Eternally North

  Nearly there.

  "Three."

  "OH, HELL NO!" was the instant response from my flamboyant partner in crime.

  I opened my eyes and took in the splendour of... Afghanistan???

  "What the heck is this show?" I said in a panic.

  Tink snatched the remote from my tight grip and brought up the title: Ross Kemp in Afghanistan. Well, fate had truly turned us upside-down and smacked us right on the arse!

  "Wil, I love you and everything, and you know I would do anything for you, but, well... I’m just too goddamned pretty to pull off a burkha!" he proclaimed with absolute sincerity whilst throwing himself onto the vintage white shag pile rug.

  I, on the other hand, at this heartfelt plea, proceeded to break into hysterics at the sheer horror on the face of my best friend.

  The Tinkster lifted his head with a scowl. “What are you laughing at? I'm serious. I’ll wither and die in such a climate... and the sand. Lord, the sand! I'll be shitting out castles for eternity! However, on the upside, the exfoliation would do wonders for my complexion, and… Oh. My. Gods of glitter! I’ll get to wear a headscarf and embody the iconic Little Edie from Grey Gardens and be ‘fabulous, mother-darling’! Mmm… Afghanistan is starting to have possibilities...” he pondered as he weighed up the pros and cons, using his hands as scales.

  Pulling myself together, I turned to my bloody daft pal. "Okay, one last try and this time whatever destination is on the screen, we WILL be going there, war zones excluded."

  Taking each other’s hands once again, we closed our eyes. I had to refrain from chuckling at the idiot beside me who was chanting under his breath, "Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii, oh, maybe Bali?"

  With a calming exhale, I tapped on the buttons once more. The thud of our hearts created a staccato rhythm. When the sound came on and we opened our eyes it was to the delightful sound of a Caribbean accent.

  'Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it’s bobsleigh time!'

  Taking in the scene before us, we turned to one another and began jumping and screaming around the room.

  "We are going to Jamaica!" shouted Tink in blissful happiness.

  After a thirty-second hysterical celebration involving hip bumps and high fives and tit-to-tit taps, I turned to the TV to bask in the joy of our chosen new home and abruptly noticed the snow.

  Wait... snow?

  "Erm, since when do they have snow in Jamaica?" Did I miss something in Geography class?

  Tink looked over my shoulder after expertly rounding off his cartwheel and said, "Well, dip me in shit and roll me in breadcrumbs. You're right, Wilbur, look at the sign – 'Winter Olympics 1988, Calgary’."

  "Calgary. Canada. Gosh! Canada, Tink, we’re moving to bloody Canada!" I declared with an Irish jig.

  Several dances and Cool Runnings quotes later – 'Kiss the egg, man' being the favoured line – it all began to sink in. We were headed to the Great White North.

  I glanced at Tink, who was midway through a Fosse-inspired routine using the staircase banister for a ballet barre and said, "Well, kid, it’s you and me against the world, or Girls Gone Wild in Calgary. I’m not sure which?"

  He circled towards me on a pirouette, floated across the room and grabbed my arm with a lustful look upon his face. "One word makes this all worthwhile, Wil," he said, his eyebrows jumping up and down in a dastardly villainous fashion.

  "And what's that? The Rockies? Hockey? Syrup?" I laughed, goading him on.

  Shaking his head, he smirked and smouldered in a raspy voice, "Even better."

  I held a breath in anticipation, eager for the response.

  Closing his eyes and puckering his lips he answered, "Mounties!"

  Enough said.

  CHAPTER 3

  Oh Canada!

  "Glynis, I’m gonna need my Munro Clan kilt and my steel-capped boots, the ones that can break coccyx!" screamed my father.

  The next day, after seven pints of water and a restorative fry-up, I was sitting at the farmhouse-style kitchen table of my parents’ house on their farm trying to gently break the Nathan-bomb to them. As you can see, it was going well.

  "Dad, calm down," I pleaded. I sooo did not need this right now.

  With a slammed fist on the breakfast bar, my father, turning a lovely shade of crimson – and was that..? Yep, smoke coming from his ears – shrilled in a battle cry-type manner.

