Playing the Moldovans At Tennis (2 page)

'His band?'

'Yes, he has a Beatles band from Moldova called The Flying Postmen, and they're playing at next week's Beatles Convention.'

This was a surreal development which felt entirely in keeping with things.

'How wonderful,' I said, 'I wouldn't miss them for the world.'

And thus Liverpool became the starting point for my adventure, just as it had been a century or so before for thousands of emigrants seeking a new life in the New World. My goal was more modest. All I wanted were the Moldovan Fab Four.

I was greeted at Liverpool's Adelphi Hotel by a lobby-full of mop-headed sixties clones ranging from spotty youths to pensioners. Beatles groupies, and lots of them. I should have been expecting it, but I still found it a little bewildering. Dressed as I was, in clothes which did not make me look a bit of a prat, I felt uncomfortably out of place so I quickly checked in and headed for the privacy of my room.

I lay on my bed and perused the programme cover.
International Beatle Week – with entertainment provided by me world's best Beatle bands'.
I noticed very quickly that one thing seemed to unite the world's best Beatle bands, and that was the inability to come up with a decent name. The Bootleg Beatles having nabbed the only really apposite one, the others had been left to grovel in a creative mire where they had not excelled themselves. Poor efforts included, from Italy, The Apple Scruffs; from the United States, A Hard Night's Day; from Brazil, Clube Big Beatles; and all the way from Japan, a band called Wishing. I studied Wishing's photo. They had splendidly authentic Beatle suits and their hair was terribly good, but there is something in the physiognomy of the Japanese which prevents them from plausibly resembling a scouser. Not necessarily a social disadvantage but in this instance something of a bummer. It would be difficult to suspend disbelief while watching a Fab Four who looked like they had met on the shop floor of Mitsubishi Motors. I decided that their name Wishing was short for Wishing We Looked A Bit More Like The Beatles.

The Flying Postmen was the best name by far because it appeared to have no connection with The Beatles whatsoever. Unfortunately it made no entry in the Convention programme either. Not good news since they were the sole reason for my being here. My mission, which I had already chosen to accept, was to make their acquaintance and somehow get myself an invitation to their country. At the Convention's information desk I learned that their absence in print was due to their late entry to the line up of bands, but there seemed to be a great deal of vagueness about when and where they were actually performing. I would just have to start asking around. I felt rather like a private eye. Or a private dick – unlike the very public ones who were milling about the hotel lobby.

That night's main event was a concert at the Royal Court Theatre by the 'Sensations from Sweden' – Lenny Pane. Ah, yes –
Lenny Pane.
I could see how they'd come up with that name – they'd cleverly switched the first letters of The Beatles' hit 'Penny Lane'. Using the same method, they could so easily have taken the song 'Day Tripper', and arrived at the much better name – Tray Dipper. (Their gigs could have been marked by a crowd pleasing ceremonial 'dipping of trays' towards the climax of the performance.) Disappointed though I was in their failure to have plumped for such an obviously superior name, I elected to go and see their concert anyway and in the process ask around the ersatz Beatles fraternity for clues as to the whereabouts of The Flying Postmen.

Inside the venue, the mob from the hotel lobby and a few extras had gathered in the darkness to welcome their Scandinavian heroes to the stage. The sound was authentic and reluctantly I had to concede that Lenny Pane were surprisingly good. And rather sweet too. Their rapport with the audience was a touch more genteel than I remember Lennon's having been:

Thank you, we love to come here to this convention in Liverpool,' an overly blond singer effused in a delightfully lilting Scandinavian accent, 'and we would like to pay tribute to all of you, and of course all the other inhabitants of the town.'

Hey, dig that rock 'n' roll attitude. Soon we would be urged to be responsible with our litter on leaving the venue.

I went to bed a little concerned at having no leads on the Moldovans but lifted by the sound of Beatles' tunes ringing in my ears. I began to marvel at just how good the original Beatles had been. Every song seemed to be a classic. Slightly worryingly I began to empathise with the fanatical fans around whom I'd spent the evening. I could think of worse things to immerse yourself in. If you were going to be an anorak, far better to make this your area of anorakdom than hang around Crewe station writing down the numbers of passing trains. And so I fell asleep comforted by the knowledge that if ever I decided to be an obsessive nerd then I was clear as to exactly which kind of obsessive nerd I was going to be.

