Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness tells the story of the author's mother Nicola Fuller. Nicola Fuller & her husband were a glamorous & optimistic couple & 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 & a boy. However life became increasingly difficult & 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 & 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 & to the civil war. The last part of the book sees the Fullers in their old age on a banana & 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 & the Apostle a squatter who has taken up in her bananas with his seven wives & forty-nine children. Funny tragic terrifying exotic & utterly unself-conscious this is a story of survival & madness love & war passion & compassion.