Night out in Newport: Dave’s Rabbit Chapters 6 & 7

CHAPTER SIX

It was just after seven when Kallis rang the doorbell of her friend Mel’s flat. Melanie flung the door open.

‘Kal! Mate, how are you?’ Melanie was pleased to see her old friend.

‘I’m fine, Mel, how are you? You look well.’

‘Thanks. So do you, but WHAT are you wearing?’

Kallis looked down at herself ruefully. ‘I’ve lost my bag with all my clothes and makeup in. I was hoping I might be able to borrow something of yours?’

‘Course you can. Come on in’.

Melanie led Kallis through into her flat. Melanie was taller than Kallis (who wasn’t?) and had long brown hair which she usually wore piled artfully on top of her head. Tonight it was held up with a large pink rose.

‘So, what are you doing back in Newport? I wasn’t expecting to see you for a while. I saw your Mum last week; she said you were going to the festival this year.’

‘Yes, I WAS there. It was brilliant. I met this great guy called Dave…’

‘Ooh, Kal, do tell!’

‘No, no, it’s nothing like that; he’s just an interesting guy to be friends with. Anyway, after the festival was over we went up the Tor and I drank SOMETHING of his. It must have been a drug of some kind but, wow, Mel, the trip it gave me! And literally it WAS a trip; I ended up here, at Mum’s house in my old room and no memory that made any sense of how I got there.’ Kallis went on to tell her open-mouthed friend all that she remembered.

‘Bloody hell, Kal, what are you like?! Anyway, this bloke Dave must have panicked when he found that you had drunk his drink and you were passed out and hallucinating and brought you here and dumped you at your Mum’s. He MUST have, Kal, you don’t just magically wake up somewhere else miles from where you went to sleep. You just don’t. I KNOW you are into all this new-age weirdo stuff but – honestly. Honestly.’ Melanie was shaking her head in disbelief.

‘He didn’t know where Mum’s house was. He couldn’t have. I DID tell him she was in Newport, but it’s a big place!’ Kallis was adamant.

‘Kal, listen mate, he probably went through your stuff. Did you have an address book on you or anything?’

Kallis was nodding thoughtfully.

‘And a key to your Mum’s place?’ Melanie asked.

‘Yes, it was in my pocket.’

‘Well, there you are then. AND he’s still got your bag, presumably.’

‘Well, I don’t know. I don’t know where my bag is but there’s nothing of value in it, just my dirty undies and some t-shirts. My money and credit cards are in my wallet and that was still in my back pocket, thank goodness.’

‘Look, come on through and let’s have something to eat. I did my pasta special’.

Kallis laughed. Mel only EVER cooked pasta and added one of those ready made sauces.

Melanie looked at Kallis. She had been delighted to hear from her old friend but WHAT a strange story. Thus it always was with Kallis; she always had to be different. Why can’t she just lead a NORMAL life, thought Melanie, rolling her eyes. Then we could gossip about men and shopping and clothes and shoes like NORMAL girlfriends do…Still, Melanie had her friends in Newport for that. And Kallis was a loyal and kind friend who had been there for her when Melanie’s long-time boyfriend had dumped her and gone off with the new Pilates instructor at the gym. Kallis had taken a week off work and arrived with chocolates, wine and a large box of tissues on Melanie’s doorstep to pick up the pieces and wipe away the tears. By the end of the week, Melanie had felt a whole lot better and, with encouragement and match-making courtesy of Kallis, already had a date lined up with the cute new guy who worked in the estate agents over the road.

The girls sat down at the table in Melanie’s tiny living room. Melanie disappeared into the kitchen area and came back with a steaming pot of the pasta.  She opened a bottle of red wine and the girls started to eat.

Kallis sipped her wine thoughtfully.

‘I think Dave will be worried about me. I bet he doesn’t know what happened to me. I’m going to head back to Glastonbury tomorrow or the next day and try and find him. I have to talk to him to find out what happened. He will have the answers; he must have’.

Melanie shook her head. ‘Kal, I don’t know. I guess you need to find him or you’ll never know. But be careful. What does he do, does he work?’