Strawberry Field is more than just a song. It is, and always has been, a working Salvation Army children's home, the gates of which have become something of a shrine to Beatles devotees. They aren't normally opened for fans, but this year Cavern City Tours had landed something of a coup when it had persuaded the Christian Soldiers to pack the children off for the day so that a huge garden party could be thrown, with Beatles bands playing all afternoon. A rare treat. And, like a lot of rare treats, a major disappointment. To go through the gates into Strawberry Field is to shatter any illusion you may have as to the magical quality of the place. The original buildings, which matched the age of the gates, had long since been demolished and replaced with new ones which had been designed by a man with a slide rule and access to a job lot of cheap and ugly windows.

Lennon's lyrics ('Nothing is real') were no longer relevant. In cu;Tent-day Strawberry Field
everything was
real, and spending too long here would most likely leave you with quite a lot
to get hung about.
An uninspiring venue at the best of times but when you added to it the temperance of the Salvation Army and then-insistence on the concert being an entirely dry affair, you had a really crap place for a party.

The atmosphere wasn't conducive to letting your hair down. I'd been too young to attend the wild rock festivals of the sixties but I can only assume that they didn't have Corporals and Majors from the Salvation Army patrolling around the grounds trumpeting the news that 'Strawberry Tea' was available in the refectory. At Woodstock, this absence of religious militia probably made you more enthusiastic about the idea of removing your clothes, painting your tits and arse green and making love to anyone you happened to stagger into. I looked around me and all I could see were people cross-legged on tartan blankets, sipping from plastic cups of tea. Rather than a 'Love-in', this was more of a 'Feel slightly uncomfortable-in'. Instead of dealers selling a range of illegal drugs, we had fairground stalls raising money for a children's home.

Caught up in the wild frenzy of it all I was severely tempted to try my hand on the stall in which you had to throw hoops over cardboard cut-outs of the Beatles.

'Come on now, four hoops for a pound!' said the wicked tweed-skirted temptress behind the stall.

Just say no, I thought.

'OK, give me four,' I said, in immediate capitulation.

It was all over far too quickly and I missed all four of the Beatles, but I did get quite a high when my last hoop struck a couple who had sat too close to Paul McCartney for their own safety.

I took 'Strawberry Tea' in the refectory and as my cup was being zealously filled by a septagenarian Christian soldier with a blue rinse, I heard the Master of Ceremonies make an announcement of such significance that I left my strawberries and cream unfinished.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, these guys remind me of the Beatles in their early years, the raw hungry years in The Cavern – ladies and gentlemen, from Moldova – The Flying Postmen!'

I rushed around to watch. Four young guys ambled on to the stage and fussed around their instruments and amplifiers, almost oblivious to their audience, in a way that only musicians can. They were in sixties outfits but didn't seem to be trying to resemble the Beatles in any way. The tallest of the four strode proudly to the microphone.

'We are not like the early Beatles – we are like the Flying Postmen
now!'
he announced somewhat arrogantly to a stunned crowd, 'My name is Andrei, I am
not
Paul.'

A remark not without irony given that in one respect he was the most authentic Paul that I had seen since my arrival, being the only one who was left-handed. As he stood centre stage with the neck of his guitar pointing in the other direction to those of the band members flanking him, just for a moment, for me they
were
The Beatles. These boys didn't need to go for the hair, the clothes or the mannerisms. They had the same
design.

The MC had been right. They had the energy too. The raw energy of youth and a genuine excitement which experience had not yet stripped from them. They began with the song 'Money' which offers us the subtle lyric, 'Give me money – that's what I want', and it occurred to me that this might be the Moldovan National anthem. At the end of their set they were cheered off stage, despite having committed the treacherous act of playing two Kinks songs and one by The Who.

As they relaxed behind the stage area, flanked by some Brazilian Beatles who were preparing to go on next, I nervously sidled up to the four Flying Postmen. I felt awkward, like a child in a playground about to approach some other children and say 'Excuse me, but will you be my friends?' My acquired social skills included occasionally angling for an invite to a party but this was the first time I had ever had a go at getting one to a country.

'Hi guys, great set,' I said, somewhat smarmily, 'Er . . . um . . . look, I'm going to Moldova soon and I wanted to ask you some questions about your country – how would you feel about that?'

'Great! No problem,' replied Andrei enthusiastically.

