lynn joffe

It is the honour of my lifetime from my debut novel to be recognised by my Fairy Godfather, @stephenfry the menschiest of mensches. I have no words.

In 1974, At the age of 15, I saw The Rocky Horror Show at the King’s Road Theatre. As I settled in my seat, a half-man in fishnet stockings, stilettos and corset strutted down the catwalk, hissing and schvitzing. Tim Curry spat on me. And nothing would ever be the same again #RIP

#vss365 At first they called me Schrödinger, because they didn’t know whether I existed or not. As I tuned into their grunts and squawks, I started to get where they were coming from. After all, I’d come to them via the Gaza Strip. The #cat refugee who turned out to be their son.

#vss365 The first dream I ever had during analysis was of me & my sister encased in a glass house, #wolves prowling in the forest beyond. We clung to each other like babes in the wood. Who knew that I would be her protector during her cancer treatment that devoured her to death.

#vss365 At Beit Layla, each buxom wench had perfected her #trickery. Naturally, there were ten of us, enough for a girlchick minyan. I collected the latkes & organised the musicians. For what house of any repute is complete without it? Music, money & sex, the perfect triumvirate.

#vss365 There we were, a gaggle of pre-adolescent lassies cramming into the classroom for the #investiture of the Prince of Wales on TV, the day after my 10th birthday. Each of us projecting our tween fantasies onto the balding 21 year old who proclaimed to be our future monarch.

#vss365 Gloria was never much of an actress. She could never play the same lines twice. Her fellow cast were often surprised at her improvisations whenever the fancy took her. Only after she was found dead, a #hammer in her skull, could she watch them with avidity from the gods.

#vss365 Hadassah said I had perfect pitch from the moment I slithered from her womb that frosty morn. Where some bright infants mimic the modulations of their mother’s tongue before they cut their first tooth – Mama – my first spoken #word was a memesis of my mother’s woe. Oy.

#vss365 There’s a unique dancing position assumed by certain South African macho men. Draw the bollocks between your legs to the arsicle side & mince around holding them in place. Known locally as the leeu#loop. Works wonders at sakkie sakkie barn dances. Drives trophy wives wild

#vss365 I left the country forever. We wrote to each other daily. His onion skin pages, numbered & dated. Mine, written on drinks coaster & serviettes. We still have the originals, one day to be transcribed. We thought we’d never see each other again. Our #letters led me home.

#vss365 Hadassah was very proud of her Pesach crockery, handed down since the great trek back from Babylonia, each item adorned with a symbol of the festival: an egg, a sprig of parsley, charoset representing bricks & mortar of the slaves, salt #water for tears. Next year where?

39 years ago today, I left South Africa forever. I bought a round the world ticket for 2k. Meneer & I wrote to each other daily. His poetic onion skin pages, numbered. Mine on drinks coasters & napkins. 2 years later, I returned. 6 months later, Nelson was released. Free at last.

#vss365 Three giant silhouettes zoom into view carrying their instruments of brass. The trio hoist their metal on the shore & begin to blow. A blast of hot jazz straddles the beat. I hear it clearly, the #sink of the final note. There are only two ways to describe it. Be. Bop

#vss365 ‘What are we waging war for, if there is not art? What poetry exists if there’s no blood? In lands we conquer, pillage never stems the flood Thus yea, I #sing to quench my foolish heart.’ The words & music fused together like halva & honey. ‘I did it! I did it!’ I said.

#VSS365 I always thought Granny was exaggerating. Her lashes grew inwards, the result of 100 years of sticky mascara. The dry macular robbed her of her sight. Pops had let the eyedrops lapse. It was only when I inherited her glaucoma that I realised I was destined to go #blind

#vss365 After she returned from her sister’s deathbed in Cyprus, Fiona was caught in a #bank scam where 600k was stolen from her account. When she told the fraudster of her loss in a bid for sympathy, the kindly auntie told her to drink a glass of water. And stole an extra 300k.

The sensation of the fountain pen clutched between finger & thumb. The slow flow of words. The #ink makes patterns on the paper - you have to have the right texture - & you better transcribe that train of thought before it becomes illegible & you forget what you were th#inking.

#vss365 Most of my great aunties had more chins than a Chinese phone book. Auntie Leah was another story. She believed that her upper #arms were unsightly. More a sign of aging than her smudged lipstick & eye wrinkles. Nobody had ever seen them. Even Uncle Alfred. Mostly armless.

#vss365 Alice made her pilgrimage to her mother’s 90th and saw the old lady close up and personal. Mother was confined to her cuboid body, slothful, demented, deluded. Placing her #hands on the keyboard, though, her virtuosity was utterly unaffected. Alice wept like a baby grand.

#vss365 Beryl was kicked out of the book club after she pointed out that the #sandstorm everyone was raving about wasn’t even in the book, it was from the movie. Even the presenter, culled from a leading university, swore blind he’d never watched the film. #Sand in his eyes.

#vss365 Lydia inherited the #ring from her dead mother-in-law. It was to go to the wife of her last born who was obliged to be in mourning right up to the wedding. Lydia wore the diamond facing inwards in case of theft from her string of sisters-in-law who never lifted a finger.