Ted and Teresa

Yesterday we showed Apia to Ted and Teresa. Or perhaps I should say we showed Ted and Teresa to Apia. I don’t think the town was quite ready for them. And Ted and Teresa weren’t ready for Apia. Especially as they were supposed to be going to Thailand. Ted found a deal on Expedia that was too good to be true, and booked it. Trouble was – it was too good to be true. Neither Ted’s nor Teresa’s geography has ever been great. She thought Aggi Grey was in Phuket. He didn’t even know it was a hotel. Until they boarded the plane, they had no idea where they were going.

People like Ted and Teresa should stay at home.

We took them to the Sliding Rocks of Papase’ea first. Perhaps Ted would fall over and break his leg. Or Teresa swallow so much water she spent the rest of the afternoon in the ladies. No such luck. He lumbered down the water chute like a demolished building and hit the water with such momentum he practically emptied the rock pool. Then Teresa launched herself too, curdling the air with a Merlot-choked scream. The locals – a collection of teenage boys in ragged shorts – looked on nervously. No doubt they’d seen pictures of a Michelin man before, perhaps overheard a woman giving birth. But never together, never like these two: Mr and Mrs T Livingwell-Seagull.

We motored onto Toana Tusitala next – a nice hotel on the peninsula, that was not going to stay nice much longer. Ted promptly ordered a beer tower for his own consumption – four litres of Vailima for fifty-five Tala – and Teresa began working her way through the cocktail menu. Happy hour hadn’t even started, but they didn’t care. I thought about telling them it was Sunday, that alcohol isn’t available anywhere except at hotels for a reason. But there was no point. They wouldn’t listen. Ted’s arm was going up and down like a nodding donkey – glass to tap, glass to lips – while Teresa’s mouth fell unhinged and lurid noises flowed.

“How do you keep the toilet seat up at night?” She cackled across a poolfull of six and seven year olds. “You flush a Viagra down the bowl.”

“Really?” Kate sipped on her coconut juice. “We keep it down.”

Ted said nothing, just kept drinking.

He was halfway down his tower, well on his way to another.  Then his hand stopped, and his mouth opened.

“Teresa’s bought one of them coconut bras.”  He smirked.  “She’s gonna wear it in the hotel pool.”

I sculled my glass too.  This was going to be one lively week.