 Man from the South Read by Stephen Mangan It was getting on towards six o'clock So I thought I'd buy myself a beer And go out and sit in a deck chair by the swimming pool And have a little evening sun I went to the bar And got the beer And carried it outside and wandered down the garden Towards the pool It was a fine garden with lawns And beds of azaleas and tall coconut palms And the wind was blowing strongly through the tops of the palm trees Making the leaves hiss and crackle As though they were on fire I could see the clusters of big brown nuts Hanging down underneath the leaves There were plenty of deck chairs around the swimming pool And there were white tables And huge brightly coloured umbrellas And sun-burned men and women Sitting around in bathing suits In the pool itself there were three or four girls And about a dozen boys All splashing about and making a lot of noise And throwing a large rubber ball at one another I stood watching them The girls were English from the hotel The boys I didn't know about But they sounded American And I thought they were probably naval cadets Who'd come ashore from the U.S. Naval Training Vessel Which had arrived in Harbour that morning I went over and sat down under a yellow umbrella Where there were four empty seats And I poured my beer And settled back comfortably with a cigarette It was very pleasant sitting there In the pool It was very pleasant It was very pleasant sitting there in the sunshine With beer and cigarette It was pleasant to sit and watch the bathers Splashing about in the green water The American sailors were getting on nicely With the English girls They'd reached the stage where they were diving Under the water and tipping them up by their legs Just then I noticed a small, oldish man Walking briskly around the edge of the pool He was immaculately dressed In a white suit And he walked very quickly with little bouncing strides Pushing himself high Up onto his toes with each step He had on a large, creamy, Panama hat And he came bouncing along the side of the pool Looking at the people in the chairs He stopped beside me and smiled Showing two rows of very small Uneven teeth Slightly tarnished I smiled back Excuse, please But may I sit here? Certainly, I said Go ahead He bobbed around to the back of the chair And inspected it for safety Then he sat down and crossed his legs His white, buckskin shoes Had little holes punched all over them For ventilation A fine evening He said They are all fine evenings here in Jamaica I couldn't tell if the accent were Italian or Spanish But I felt Sample complete Ready to continue?