Shit Happens at the Vasco
and how swordfish can effect productivity
by Nicholas James Rosslee
Upon entering the Vasco da Gama Tavern in Green Point, you may feel as though you are being taken on a journey, through a wormhole, and into a byegone era. The establishment resembles a Wes Anderson film set — if Wes Anderson was a fifty year old Afrikaans man, with a job as a travelling alcohol salesman, who drove a Ford Cortina. In other words: it’s brilliant.
My relationship with the Vasco started around my sixteenth birthday when my dad, JR, took me there for three lunches in a row in the September school holidays. The first day it was my dad, my brothers and I, the second, with his friend Mark and on the third day I brought my friend Alwyn along. Dad reasoned this sequence of unbelievable lunches out with, “Once I get the thought of the taste of their swordfish into my head I’ve got little chance of productivity.” He must have thought about swordfish a lot more than in just those three days.
The man behind the bar, taking our orders, serving our beers and generally enjoying the fact that we were enjoying ourselves was George. By virtue of his unparalleled Portuguese-ness we assumed for years that George owned the Vasco. He worked there.
One day my brothers and I rolled in for Friday afternoon beers and in all likelihood shared a whole peri-peri chicken, some calamari tentacles and a trinchado — in all likelihood. Unusually, George was nowhere to be seen so we asked Rita where he might be: “George has gone back to Portugal!” But she didn’t say it with all that much conviction as she took away our empty glasses.
We didn’t buy it for a second. “Gone back to Portugal” sounded a bit like that dog of your cousins that “went to go live on the farm”, did it not? This saddened us as almost as much as we were sad to be treated with kid gloves — again. We raised our glasses and toasted the good man. On our next trip to the Vasco there was no sign of George. Nor the time after. We never asked again.
For years Alwyn and I, or either of my brothers, never needed to discuss at great length where we would be enjoying lunch and catching up after not seeing each other for a while. It quickly became the place amongst our friends, where we celebrated birthdays, farewells, welcome-homes or what-have-yous. If you thought your girlfriend was cool enough you could even bring her along, whether she fitted in at the Vasco with five of your mates was, and is, the true acid test for relationships in our twenties. Also, for me, I had to be certain I knew what I was doing, as there was a good chance that we would find ourselves sitting with my dad, and possibly even Mark.
There was a time in first or second year varsity when we were all so poor that all we could really afford to do there was drink their catembes. A catembe — for those of you who don’t go to Portuguese restaurants with born ruffians — is a Portuguese cocktail: one part Tassenberg, one part Coke served in a pint glass with ice and a slice of lemon. Rita spoke to the kitchen and managed to bring out free rolls for us to dunk in their spicy, garlicky, boozy trinchado sauce. She could do this because she didn’t serve us the steak cubes that supposedly defined the trinchado dish, and she loved us.
George happened to return one day to our surprise, defying his euphemismic death. I saw him crossing Somerset Road, heading over to, probably the Spar. My brothers didn’t believe me when I rang them up. The next time we returned to the Vasco there he was, behind the bar, and had I chatted to him longer, I may have been able to say he returned “with renewed vigour”. I’m not really all that sure about his levels of vigour.
Meanwhile not so far away in another part of Cape Town my dad’s fate began to change — almost overnight. He never dreamt of the Vasco’s swordfish the way he had in the decade before and you could say that ‘the wine didn’t come to the top of his cup’ any longer. After a unfortunate series of events, events that I could not do justice to in this column, ol’ JR got hit by a bus and died.
Shortly after that we found collective solace in a return to the Vasco. It’s how he would want us to remember him. He would be happy knowing that his best friends and family were there eating his favourite dishes and having ice cold beers and catembes. Possibly even a brandy. Collectively.
When your dad dies, people make a lot of effort to make you feel better about what is a truly kak situation. Stories, anecdotes and perhaps even a retelling of his most idiotic jokes — my favourite ones — punctuated a memorable afternoon, an afternoon we try to repeat on his birthday every year. People also wrote letters and sent emails. The thoughts, those words, and those moments were greatly appreciated at the time, as they are now.
So when we sat in the Vasco and reflected on dad’s passing the word had spread. Between us, the staff and maybe even a regular or two, we knew that one of the Vasco’s most familiar faces would not be returning. George didn’t really seem too keen to talk to us about it, shying away from a difficult conversation. He ended up bringing a round of drinks to the table and reluctantly spat out what was bothering him. I remember a fatalistic shrug of the shoulders as he said “Shit happens you know.” to me and my brothers. He went back to behind the bar.
My brothers and I were taken aback by the frankness of his commiseration. It didn’t feel particular sensitive and guess we hoped for more of an acknowledgment. Every time I think about that moment, either when I think about the Vasco and sometimes when I think about my dad, it stands out more and more. Three years down the line it is probably the only commiseration I can remember with such vivid recall — it did have brevity on its side.
George, has not “gone back to Portugal”, he has also since passed away. There’s a really great picture of him hanging up in the Vasco now which made me very happy to see as he looks content and exactly as we remember him. I can’t help but wonder what sort of send-off he got.
Maybe he would be happy to know that we remember him, and it isn’t the same without him behind that bar. Perhaps, even, he would want us to acknowledge that in spite of the fact that while we’re out there creating so many more special memories: shit will also happen.
