting a taxi home which costs a fortune. I decide it’s a good idea I’m leaving.

Lilith

Darling Rosie invites ten of my closest friends over to hers for a pot luck dinner. It’s a wonderful evening, full of beautiful wine, food and music. Garry sticks his tongue down my throat and I swallow 4 prune stones. They ask me to sing! Everyone weeps.

Lilith

Of course if I had a man in my life this adventure wouldn’t be happening - for two reasons: 1. he'd rather stay home and watch the rugby;  2. he'd need me there to open the beers.  But here I am... 58 and single. I would adore being in a relationship but that hasn’t happened and so I must venture forth to new deserts. Most of my friends are couples and I do find that hard sometimes. They constantly insist they envy me (the heterosexual ones anyway) but I don’t believe them.  If they are so desperate to share their beds with a hot water bottle and a copy of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” there are lawyers.

Angel

Friends of my mother’s arrange a goodbye party. She makes me go. A ghastly night and hugely embarrassing. My mother cries and kisses everyone on the lips much longer than is necessary. Garry plays the piano and my mother sings. So out of tune. She falls off the piano stool when Garry starts showing off so Rose punches Garry and he hits his head on the piano lamp and bleeds all over the keys. I’m not inviting my mother to my going-away.