Carol’s Column

Hey! Watchit Greek islands — here comes Momma Lazar!

THE phone shattered the momentary silence, giving me heart failure, making me jump like Charmain Gale in full flight and scattering the mound of papers on my desk.

It was one of those days.

The dog had tonsillitis, the pink goldfish was turning purple, my third son had swallowed a link of his bicycle chain, the toilet was overflowing and the anthracite heater had died.

Yes, it was one of those days.

I picked up the phone in an Idi Amin frame of mind, which was not cheerful, you understand.

“Hi,” said a voice at the other end of the line. Which I guess is a normal kind of greeting. “My name’s Ros. I know this is a little sudden, but would you like to go to Greece in two days?”

Jokers — you get them all the time.

The kind who phone and say: “You’ve just won first prize in a raffle — first prize is a three-week, all-expenses paid holiday in Oogies.”

Or: “Hello, beautiful!” Which I don’t feel is such a joke but at which my colleagues laugh uproariously.

Or: “Hi, how would you like a trip to the Bahamas? Well why don’t you take one.”

Or: “You’ve just won first prize in a sweepstake — start sweeping.”

You know the kind of thing. It happens all the time.

I wasn’t in the mood for levity, so I growled and slammed the phone down.

It rang two minutes later.

“Hi,” said the same voice, a rather nice voice really, “I’m sorry, there was a peculiar sound on the phone and we were cut off.

“Anyway, as I was saying, my name’s Ros Finn, I work for Cruise Lines and I wondered if you’d like to come and float around the Greek islands with us for a week on the Constellation, one of our luxury liners.”

This will come as a shock to many who know me, but for once I was speechless.

“Hello, hello,” I heard Ros at the other end. “Are you still there? I’m sorry about the short notice, but there’ve been one or two problems. However, we’d love you to join us.”

“You mean me, me alone. Not my husband, four children, three dogs, one cat, purple goldfish and mother-in-law.”

“Carol, just you.”

“Oh boy, would I? I’ll come for a year let alone a week. In fact I’ll come for 10 years!” Enthusiasm has always been a strong point of mine.

“You’ll get your ticket this afternoon and we’ll meet at Jan Smuts Airport at 5pm the day after tomorrow. How will I recognise you?”

“I’ll be wearing a shocking-pink jacket and gripping a carnation between my teeth,” I said happily. I was excited, you understand.

My husband thought I was pulling his leg. “Ha, ha, and I’m off skiing to Siberia for a month,” he laughed.

It is not easy to organise a large household, frenetic job, lack of finance, tatty wardrobe and exhausted body in two days.

I phoned my friendly bank manager.

“Listen, I have this problem. I’m off to Greece and I need traveller’s cheques immediately.”

He also laughed. “Carol,” he said, “that’s not your problem. I can organise traveller’s cheques — the problem is with what do I finance them?”

“I’ll mortgage my mother-in-law,” I said immediately.

“Done.”

Before you could say ‘Greece’ I was armed with enough traveller’s cheques to buy — well, at least three meals if I ate sparingly. It seemed my mother-in-law wasn’t such good exchange value.

My wardrobe was another problem.

“Take nothing — or look ethnic, just a pair of takkies and a safari suit,” said my good friend Betty. “Nobody wears anything on the Greek islands anyway. You have to get into the swing of things.”

The problem is that mothers of four are in fact too swingy, which is why I took myself off on a lengthy shopping spree.

In half an hour flat I’d acquired a bikini (half price because the top and bottom didn’t match. I reckoned nobody would notice anyway), an outsize T-shirt that looked sensational when tied with my oldest son’s striped rugby sock and my third son’s shocking-pink BMX lummy jacket.

The South African Defence Force could do worse than take note of the military way in which I conducted the affairs of the Lazar household for the time I was to be away.

I wrote out 22 lists. Grocery lists, meal lists, meat lists, lift scheme lists, pet lists ... they were endless.

Of course my family rebelled.

“Ma,” said Barry, “It really isn’t necessary to write out a list for when the dogs have to be let in and out.”

“Do you realise the strain on dogs’ bladders if they are not let out at specific times,” I replied with some asperity.

“Ma,” said my youngest unmarried daughter of 10, “we can honestly decide what we want to put on our own school sandwiches in the morning. It’s not necessary to specify cheese on Monday, egg mayonnaise on Tuesday, tuna on Wednesday etc.”

But I think it’s little things like that that make motherhood important.

I borrowed a suitcase from Loda Mphela, our gardener, a venerable traveller of many years who is the only member of the household to own such an article.

Unfortunately there wasn’t time for a body or hair revamp so I decided Greece would have to welcome me with my traditional lavatory-mop hairdo.

The body would be hidden in the outsize T-shirt anyway.

At 4.30pm on Saturday afternoon, my spouse, always quick to grasp things, finally realised I really was departing.

“I don’t believe it,” he wailed. “You’re going for a week! Why don’t you go for longer ... six months.”

My grandmother warned me never to marry a man.

I made Jan Smuts Airport with three minutes to spare. But couldn’t find Ros Finn.

Have you ever danced around Jan Smuts Airport in your son’s borrowed shocking-pink jacket with a carnation between your teeth looking for a lost Ros Finn?

It’s not a dignified way for a mother of four to behave.

And then we found each other.

I can’t remember, in the excitement, before I swept off to Greece, I might have kissed my husband goodbye.

What I do remember were his somewhat plaintive parting words: “It’s funny, my ticket still hasn’t arrived in the post.”

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