A Virgin in the Philippines

A VIRGIN IN THE PHILIPPINES

WH JOHNSON

Cover and illustrations by Leonardo Malgapo

Copyright 2012 WH Johnson

Smashwords Edition

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Johnnie Johnson, a graduate of the University of Durham, is a former headmaster and schools inspector. Since his retirement he has written more than twenty non-fiction books ranging from true crime and superstition to local history and the supernatural. As Allen Makepeace he has written two novels, one of which, And Such Great Names as These, was awarded the prize for the 'best novel' by the National Association of Writers Groups. The second novel, Winter Hunt, a crime story set in the early nineteenth century, is available only as an e-book.

Johnnie was the winner of the South East Arts Prose Prize, a finalist in the Fenner Brockway Peace Prize for Literature and runner-up in the international Alpha to Omega Short Story Competition.

He lives with his Filipino wife in Eastbourne, East Sussex..

Full details of his books can be found on www.johnniejohnson.co.uk

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Leonardo Malgapo is a well-known comic book illustrator and portrait painter. He lives in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija.

For

Mariano (Diko) and Nida Serrano, Rody and Elma Henson, Ruben and Rosie Garcia, Lito and Conching Patiag, Eddie and Ellen Gonzales, Wensing and Elsa Amboy, Tita Cruz, Cencio and Lani Mayangao, Lando and Jonjon Mayangao, Paul and Gina Pettitt, Aubrey Barnes, Reynaldo and Linda Munda, Jenny Munda, Josie and Teodoro Santa Maria and for all the members of their families and particularly for Eric and Menchu Munda, Sheilah Jane and Janine Curcher and for all the members of their families; and for all of the unmentioned friends I have made here in the Philippines but most of all and with all my love for Fe

PROLOGUE

I blame Gina Pettitt. That's who it all started with. Three years ago I'd never given a thought to visiting the Philippines. It wouldn't have appeared even in my top hundred places to visit.

Come to that, I'd never thought of re-marrying. I was coping with widowhood. I was getting out and about, meeting friends, taking foreign trips.

And then Gina Pettitt changed it all.

One really miserable day in October 2009, when the weather confined me to the flat, I was suddenly disturbed. It was Gina. Gina the Cleaner. That morning, as far as I knew, she was busying herself somewhere or other, wherever fancy took her, while I messed about on the computer.

And then I sensed her behind me.

She was standing in the doorway.

‘Meester Johnson,’ she said, ‘I put you pajammers on the pillow. Nice tonight with fresh sheets and pillow case.’

‘Good,’ I told her. ‘That’s very good, Gina.’ Clean pyjamas and fresh sheets tonight. I turned back to the computer but was aware that she hadn't moved.

‘Meester Johnson,’ she said, and she was holding out a pink envelope. ‘I have brought this for you.’

She thrust the envelope towards me.

‘It's my birthday.’

‘Your birthday, Gina? Many happy returns.’

‘Not today is my birthday but three weeks. This is your invitation.’

‘Well, that is most kind of you.’ My mind was racing. Did I really want to go to a birthday party?

‘It's not in my home,’ she said. ‘We have hired a room in the clubhouse at Saffrons Sports Club. We're having a disco and a bar. Karaoke also.’

'How exciting,’ I said, wondering how I might wiggle my way out without offending her. After all, she was a dear soul. She came in once a week for two hours and made the bed which over seven days tended to become less and less comfortable. She also did my laundry, some of which she took home. And she did all the other bits and pieces that she saw were necessary. I left it all to her. She was naturally cheerful, always smiling, always extraordinarily inquisitive.

But that morning we'd scarcely spoken since she arrived over an hour earlier. And now she'd produced this invitation which was the last thing I wanted. I'd not know anybody there. They'd pretty well all be Filipinos with a few English husbands thrown in. Gina was the only Filipino I knew, the only Filipino I'd ever known.

‘Well, it's most kind of you, Gina,’ I said, as I opened the envelope. I glanced down at the invitation card in front of me.

‘Come and help me celebrate my birthday at the Saffrons Sports Club,’ it began. And then there was a photograph of Gina looking as she never looked when she came to the flat. She looked like a glamour model.

There was the promise on the invitation of ‘lots of delicious food, both Asian and Western as well as a disco and bar.’ Oh God, I'd never been to a disco, had never felt the slightest urge to go. My initial lack of enthusiasm about the evening - for it was to be an evening affair from 7 o'clock till God knows what time – sank to further depths. A disco? And karaoke? No, no. Give me a break. Not my kind of thing.

I forced another smile and hoped my eyes twinkled enough to conceal my reluctance.

‘Sounds extremely pleasant,’ I said. ‘Yes, indeed. Very nice.’

I couldn't think of anything more to say.

‘You'll not be alone, Meester Johnson. You can bring a friend. Your lady friend. I'm sure you have a lady friend,’ and she laughed like a happy, mischievous child. 'And if you got no lady, I have a nice friend. A widow lady. She’s beautiful.’