And it was really that easy. Two hours later we met in a town centre pub and after a couple of pints I felt brave enough to explain the nature of my prospective business in their country. They laughed. They laughed heartily. When they had finished though, they told me exactly what I wanted to hear. Yes my idea was crazy but no, I would not be made unwelcome in Moldova. In fact Andrei felt that most people there would feel pleased that a foreigner had shown an interest in their relatively unknown country and would do their best to show traditional Moldovan hospitality. No, there were no food shortages and yes, there were tennis courts. Emile, or George Harrison, had played a good deal as a youngster and told me that courts had been built at the side of the Republican Football stadium. He had even seen some footballers playing there. This last piece of news was a little worrying. How much had they played and how good were they? Could Arthur be right – out of eleven players could any of them be good?

I learned that The Flying Postmen were not returning to Moldova after the Convention but had acquired work permits to remain in the UK and would begin a residency at the Cavern Club. I tried to look pleased but I was only too aware that Liverpool's gain was my loss. I had been looking to them to be four potential allies and helpers in a strange country where I spoke none of the language, but it seemed I would have to manage without. However, there was some very good news to come. Andrei told me that he had a friend called Corina who was director of The Independent Journalism Centre in Moldova's capital Chisinau, and that he reckoned that she would issue me with a formal invitation to Moldova. I made sure by producing a mobile phone on which I insisted that we call her right away. I handed Andrei the phone and in seconds he was engaged in a conversation the sound of which confirmed that I would never fully master Romanian. Presently he passed back the small black miracle invention and I lifted the receiver to my ear.

'Hi Tony,' said a faint female voice emanating from this distant and mysterious place, 'I am Corina. You sound mad but it would be nice to have you as our guest at the Journalism Centre. You can use our offices as a base for your project.'

Wow, thanks,' I managed, still wondrous at the technology that was enabling me to speak to a Moldovan in Moldova outside a Liverpool pub. Corina went on to tell me that if I called again in a week she could sort out accommodation for me, which was fantastic news. I scarcely had a chance to thank her again though, before the line went dead.

But it didn't matter. Things were coming together rather nicely.

'I wish I was coming with you,' said a nostalgic Andrei, who hadn't been in Moldova for over a year.

'So, do the footballers know that you are coming?'

It was a logical enough question, and one that I had been asked a good deal by concerned friends, but so far the answer had been 'no'.

The fact is I had tried faxing and ringing The Moldovan Football Federation, but the line was either busy or there was no reply. I didn't mind that much though because I liked the idea of arriving in a country and starting completely from scratch. I had decided that this whole project was to be something of an experiment. My intention was to prove that a positive attitude and an optimistic outlook would produce results, provided that belief was sustained. Sure there would be setbacks, sure there would be problems, but just like any of life's problems they would
have
to be overcome. This, the second of my self-inflicted journeys into absurdity was to act as confirmation of a philosophy which I had formulated as a result of my travels with the fridge. Things
can
be done. The people in life who get them done are the ones who
know
that, and the ones who don't are the rest. If I succeeded in tracking down and beating all the Moldovan national football team at tennis, then not only would I have the pleasure of watching Arthur's humiliation, but more importantly I would have proved something to myself. Something which could underpin the rest of my life.

And so I went about my business, having successfully attached enormous gravitas to a manifestly pointless pursuit. But why did there always have to be a point? Why couldn't you just get stuck in and
do
things? What was the point of anything anyway? What was the point in football? What was the point in working, retiring, saving money, raising a family, going to church or standing for election? The only thing I could feel sure had a point was the sharp bit at the very end of a dart, and even that was useless unless it got stuck into things.

So that Sunday afternoon, as I checked in for the Air Moldova direct flight to Chisinau,
¹
I felt pretty damn good about the whole thing. One of the world's pioneers. Good old me.

¹
You may find Chisinau, Moldova's capital, spelt 'Kishinev' on old maps. This was its name under the Russian Soviet regime.

There were some raised eyebrows at the check-in desk when it was noted that I had only a single ticket

'What is the purpose of your visit?'

'Pleasure.'

Further astonishment.

'How many items of luggage?'

Two pieces and one piece of hand luggage.'

'Did you pack your bags yourself?'

I was tempted to turn around and point to some bloke in the departures hall and say, 'No, that bloke over there did it And a shocking job he made of it too. Let me just open my bag and show you – look at that – he calls that folding.'

'Yes,' I said, rather chickening out.

My first item of luggage was conventional enough. A great big hold-all. The next prompted further questioning.

'What's that?'

'It's a plastic round table.'

I was going to be the passenger they talked about at tea break.