Kallis shook her head. ‘He told me he’s a carpenter by trade but he only does odd jobs to make ends meet. He just travels around really, from place to place. I think he was planning to do some work on a farm near Glastonbury.’

‘So, a carpenter like Jesus but with a rabbit on the side, eh?’ Melanie smirked into her wine glass.

Kallis smiled, the wine was warming her stomach and cheering her mood.

‘Right, let’s find you something decent to wear and then we hit the town! See if we can find any of these dinosaurs, eh?!’

Kallis laughed. She had known her friend wouldn’t take her story that seriously.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Half an hour later they were on their way out the door, Kallis was now wearing a black halter neck top with a red fluffy bolero over the top. Half way down the street on the way to the town centre they passed a partially constructed building. It was a very strange shape, and the centre was a circular metal ring, as though they were going to build a dome.

‘What’s that going to be? ` Kallis asked her friend.

‘Oh, that. It’s a mosque.’

‘A mosque, here in Newport?’ Kallis was surprised.

‘Yeah, there’s a large Muslim population here you know.’ Melanie looked sideways at Kallis. ‘Aren’t YOU Muslim, Kal?’

‘Well,’ – Kallis shook her head – ‘not really. Dad was and Mum converted when they married but we left Cairo when I was eight and I don’t really remember much about it. I always say I’m not really with any religion when I’m filling in official forms. Mum didn’t have anything to do with Islam after we left either.’ Kallis had stopped dead and was staring at the building.

‘What?’ Melanie was impatient. ‘Kal, come on, I need a drink!’

‘It’s interesting though. I haven’t thought about it much but I was brought up with Islam the first years of my life. It’s bad I don’t know much about it. I’ve been reading about all these alternative type things and not looking closer to home for the answers.’

‘Kal, mate, honestly, we are out to have some FUN not a religious debate. Come ON!’ Melanie tugged Kallis along by her arm.

Half an hour later they were sitting sipping wine and watching Newport go by from the front of a wine bar in the high street. Kallis was still thinking about the mosque.

‘Do you know what, Mel? I think I’d like to go back to Cairo. Maybe meet up with my

father’s widow, see Cairo again – see the pyramids, the mosques. Do you know, I think Shamiela had a son with her new husband, but I’m not sure. Mum doesn’t really tell me much.’

‘Blimey, Kal, I thought you always said you’d never go back?’ Melanie was surprised.

‘I know. I just – well, I suppose I’m doing a bit of soul searching at the moment and as I‘m between jobs it’s an ideal time, if I’m ever going to go back. I’d like to see what my life would have been if Dad hadn’t died and we’d stayed in Cairo’. Kallis pushed her fingers thoughtfully through her black hair. ‘A glimpse of an alternative reality to my own, what my life might have been.’

‘Well, by all accounts, life would have been awful for your Mum, Kal, what with your Dad marrying that other woman and all.’

‘I know, I know.’ Kallis was nodding as they watched a group of woman heading past the wine bar. They were very tall and rather large, wearing very little in the way of clothes: short skirts, tight low-cut jeans, corset tops; the exposed pale, plump skin was tattooed and pierced. They walked leisurely, in a swaying wave, undulating from the hips, cigarettes dangling from fingers, looking to see who was checking them out.  Kallis knew what Melanie was going to say before she said it.

‘Well, Kal, looks like we found your dinosaurs!’