  "The scrawny English bastard!” Cue excessive rolling of R's. “I'm going to kill the Sassenach prick. As my ancestors before me, I will paint myself blue and cut him from naval to nose. Let the fields of Bannockburn rejoice in the sacrificial slaughter of one Nathan Skellet, another casualty of the Scottish cause: ridding the world of wee English shits! Especially those that fuck with my family!"

  I threw my head in my hands.

  My father – Gordon - is the best man I know. He is also the craziest man I know. He is 100% Scottish and proud of it, as well as the most hot-headed and impulsive man on the planet.

  "Calm down!" I yelled.

  "I will not! That beady-eyed wee fucker slighted my daughter and thus he must pay! Glynis, get my Sgian-Dubh… and make sure its sharp!"

  I jumped up and headed after my father’s retreating form. "Okay, okay Braveheart, sit down," I said, grabbing his arm and returning him to his seat. "For a start, there will be no battling on my behalf. We are no longer living in the Middle Ages so 'slighting your daughter' is perhaps too dramatic a term to use towards my ex that I lived with... out of wedlock. And Dad, your Sgian-Dubh is purely decorative for your kilt and about two inches long, so, unless Nathan has joined ranks with Grumpy and Dopey in the last twenty-four hours, it's not exactly an appropriate weapon to wield if you want to be successful in the slitting from naval to nose!"

  Taking a deep breath, Dad seemed to mellow out.

  "Plus we ran out of your blue face paint at Halloween when we dressed up as Smurfs."

  Huffing out a sigh at not getting to beat some English meat, he seemed to restrain himself. "I'm just so angry, sweetheart. I'm raging, you ken?"

  "I know, but let’s just forget it and move on. Hey, with any luck I’ll get myself a Scottish boy next," I laughed.

  "Aye, that'd be good. But no fenians, you hear? If they support Celtic, dunnae even bother bringing him home! You're my little girl. My miracle," he sniffed, and wiped away a single tear.

  I laid my head on his shoulder. "I know, Dad."

  One parent appeased, I turned to my mother to see her bottom lip beginning to tremble.

  Great, here come the water works!

  "Oh, my sweet girl, how could he?" she said, rushing over to me and crushing me into her ample bosom. "And on the imported Italian leather L-shape? Has he no shame?"

  "Mam, I’m fine, really," I managed to mumble out of my current suffocation.

  Letting go, she grabbed my cheeks and looked me in the eye to check for fibs.

  "Honestly, Mam, I think it’s for the best. You know I don't let things get to me. Especially after speaking to the homeless man. I'm just pissed off that he threw a whopping spanner in my life plan. I mean I’m twenty-eight and no spring chicken, but, thinking about it, I never really loved him; he just fit the profile I was looking for in a potential partner."

  My parents furrowed their brows at how I could talk so coldly about someone I had been in a relationship with for three years, but it was true – I don’t think I ever really loved him. He was just... convenient.

  "But how could he?” my mother continued. “After all you have been through, the insensitive little shit! Wait, did you say you spoke to a homeless man?"

  I waved my hand in front of me, dismissing her worry. "It doesn’t matter about the homeless man, Mam. Please stop worrying. I’m not a charity case!" I shouted in exasperation.

  My mam tutted at my little outburst. "Firstly, I do not think you are a charity case, but you have had more than your fair share of bad luck in this life, and I for one cannot believe that Nathan, knowing all of that, st
ill betrayed you in such a way," she cried into her hands.

  "I know, Mam, but it’s done; I’m moving on. I think it was a blessing in disguise anyway. It saved me from a messy future divorce and gave me a new perspective on life."

  She sat beside me, stroking my hair and holding my hand, nodding and staring into space.

  "Erm, guys, I have something else to say in regards to said, new perspective," I started again, wanting to keep the momentum of the revelations going.

  "What is it, flower?" asked my mam.

  "Tink and I are moving to Calgary. In five months," I said in an upbeat tone. "Ta-daa!" I added weakly, as an afterthought, incorporating my award winning jazz hands into the reveal.

  "I dunnae feckin' think so!" My dad rose to his feet and began pacing and spouting expletives again.

  I looked in my mother’s direction. She was looking a deathly shade of white and had definitely stopped breathing, slouched over Brunhilde, the Munro family dachshund.

