Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness

Alexandra Fuller

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857202383
• Print ISBN:
  9781849832960

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness tells the story of the author's mother, Nicola Fuller.

Nicola Fuller and her husband were a glamorous and optimistic couple and East Africa lay before them with the promise of all its perfect light, even as the British Empire in which they both believed waned. They had everything, including two golden children – a girl and a boy. However, life became increasingly difficult and they moved to Rhodesia to work as farm managers. The previous farm manager had committed suicide. His ghost appeared at the foot of their bed and seemed to be trying to warn them of something. Shortly after this, one of their golden children died. Africa was no longer the playground of Nicola's childhood. They returned to England where the author was born before they returned to Rhodesia and to the civil war.

The last part of the book sees the Fullers in their old age on a banana and fish farm in the Zambezi Valley. They had built their ramshackle dining room under the Tree of Forgetfulness. In local custom, this tree is the meeting place for villagers determined to resolve disputes. It is in the spirit of this Forgetfulness that Nicola finally forgot – but did not forgive – all her enemies including her daughter and the Apostle, a squatter who has taken up in her bananas with his seven wives and forty-nine children. Funny, tragic, terrifying, exotic and utterly unself-conscious, this is a story of survival and madness, love and war, passion and compassion.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Also by Alexandra Fuller
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents
• Cast of Main Characters
• PART ONE
• Nicola Fuller of Central Africa Learns to Fly
• Nicola Huntingford Is Born
• Nicola Fuller and the Fancy Dress Parties
• Roger Huntingford's War
• Nicola Huntingford Learns to Ride
• Nicola Fuller of Central Africa Goes to Her High School Reunion
• Nicola Huntingford, the Afrikaner and the Perfect Horse
• Nicola Huntingford and the Mau Mau
• PART TWO
• Tim Fuller of No Fixed Abode
• Nicola Fuller and the Perfect House
• Nicola Fuller in Rhodesia: Round One
• Nicola Fuller in England
• Nicola Fuller in Rhodesia: Round Two
• Olivia
• Nicola Fuller and the End of Rhodesia
• PART THREE
• Nicola Fuller of Central Africa and the Tree of Forgetfulness
• Nicola Fuller of Central Africa at Home
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Nicola Fuller of Central Africa: The Soundtrack
• Glossary: A Guide to Unusual or Foreign Words and Phrases