Welcome to Newport: Dave’s Rabbit, Chapter FOUR

Welsh lettering taken from Google images….I don’t speak Welsh 🙂

CHAPTER FOUR

Kallis was dreaming she was a child again. Her father was throwing her a Frisbee and she was chasing it along a beach, trying to catch it before it hit the soft, white sand. The sun was a brilliant ball in an incandescent sky. It suddenly came to her that she was in a dream and she surfaced slowly awake. Kallis yawned and stretched, becoming aware that she felt rather uncomfortable. ‘I am still wearing my clothes’, she thought, and then ‘where am I?’
Kallis opened her eyes quickly. The sun was streaming in through the small window, the blue curtains pulled back with knotted silk ropes either side. There was a heap of boxes in the corner, a small pine table and a chair with a portable TV gathering dust on top. Kallis rolled over and sat up. She was at her mother’s house in her old bedroom, where she still stayed when visiting her mother. The bed had not been made up and Kallis was under an Egyptian throw that was covering the bed. Various cushions scattered around her, including the one she had been using as a pillow.
Kallis pushed her fingers through her hair and thought hard.
‘How on earth did I get here? ’Kallis asked herself, feeling a little anxious.
Everything seemed blurred, although her head felt quite clear.
‘I don’t have a hangover.` She smiled wryly to herself, remembering a similar morning after the night before, when she had awoken in a strange bed with a thumping head and not much memory of how she had got there.
Kallis hopped out of bed and opened the bedroom door a crack. All seemed quiet. She sprinted across the landing and into the bathroom. Kallis used the loo and then rinsed her face in the sink. She regarded herself in the mirror. A rather paler than normal face looked back at her, black kohl liner smudged under her eyes. She washed her face and used the hand towel to dry herself.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Who’s there? Kallis, is that you, sweetheart?’
Kallis’s mother had heard the water running and puzzled, and slightly alarmed, she had crept up the stairs.
‘Mum! Hi. Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
Kallis opened the door. Her mother was standing on the landing wearing a white towelling dressing gown. ‘I didn’t hear you come in, darling. When did you get here?’
Kallis’s mother Charlotte was taller than Kallis; in fact, Kallis looked nothing like her, having taken mostly after her small, dark, Egyptian father. Her mother was blonde, in her early fifties and still looking good, although the blonde hair owed much of its gloss to Naturtint these days. She pushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear and smiled. ‘Come on down and I’ll make you some breakfast. I’ve got the coffee on. You can tell me what you have been up to.´
‘Alright, Mum, thanks. I’ll be down in a minute. Can I have a shower? Is there enough hot water?’
‘Sure, darling, the tank should have refilled by now. I had mine ages ago.’
Charlotte took off down the stairs and much banging of pots and pans could be heard coming from the kitchen.
Kallis wondered, whilst in the shower, just what she was going to say to her mother when she wasn’t sure what had happened herself. ‘Anyway’, thought Kallis, ‘let’s get dressed and have some breakfast, I’m STARVING!’
‘Mum?’ Kallis shouted down the stairs, ‘Can I raid your wardrobe? I don’t have any clean clothes with me.’
‘Help yourself. NOT my best stuff, mind, and DEFINITELY nothing with a ‘Whistles’ label.’
Kallis laughed as she went into her Mother’s bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Kallis put her own black jeans back on – they were reasonably clean still – and found a pink silk camisole and a white shirt, which she belted over her jeans. Rubbing her hair dry with a towel, she padded bare foot downstairs. Charlotte was sitting at the kitchen table, a pot of coffee in front of her and a pile of toast, some scrambled eggs in a dish, baked beans and fried tomatoes and mushrooms. Kallis tucked in to all this while her Mother poured the coffee.

‘So?’ Charlotte looked at Kallis. ‘You went to the Glastonbury festival, didn’t you? Was it good?’
Kallis nodded, with her mouth full. She took a slurp of coffee. ‘It was just brilliant, Mum. You’ll never guess what, I saw David Bowie just wondering around the site, he was SO chilled and laid back. And the music was amazing; they had some fantastic acts this year. I think it was one of the best ever, and the weather held for us too.’
‘That’s great, sweetheart. I’m glad you had a good time. So, what made you turn up here unannounced? Boyfriend trouble?’
‘Oh, no….nothing like that, Mum.’ Kallis thought fast.
‘Um, well, a friend was driving this way after the festival and I got a lift. I was feeling at a bit of a loose end and thought I’d drop by. It was really late when we got here and I must have left my bag in his car. The credit’s all gone on my phone, so I couldn’t really ring you, it was all a bit, you know, um, well, spontaneous. You don’t mind, do you? Can I stay a few days?’
‘Course you can, darling. Stay as long as you want. I’ve got to get off to work in a bit but you help yourself to whatever you want. I’ll be back about six. I’ve got after school activities to teach today so it’s a late one. I’d better go and get dressed in a minute.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘And make up your bed properly, won’t you? You know where the sheets are kept.’
Kallis nodded with her mouth full of toast.