'Right. You will have to take that to the outsize luggage section.'

Round tables aren't common items of luggage for international travel, but this was a very important gift. A week earlier I had read in a newspaper that Moldova's gypsy king had recently died and that his son Arthur would be assuming his crown. This was immensely pleasing – Moldova had a King Arthur. I had immediately resolved to pay him a visit and take a Round Table as a gift. It was rather a shame that I had left the purchase of the table until that Sunday morning and had only had time to nip round to Do It All and purchase a poor quality table which the King would have to assemble himself. Still it would be the thought that counted. I hoped it wouldn't count
against
me.

'What kind of plane are we flying on?' I enquired of the jaded check-in lady.

'A Tupolev 134.'

Ah yes, the Tupolev 134. I am not normally a nervous flyer but the make of this aircraft was not one which instilled the average Western passenger with oodles of confidence. It sounded old and it sounded knackered.

The waiting area at Gate 36 revealed that only nine passengers other than myself had chosen to put their faith in the plane, but as I viewed it from the window I decided I liked what I saw. It did look very Russian, but it was sleek and it was very pointy, and frankly that was good enough for me. Anyway I figured that if the pilot and crew were happy to gad about in it all week then it had to have some things going for it.

Inside, the plane was surprisingly plush, and since there were only nine of us it was comfortably spacious. There were no overhead lockers, just shelves, and there was no music, no welcoming announcements or anyone telling you where to sit. I rather liked this. An airline that didn't treat you like a baby. Before take-off none of the hostesses made that headmistress-like patrol of the cabin to check which one of us naughty passengers hadn't put our seat belts on or lifted our seat-backs into the upright position. What
is
that obsession with 'ensuring that your seat-backs are in the upright position? What difference is the angle of your seat going to make? Only recently above Heathrow there had been a near miss between a BA 737 and a Virgin Jumbo, averting collision by a mere 200 feet. If they had collided, I feel it unlikely that there would have been survivors nursing light bruises in a casualty department saying 'Well, thank God we had our seat-backs in the upright position.'

We took off. It was the clearest of days. Soon I looked down and saw the port of Dover, and on the horizon beyond it, France. I was struck by just how narrow this strip of water was, but also how historically significant it had been in protecting Britain from the great conquerors and Empire builders of Europe.

Moldova had not been so lucky. Like many parts of Eastern Europe it seemed to have been one of those territories whose people had been easily subjugated by the particular prevalent power of the day. Prior to its emergence as the independent Republic of Moldova in 1991, political control over this land seemed to shift after each major European conflict, the main players being the Ottoman and Russian Empires. After the First World War, the territory which was then known as Bessarabia voted to become part of Romania but it was grabbed back again by the Russians after the Second World War, becoming The Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia'.
²
During this period, the ethnic majority of Romanian speaking Moldovans saw a huge influx of Russians and Ukrainians who arrived to industrialise the cities, enforce communism as a way of life, and generally make everybody miserable. Theirs had been a harsh regime, the results of which would soon become apparent to me.

²
Moldavia is the Russian language name for this area, and Moldova the Romanian one.

I knew from appearance alone that there were three other Brits on the flight They were identifiable primarily because they were the only passengers who didn't resemble baddies from a 1980s Cold War thriller. One of them was sat across the aisle from me. He seemed a benign fellow, slightly greying and with open features. I leant over and made an invasion of his personal air space.

Why are you going to Moldova?' I asked, assuming that he wasn't on a two-week Thomson package holiday.

'Both Esther and I,' he said gesturing to the young woman sat alongside him, 'are going to work in a home for handicapped children in Chisinau.'

David turned out to be a vicar from an Anglican church in East London who knew as little about our destination as I did. When he asked for the reason for my trip I felt a little sheepish. My cause, after all, lacked the nobility of his, but when I explained it to him he laughed and promised to say a prayer for me.

'I'm not sure if I can influence Him on that one, but I'll give it a go,' he joked.

'Any help gratefully received,' I replied. Who knows, I may need a little looking after.'

I wondered whether God, whoever or whatever He was, would approve of what I was undertaking. I decided that He probably would. After all wasn't He suppose to move in mysterious ways? My way, once explained to people, mystified them immediately – so maybe God and I had an affinity on the mystery front.