I was uncertain how to respond.

‘I told her. I said Meester Johnson is my boss and he is a widow and he's very nice and lonely and she too is a widow and lonely too and very beautiful. I'm sure she is your type.’

My type?

'Well,’ and I was trying to make the point gently, ‘you ought not to be saying this about me, Gina. I'm not on the look-out for a lady friend. And I’m not really lonely. I’m alone,’ I said, tripping out the phrase that I kept using at that period, ‘but I’m never lonely.’ And that was fairly true. Just some days weren't as good as others.

And this wasn't a good day for people listening to me because she ignored what I had said.

'She is living here in Eastbourne with her daughter Sheilah who is a theatre nurse at the District General Hospital.'

'Oh yes.' The best way to shut people up is to ensure they understand that you are just not interested in what they are trying to tell you.

Gina failed to understand that strategy.

'She too is a nurse forty years working in the Philippines and Saudi.'

'Ah, h'm, yes.' Surely she'll take the hint that this woman does not interest me and neither does the idea of a birthday party at the Saffrons Sports Club.

'But you come to my birthday party and meet her,' Gina said. 'She's very nice and kind.' At which point she left the room and within seconds the vacuum cleaner was turned on.

I looked out of the window at the dismal weather, looked at the computer screen. Straightaway I dismissed the whole ridiculous proposition. Go to a party and have a date arranged for me? It was absurd. At my age? A date? Like some bloody teenager.

But then, I asked myself as te minutes passed, what have I got to lose?

So I went to Gina's birthday party at the Saffrons Sports Club.

And there I met the astonishingly beautiful Filipinas Serrano Martin, known to her friends and family as Fe, though by me as Fay.

And there Fay met the decidedly plain-looking WH Johnson, better known as Johnnie, but always known by her and her family as JJ.

And the rest is... geography

...trips around Sussex; a party on Hayling Island; London and The Lion King; the Registry Office at Eastbourne on 25 September 2010; and in January of 2011 my first visit to the Philippines.

So this may clear up, right from the start, a number of points...in particular the fact that I didn't get her through ebay or a dating agency!

This visit I recorded in my diary and on emails to friends, extracts from which form the content of this travelogue. I haven't included everything but I hope that my real enjoyment of the experience, of my first trip to Asia, comes through.

And I must have enjoyed the first trip because I'm here again only a few months later.

And it's all because of Gina Pettitt.

Papaya

Nueva Ecija

Philippines

February 2012

Chapter 1 - 2011

Monday 10 January 2011

Manila

The flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong, even in Business Class, was tiring. Don't tell me that it's like being in your own bed. My bed at home isn't hard nor is it too short for me. Of course, Fay slept all right. If ever they introduce a sleeping event in the Olympics I shall have her naturalised and entered as our national representative. She'll win gold.

As I slept little on the flight I mused on the past hours and what was yet to come. For some time I brooded on the Heathrow hotel which I chose in the mistaken belief that I had stayed there before. I always tell myself that I should keep notes on these things but I don't. The food was ordinary, the staff were uninterested and the room was so cold that I had to send for supplementary heating. It wasn't a squat. It was a three-star hotel. What a let-down.

I cheered up the next morning when Fay's nephew, Colonel Inocencio Mayangao, military attache at the Philippines Embassy in London, called us to say that he'd be coming over to help us with our luggage and see us safely into the airport. They're good to the old folk, the Filipinos. And I say this wholeheartedly.

I had hoped that Cencio, as he's familiarly known, might turn up resplendent in his uniform and perhaps with CD plates on the car. Not so but he did come with his adjutant, Ariel Javelosa, an air force officer. They were both charming and extremely helpful. I didn't lift a finger. I was ushered into the car (no CD plates, dammit) and cosseted like some old treasure. And I didn't resist.

As I've made clear the flight to Hong Kong was not as luxuriously comfortable as I'd expected but the hotel where we spent two nights was excellent.

I shan't go into detail about our stay in Hong Kong but it was fascinating. There's a population of seven million people and relatively little space to accommodate them. No wonder there are so many tall, pencil-thin skyscrapers. And I was enthralled by the trip to the Point and the boat journey round the harbour and by Jumbo, the huge floating restaurant, despite the disappointing meal.

But the lingering memory is of the great sense of energy about the place as though everyone had an important task to complete before the day ended. So the street porters carrying heavy loads scuttled about as though their very lives depended on it and the business men, in formal grey or navy suits for the most part, looked, each and every one of them, as if they were on their way to high-powered meetings with world leaders.

There did appear to be a number of non-jobs, as if government policy dictated that as many people as possible were to be employed. For instance in our hotel there was an escalator at the top of which was a smartly dressed man you'd have taken at first glance for the manager. But his sole task was to hold out his hand, pointing in the direction of the escalator only two feet away.

But it was such a short stay.

On the second leg of our journey, the short hop from Hong Kong to Manila, I reviewed what I knew about