Kallis’ trip…. Dave’s Rabbit, Chapter THREE

CHAPTER THREE

You know that jolt that you get when you are just falling asleep, like you have fallen off the bed backwards, dropped a couple of feet? There’s a proper name for it – I think it’s a hypnagogic jolt. Anyhow, as Kallis closed her eyes and dozed for a moment, this jolt was what she felt. She opened her eyes and slowly stood up. She knew she was on the ground, on top of the Tor, her boots on Dave’s sleeping bag, but she was somehow also high above the Tor, looking down on herself and the sleeping Dave. No, she was on the ground. Look, she could see her own hand and touch her face; she wasn’t dreaming. And yet, how come she also had a view down from the sky, as though she was about 50 metres tall? Her whole body felt elongated, her legs endless. She took a step forward. She was now above the Chalice Well gardens. She could see the spring and the people there, a tree with little coloured streamers hanging down from its branches. A couple more steps forward, she started to run towards the small city of Wells, the cathedral and the green in front of it. Then Kallis was somehow standing on this green and looking at the top of the cathedral in front of her. ‘This cannot be real, what is happening to me?!’

Kallis was elated and yet terrified at the same time. She looked down at the people on the green as they passed about their business: tourists pointing at the cathedral, a couple walking a dog, an elderly gentleman out for a stroll. Nobody seemed to be aware of her presence as she towered high above them. A pigeon flew past her face; she felt the light breeze as he went and heard the wheel of his wings. He also seemed unaware of her. Yet Kallis was still aware of her feet, in their little purple boots, standing now on the grass of the cathedral green. It was a most peculiar feeling to say the least. Kallis looked up towards the sky. It was still sunny with just a few clouds scudding about.

As she continued to gaze up into the blueness she felt herself expanding even further, an enormous pressure building in her chest. She felt fear and panic now and started to run, her phantom legs carrying her in great leaps and bounds across the moor lands of Somerset. The world seemed to be slowing down, while she was speeding up, the pressure building.

Kallis crossed the Bristol Channel in one big bound, jumping right over the mud and the grey water, the boats and the seagulls, the cars queuing to pay the toll fees. She was suddenly aware that she was in the town of Newport. She must have instinctively been running towards ‘home’, where she had felt safe and loved, where her Mother was still living even now.

The high street in Newport was busy and bustling. Kallis suddenly realised she was back down to her normal height. The town, however, was not quite as she remembered it. The air seemed to have a yellowish cast to it. The cars looked strange, the same and yet – bigger somehow, odd colours, makes she had not seen before. Kallis turned to the people passing her. Normally she felt quite small, being just five feet tall in her doc martens, and most people did seem taller than her, but THESE people were huge and – Kallis squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, she couldn’t seem to focus well on anything. These people were not really people, human; they had scaly skin and moved strangely, with a sort of loping gait. Their feet were bare and clawed, their eyes small and lidded the wrong way; they had enormous and very visible teeth. They were naked as far as Kallis could tell, although many of them were tattooed with bright colours and some of them seemed to have metal chains and piercings about them.

‘They are like dinosaurs,` thought Kallis, ‘only they are civilised and living in this town!’
Kallis had a high pitched buzzing in her ears, adding to her confusion.
I’m not well’, thought Kallis,’ I am hallucinating. This is a bad dream.’

Kallis moved slowly down the high street. Nobody took any notice of her. It was as if she was invisible, and yet nobody walked into her either. The shops were different too; Kallis was not able to read any of the shop signs or make out what they were selling.
Kallis sank down onto a bench. This also was too big and her legs dangled. The buzzing in her ears increased. Kallis put her head in her hands.

Peace descended upon her. She was in a warm, dark, welcoming place. Kallis was still Kallis, but she was also a part of the world. She felt the trees swaying gently in the wind, the grass growing and pushing up through the rich soil. She was with the birds circling in the sky, the sheer joy of the warm thermal carrying her ever upwards. She was the cat curled in the corner of the garden shed, a content belly full of cat food; she was the hungry lion roaming the plains of Africa in search if a wildebeest for lunch. As the Earth turned on its axis and spun through the Universe, Kallis spun with it. Kallis felt all of these things at once, all connected, all one.