  My father halted in his rant abruptly and looked me in the eye, no longer upset. "Let me get this straight. Yesterday you were living your life as normal, yes?"

  I nodded.

  He continued. "Then you go home and find your boyfriend with another woman, break up with him, go to Tink’s, get blindingly drunk and decide to move to Calgary, Canada?"

  He waited for my answer in silence.

  "Erm, in a nutshell, y-yes," I stammered. It did sound kind of random, hearing it said out loud.

  "You need to answer a few things for me."

  "Okay." All eyes were on me.

  "What the hell do you think you are doing?"

  I cleared my throat. "Well, I realised yesterday that I needed to get back some joie de vivre, and unfortunately it took my boyfriend’s infidelity to show me that. Then I went for a walk and asked for a sign, and, Jane Austen spoke to me from the grave telling me to seize the day and then Tink and I got drunk and I decided that a change of scenery was exactly what I needed.”

  My father shook his head in disbelief. "I've have never heard anything so feckin' stupid in all my life!"

  "I second that motion!" piped up my mother dryly, with her arms crossed firmly across her chest.

  That’s it!

  "Whether you like it or not, I am doing it, so you have five months to come to terms with it. That may sound harsh, but I want to do this, and I’m old enough and stupid enough to go through with it!"

  I walked to each of my parents and kissed each of them on the cheek, and made my way out of the house feeling like Xena Warrior Princess at standing up to my somewhat over-protective elders. I was sure they would come around in time – but until then, I headed back to my favourite fairy. It was time for another drink!

  * * *

  To say the following months were a blur would be an understatement. Dorothy in the tornado on her road to Oz had more structure and organisation than I did. Tink, on the other hand, was as cool as a cucumber. Having years ago been left a hefty inheritance by his eccentric and fabulously wealthy artist uncle, he had no reason to work.

  However, Tink being Tink felt that not working would be to deprive the world of his unrivalled social skills, so for years had held gainful employment as a waiter in our local Italian restaurant, to enhance his verbal and, most importantly, flirting communication. Tink loved nothing more than feeding his espresso addiction while chatting to anyone and everyone about anything and everything. Coincidentally, Mario, the owner of the Italian restaurant where Tink currently worked, just so happened to have an friend in Calgary who was more than happy to organise a similar job for him there.

  Luckily for Tink, and due to his healthy bank balance, his visa to Canada was accepted immediately. I, on the other hand, had several things to sort out.

  I handed in my resignation at work and although it was sad to leave such an amazing team behind, I was excited for the future. My boss, Maureen, had seen a job on an online educational site that she thought I would be perfect for and after a particularly horrific Skype interview and a few tense days wait, I was offered the 'Social Science' Head of Department position at 'The Calgary School of Excellence.'

  So, I was in the final stages of tying up my Newcastle life. My apartment was handed to Nathan the dick who had quickly moved in his new blonde bint – not that I was bitter or anything! I had a new job in place and all the visa paperwork had come through successfully, so my fairy and I were all systems go!

  My parents, as predicted, slowly came round to the idea. Of course I had to convince them on more than one occasion that black bears could not stealthily sneak in through bedroom windows on the top floor of apartment complexes. Within a couple of months they had stopped threatening to chain themselves to the airport runaway to stop the plane from taking off and all plans to call in hoax bomb scares were put on hold indefinitely - I saw this as progress.

  * * *

  Tink and I arrived at Calgary International airport on July first – Canada Day – after a nine hour aeroplane ride which was made particularly uncomfortable by a moaning Tink who had bitched non-stop about the fact that his bubble-gum pink chaps were chaffing his member on the cheap polyester seats. Yep, chaps. My dad – in all his wisdom, and potentially as revenge for my moving – had thought it hilarious to give Tink a full pink cowboy ensemble complete with glitter rhinestone accents to celebrate our move to Canada’s Cowtown. I had, as usual, reaped the benefits of that little gift, and had the burst ear-drums to prove it. The outfit did however, help my camp cowboy bag a post-flight date with an air steward who had been eye-fucking my bestie for the majority of the flight and had eight hours free for a scheduled layover.

  Tink exchanged his digits with his date and we jumped off the plane with uncontrolled excitement and swiftly passed through customs after receiving a very cheery ‘Welcome to Canada’ and ‘Have an awesome day’, from the enthusiastic immigration official.

