Father-son ‘bonding’ over World Cup rugby down the pub

I unshackled my 82-year-old father on Sunday and took him down to the pub to watch the game.

It’s been a while since he found himself among people. He prefers the company of monkeys and mongooses, both of which are regular visitors to his Durban North home. They have, over the years, come to regard him as one of their own and it’s not unusual to arrive at the house and find him sitting outside with a vervet monkey on his lap or banded mongooses swarming over him. He has been bitten many times and is quite possibly rabid.

He did have one friend a couple of years ago, but then asked him to stop coming around. When I asked why, he said the friend had started to become “too emotional”. Turns out that he made the unforgivable faux pas of saying: “I miss my ex-wife.” My father doesn’t do emotions.

He has also unconsciously developed a unique way of interacting with four-legged mammals and I was concerned about how he’d behave in close proximity to his own species.

There was a fair chance that at some point he’d absent-mindedly start making soft wittering or barking sounds and stroke the arm of a stranger sitting next to him at the bar. Maybe even try to feed him a handful of complementary peanuts. That wouldn’t do. Not even in an Irish pub.

The place was packed but we found a corner and tried to blend in. It wasn’t easy. For a start, we were the only people not wearing Springbok jerseys.

Even worse, the patriarch – with his long white beard and wild self-cut hair – was wearing his mongoose pants. These aren’t pants made from mongooses or even human-sized pants conventionally worn by mongooses. That would still be okay. These pants, held up by a pair of tatty red braces, are the ones he wears whenever the tribe drops in for a meal.

The knees, worn out by thousands of tiny scrabbling claws, have been reinforced with misshapen pieces of old leather stuck on with superglue. Quite frankly, I’m surprised we were even allowed in.

A waitress raced up to us and asked what we’d like.

“I’d like you to turn the volume down,” said what I expect she thought was a retired car guard out with his equally run-down son, perhaps celebrating his inheritance of seven parking bays in the lot across the road.

I laughed and made the international gesture for don’t-mind-him-he’s-barking-mad. My father’s blue eyes got bigger. He’s one of those people who don’t blink. Like a hammerhead shark. It’s very disconcerting, especially late on a Friday night when you’re a teenager and he’s got his face right up against yours, saying: “Why are you laughing, my boy? You’re laughing at nothing. Why are your eyes so red? What’s wrong with you?”

Everywhere around us, harried waitresses ferried trays laden with flagons of frothing lager to hordes of people crazed with an uncontrollable thirst for beer and Welsh blood.

My father ordered a coffee and a glass of water. Anticipating that service might become an issue at some point, I ordered two draughts. I avoided looking at him when they landed. It was enough that I could hear him thinking, “It’s barely 11am and the boy is stockpiling.” Assuming he could also hear me thinking, I thought: “Oh, please. Look around you. Even the women are chucking gallons of filth down their necks.”

The first chords of Japan’s version of our anthem rang out and, as always, my eyes took that as their cue to start tearing up.

I don’t know why they do that. Even though I believe patriotism is a virtue of the vicious and the scoundrel’s last refuge, I can’t help wanting to blub like a scalded infant when I hear Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika ringing out ahead of the old bloodsport. I think it might have something to do with seeing black and white South Africans enjoying themselves, instead of trying to murder each other.

Of course, this multiracial love fest was happening in Yokohama, not the pub. I spotted only one black face in the crowd. This wasn’t even a pub for white supremacists. It’s just a Durban North thing. Still, I kept an eye on him in case he tried to nick my father’s wallet. I had no intention of getting stuck with the bill.

Obviously I couldn’t be seen weeping openly in a bar full of rugby fans. I’d be dragged off my stool and kicked to death. So I had to pretend to be shedding tears of laughter. It’s also not ideal to be seen laughing during the anthem, even though it is faintly hilarious to see these human battering rams carrying on like the Drakensberg Boys Choir.

It wasn’t long before one of ours had the ball and was barrelling towards the line. The crowd went crazier than my ex-wife off her meds. I couldn’t applaud because the eruption took me by surprise and I had instinctively grabbed both draughts. I looked at my father. He was trying to jam a sugar sachet into each ear. I snagged a waitress and ordered two more draughts. Amid the pandemonium, father and son could do little but shake their heads at one another.

To be honest, I don’t know if it’s possible to watch rugby without drinking beer. As far as I know, it’s never been done. Ten minutes from the end, even my father, possibly driven insane by the noise, ordered a Windhoek Light.

His face betrayed not the faintest glimmer of emotion as the final whistle blew. He finished his beer and limped off through the carousing hordes. I’m reluctant to ask about the limp. It’s probably a fresh mongoose wound.

Meanwhile, as we head for Saturday’s final, spare a thought for Gauteng MEC Panyaza Lesufi, a man more easily triggered than a Glock 22. While the rest of the country will be watching the game, he will be scrutinising the crowd for signs of the old SA flag. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. He screwed up the other day and had to apologise.

“The initial angle was wrong!” he tweeted. Indeed, comrade. The angle was wrong. Definitely not you. I think, to avoid future angle-related errors, we should petition World Rugby to provide Lesufi with his very own TMO for the crowd.

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