Young love, old loathing: Two couples on a Saturday night at the Baron

There are two couples in the Baron. Well, there are several. Probably 17, in fact. Altogether a hundred and three people have come to watch South Africa lose the final rugby test of their European tour at the Baron pub in Chislehurston.
But we will only concern ourselves with four of them. Gift and his girlfriend Simone, sitting at a table in the corner near the bar; and a married couple, Roy and Yvonne, seated against the wall near the entrance.
Gift and Simone have been seeing each other for six months now. After a few months’ denial, a trial break-up and a get-together-again, they’re now a solid item. Simone has dispensed with pretence and now freely declares her love for her new beau. And Gift, in turn, has become strongly protective of his gorgeous lady love. Their corner table is a cocoon of young infatuation, through which the reality of the Springboks’ poor first-half showing barely penetrates.
For the occupants of the other table, the cocoon of youthful infatuation unravelled many years ago. And sadly it did not give birth to the butterfly of everlasting, love. No, the ugly slug of mutual loathing crawled out of that dry husk some time in the Seventies and it has been their companion ever since.
So Roy and Yvonne sit at their table and quietly loathe each other, while Roy condemns the Springbok performance.
“The bloody fool can barely catch a ball. What the hell is he doing playing flyhalf? He couldn’t even make the Free State team and now Jake’s got him playing against France. He’s useless!”
Yvonne doesn’t even respond.
“But they all useless,” Roy continues. “Even Matfield’s having a terrible game. It’s atrocious. We’re going to lose this one by miles. I don’t know how we can expect to take these guys to the World Cup!”
At the other table, Simone is more sympathetic.
“Shame, my baby. They’re losing. I’m sure they’ll play better in the second half,” she says. “I’m just going to go to the toilet.”
She wanders off, and because their table is in the corner, she must pass the table of Roy and Yvonne in order to reach the bathrooms. Gift watches his lover walk to the toilet, as young lovers are wont to do.
Now as she squeezes past the other couple’s table, she bumps Roy’s chair from behind. “Sorry,” she says. But Roy, being in the middle of slating the Bok performance, gets a bit of a fright.
“Ooh!” he gasps. Then, when he sees it’s Simone who has bumped him, his lip curls: “Little bitch,” he spits to his wife. “Rude little bitch.”
Gift, of course, has been watching his lover’s progress through the crowded Baron, and he has witnessed Roy’s little outburst, even if Simone has not.
For exactly two seconds, he considers whether he should let it go… then he gets up and marches across to the other table. He taps Roy on the shoulder and he jumps again.
“Excuse me,” he says, “Is there a problem here?”
“No, no problem,” Roy assures him.
“I just thought that you said something about my girlfriend as she was coming past you just now,” says Gift. “It sounded like you were angry with her.”
For once, Yvonne looks up and watches her husband closely. Roy sees a very fit, angry young black man, looming over him, where once there’d stood a little bitch.
“No,” he reiterates. “There’s no problem here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You sure?” asks Gift for the last time, just to confirm. “It looked like she bumped you a little as she was coming past. I hope she didn’t startle you, sir.”
“No,” says Roy into his beer. “No problem.”
By the time Simone returns from the ladies, Gift is back at their table as if nothing has happened and they are back in the cocoon of love. In Paris, the Springboks are ready to work on a better second-half performance.
And at the other table, Yvonne is looking at her husband of 34 years as stares at the Supersport ad on the pub’s big screen and avoids making eye contact with her.
Tonight she sees him with new eyes. She’s known for some years that he’s a miserable, bigoted grumpy old bastard. But tonight she sees for the first time that he’s a coward too.
And – mmph! – on her right, the slug of mutu