  We grabbed our mountain of luggage and stumbled out of the airport to meet Suzy, our ‘realtor’ who had been a godsend during our planning and had nabbed us the super extravagant condo, a black Smart car ‘For Two’ for me and a very American yellow-and-black Camaro for the Tinkster (yep, you’ve guessed it, it’s ‘Bumblebee’!).

  “Well, suck me dry and call me dusty!” declared Tink as we entered our new condo on Seventeenth Avenue, downtown.

  It was unbelievable. A brand-spanking new penthouse with floor-to-ceiling glass and panoramic views of Calgary. Not the best financial move, but with millionaire Tink and my whopping contribution, we had decided to throw caution to the wind and splurge.

  “Well, Dusty. It is unreal. Can you actually comprehend that this is our new home?” I said, my voice filled with awe.

  “I can and I do. Now for my little extra surprise. Come now, my little Porky Pig,” Tink said as he grabbed my arm and dragged me onto the roof-top patio.

  “Tah-dah!” he shouted as he pointed to the monstrous hot tub set to the left of the patio.

  It was huge. As in orgy-huge.

  “Tink! Wow! This is amazing! It’s practically a flipping swimming pool. Thank you!” I squealed as I launched myself into his arms.

  “No problem, my Canadian ham sandwich. It’s probably more for me than you anyway!” he winked teasingly, lowering me back to my feet.

  “Ha! Probably! What a bloody big hot tub,” I commented, staring in fascination at the neon UV lights flickering below the surface.

  “Well, I plan on entertaining…A LOT, so thought I’d make plenty of room. So many Canadians and so little time!” he sighed dreamily, staring at his new toy.

  “Ewww, invest in a good water filter, please. God knows what I could catch after you and your ‘friends’ have ‘relaxed’!” I said, turning up my nose.

  “Hey! Give me some credit. You know my motto, Wil,” he trilled, looking and pointing at me to give him an answer.

  “Yes, unfortunately I do:

  ‘If a lad should catch my eye,

  Enough to say ‘howa
y, way aye’,

  Play it safe, just in case,

  And sheathe it tight, from tip to base!’

  “Ugh, I hate saying that!” I exclaimed with a shiver, even though I’d delivered Tink’s charming ditty with the accompanying actions of bending an imaginary person over doggie-style and repeatedly slapping their arse.

  “Well, none of my precious baby batter will be floating by your head as you relax with a daiquiri, okay, sausage?” assured Tink.

  “Erm… yeah thanks, chuck,” I replied, trying to move the conversation on.

  We walked to the edge of the balcony, and looked over at the hustle and bustle of a new and exciting city.

  Tink put an arm around me and asked, “Are you happy, Wil?”

  I turned to my slightly vulgar but always loveable BFF and declared, “You know, I genuinely am. I’m so unbelievably excited for this new chapter in our lives, and to be doing it with you is the icing on the cake,” I said, cuddling into the nook under his arm.

  Sighing deeply, he kissed my forehead, and said, “Love you, Wil. Always have, always will.”

  Smiling, I answered back. “You too, chuck. Always have, and always will.”

  “Honestly, you’re my soul mate. It’s such a bugger that you don’t have a nice big juicy dick.”

  Shaking my head, I retorted, “Yeah, but I’m happy with what I’ve got, thanks. But speaking of big dicks, aren’t you expecting company of the glorified-waitress variety?”

  Chuckling, he glanced at his Rolex. “Yep, in twenty minutes.”

  “On that note, I’m going to unpack and catch a few Zs… I’m goosey-goosed!”

  After unpacking and sorting out my whopping big new bedroom, I climbed into my California King sporting 1000 thread count sheets, and had drifted off to sleep before my head had even hit the pillow.

  Tink arrived back after a few hours, and, being a good boy, returned alone; he may talk like a two-bit dollar whore, but he does have some morals. Well, most of the time anyway. It seemed the lights of downtown Calgary could wait – he was too excited to try out his new Jacuzzi.

  Hearing him fire up the bubbles, I jumped out of bed and pulled on my favourite red polka dot one-piece, and we wasted the evening knocking back the champers provided by Suzy and singing to the Britney back-catalogue.