Cibolo

It's Marcie's birthday so we're going to Cibolo. Marcie is one of the women who turns up to paint rocks every Sunday as part of Bess's group, because my wife is now some sort of guru in the field of decorative rock painting. Bess doesn't know the woman very well, but some of the others will be there and it will be fun, possibly, so that's why we're going.

Cibolo is a small town just past Randolph Air Force Base - not actually San Antonio and we almost make open country before we get there, but it's not much of a distance. Marcie is celebrating her birthday at Ernie's Patio Bar so we're outside with a couple of food trucks and a live band setting up beneath a covered stage which probably used to be a barn. We meet Catherine, whom I've met before; then Fung Yui On, whose name I probably have wrong but I'm determined to make the effort. She's originally from China and is of short stature, or whatever the acceptable term happens to be this week. As we shake I am astonished by the size of her hands, which resemble those of a child, but she seems nice so I'm trying not to be a dick. Chris, Marcie's husband, tells me that he lived in Putney in London for a while. I tell him I vaguely know Putney, although I lived in the south-east, and that's more or less the end of that conversation.

I get myself a Modelo then have something from the Philippino food truck, mainly out of curiosity because I have no idea what people eat in the Philippines. It turns out they eat egg rolls and noodles, amongst other things, and the noodles are in particular pretty great.

I meet Marcie. She asks me to tell her about myself, about England, about where I'm from, about everything, so I guess it's going to be one of those conversations.

'You know Teletubbies,' I begin, reeling off the usual spiel whilst trying to keep it interesting for myself, but she has the twinkly smile of someone who may or may not be listening.

'What do you do?' she asks.

'I'm a writer,' I say, although I'm getting closer and closer to just making something up - I'm a taxidermist, or I work at the VD clinic.

'What do you write?' she asks, then tells me what she writes. It's something personal and it's for her therapist. There's a lot of metaphor. She scrolls through things on her smartphone and then says, 'I'm embarrassed now. It's very personal.'

'Okay,' I say, because actually I'm not massively interested.

'Can you do an American accent?'

'Not when I'm asked. I get too self-conscious.'

Cupcakes are passed around and evening descends. I'm introduced to more people whose names I will have forgotten in minutes. I don't like having the conversation about being from England over and over, given that I've now lived in Texas for a decade, and I worry that I'm beginning to sound like the annoying animated Cockney ghecko from the Geico television commercials.

Chuck Shaw and his band take to the stage and play driving, bluesy country and western. It's sort of uptempo but with an element of pathos, and it's played with heart and confidence. You can tell they're having a great time. It's the sort of music which, even if it's not your thing, you can't help but appreciate it; and is as such a whole different ball game from the shitty, slick country and autotune we had piped at us in the Longhorn Steakhouse on Thursday evening.

It's getting cold, so Bess goes to the car to raid the Goodwill bag she's been carrying in the trunk, never quite getting around to dropping it off. I get a shirt to go over the shirt I'm wearing, and it does the job. I stand at a distance from the group because it feels less awkward. I've never been the most sociable individual and I don't really have much to say to anyone.

Chuck's forth or fifth song features a deafening solo from a passing train which renders the music inaudible for the best part of a minute. They keep playing and you can tell they find the interruption hilarious. Applause greets the end of each song, although there aren't actually many of us here - probably less than ten who aren't here for Marcie's birthday. Marcie's young daughters run around yelping, doing sarcastic impersonations of enthusiastic young men at rock concerts making the dude noise. It actually seems kind of rude.

Eventually we leave.

I feel awkward, but it turns out that Fung Yui On is herself a woman of very few words, and that my impression of Marcie is about the same as everyone else's impression of Marcie; not that it matters because we're heading home. I didn't exactly have fun, but I didn't not have fun, so it was okay.