The other British passenger was sitting two rows in front of me, and my not knowing why he was Moldova-bound was making me peevish. I tried to guess but it wasn't easy, only having the back of his head to go on. After studying it for some twenty minutes I felt pretty sure that this was the back of the head of a diplomat. It bore all the hallmarks – ears sticking out each side, and hair on the top going right the way down to the nape of the neck. Eventually I plucked up the courage to go and check on the validity of my prognosis.

'Sorry to bother you,' I said, climbing into the vacant seat beside him, 'but I've been trying to guess why you're making this trip. Are you on official business?'

'Kind of. I'm going to get married,' came the reply.

'Blimey.'

Kevin explained that he had met a Moldovan girl on the Internet, as you do, and after an eighteen-month courtship in which they had exchanged hundreds of messages he had finally proposed marriage. This was to be the journey in which he married her and brought her back to live with him in England. I was a little concerned that their relationship might not work so well when it had to move into the physical world where primitive methods of communication such as using words and touching are still favoured. Perhaps they would be OK if they just passed notes to each other for the first two months, or set up computers in each room so they could send each other e-mails.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Message:
How long are you going to be in there?

What do you do Kevin?' I asked, still secretly hoping he might be in the diplomatic corps.

'I work in computers.'

Well of course. How could I have misread the back of his head so badly?

As we touched down I felt an adrenaline rush. I was excited to be in Eastern Europe for the first time. I simply did not know what to expect Would it be stark, unwelcoming and primitive as most of my friends had predicted, or would I find a justification for Andrei's words. 'I wish I was coming with you'? The thrill was in not knowing.

I had my first contact with a Moldovan on home soil when a stern-looking man in oil-stained blue overalls stopped me from filming the plane as I left it. He was scary. With one fiery look and a demonstrative gesture with his hands he ordered me to put my video camera away, making me feel like an enemy of the state who was about to pass on secrets to Whitehall. This plane had been clearly visible to hundreds of people at Gatwick airport so I couldn't fathom why filming it posed a security risk, but this guy didn't seem to be the type to start niggling with. Neither did the bloke in customs who searched my bag with an unswerving vigour that suggested he had been tipped off about me by the bloke in the overalls. He viewed my pristine white plastic round table with suspicion but said nothing. He must have had a long day.

I followed the instructions that Corina had given me over the phone and took a taxi straight to the Hotel National where she had booked me in for one night only. She had asked me whether I had wanted luxury, cheap or middle of the range and I had plumped for the latter. Largely ignored by the driver, I slid the round table into the back seat, got in the front, and started to put my seat belt on. The taxi driver immediately turned and physically restrained me from so doing. I sat back suitably chastised. Clearly wearing a seat belt over here was not a safety precaution but an insult meaning; 'Look mate, I'm putting this on because you're a crap driver and I don't want to die just yet.'

Darkness had fallen so I couldn't see much as we bounced our way along uneven roads to my hotel, but to my right I could make out some shabby-looking high-rise blocks of flats. I looked across to the left over the shoulder of the taciturn driver and saw shabby-looking high-rise blocks of flats. Finally, we arrived at the Hotel National which was situated alongside some shabby-looking high-rise blocks of flats. I paid the driver, got out and surveyed my hotel. How should I describe it? Well, it was shabby-looking, and it bore an uncanny resemblance to a high-rise block of flats. Yes, that does it nicely.

The hotel reception was huge, empty, dimly lit and spartan. For the owners of this place, whether state or private, 'redecorate' was not a word in their working vocabulary. Flaking paint covered the walls on which an occasional faded drab painting hung apologetically. A grey linoleum scarred by decades of discarded cigarette butts spread itself over the wantonly ample floor space. The words 'Mmmm, this is nice' were an awfully long way from the tip of my tongue.

Behind the reception desk a middle-aged woman sat in an overcoat staring at the floor. Far from giving me a warm welcome she appeared to be profoundly irritated that I had interrupted a session of splendidly gloomy soul-searching. Begrudgingly, she looked up at me. She didn't make a sound but made a gesture with her head which seemed to mean Yes, and what
do you
want?' I offered the necessary information and she dispensed me to the lifts as quickly as the confiscation of my passport and issuing of a key allowed.

Would you like someone to help you with your bags, sir?'

Yeah, right. In your dreams Tony.

I struggled up to my room and let myself in. I had never visited a prison before but now I had some feeling for what the cells were like. My disappointment was tempered by a relief that I hadn't plumped for the cheap hotel option. I set the round table down in the corner of the room where it looked uncannily at home and slumped on to the bed.

My God. What had I taken on?