Behind the buildings, the forest loomed: a sense of chlorophyll and insects on too many legs.
There were clothes lines stretched across the roadway, from which Western-style clothing hung. Shorts and T-shirts, socks and pants, in vibrant colours. “Today’s wash day,” explained Quench, as if he’d read my thoughts.
Through the odd open doorway I glimpsed adults busying themselves inside, among the shadows. One lady came out onto her porch and waved; when I returned the greeting, she made it clear it was Quench she had been waving to.
Out on the dry-dirt road a few children, cropped-haired and lithe with muscle, ran around in shorts and Manchester United tops, kicking a football. They stopped playing and stared at me as we walked past.
Quench hailed them in the local tongue and they began to follow us, dancing in our wake and laughing, until the barkeep turned around and told them to, “Leave it aht, lads.” They ran off.
We were on a mission. It felt good.
By the time we had left the village behind, the persistent animal calls that had kept me awake at night no longer troubled me. Instead they drifted into the background, like the sound of traffic back in England.
Where vegetation had been cleared away for the development of the village, the sun had felt oppressive. As the dwellings dwindled the trees began to take over, their broad-leafed foliage forming a high canopy, casting welcome shadows about the ground.
The smells were of vegetation and earth, rammed up singed nostrils by heat. Something about the sensation seemed strange, and it took a while to realise why: there was no pollution here, only unbastardised nature.
Vines slithered up pole-straight trunks, taking the shortest route from seed to sun, and often I found myself double-taking, checking for snakes. If there were one creature’s path I most feared crossing, it was that of the serpent. I had only ever seen them on television, but that was enough: generally featuring a fool in shorts holding one by the tail, chatting to camera, while the writhing beast lunged, hoping to inject said fool with enough venom to make his head turn black and fall off.
“Are there snakes in Mlwlw?” I asked Quench, already fearing the response.
“Sure,” he replied. “The locals go an abaht the bang-bang viper – packs enough poison to fell a rhino. Watch aht for that one!”
I glanced around, paranoid. “What’s it look like?”
“Y’know, I never fort to ask! Don’t worry ’baht it, Pilsbury. Them’s more scared of you than you is of them.”
Were that true, I wondered how they functioned on a daily basis.
After about half an hour we reached the Shaman’s hut, in a clearing set back from the vague path we had been following. It was cylindrical in shape with a conical roof, all natural materials. Coconuts hung from its eaves.
It struck me suddenly that all the animals had become silent, their cackles and caws replaced by an eerie whistling that came from within the hut.
Quench sensed my unease. “Nuffing to worry abaht,” he said. “’E’s more of a mystic than a witch doctor. Jus’ let me do the talkin’. Come on.”
As we were about to enter through the hanging-reed curtain that formed the door, I yelped and stumbled backwards. “Those… those coconuts. They’re not coconuts. Aren’t they… shrunken heads?”
Horrible, leathery, pocket-sized heads, with dark hollows for eyes and mouths that moaned in silence – perhaps a dozen of them – hung by their gathered hair, greeting visitors like pickled ghouls.
“Don’t take no notice of them,” said Quench. “’E buys ’em in from up-river. They’re just for show. ’E’s quite the showman, the Shaman.” He chuckled at his own sense of poetry.
Against my better judgement I entered the hut, wondering when to commence grovelling. At once the weird whistling stopped.
In the light of the lofted door I caught sight of two figures seated against the far wall, one man-sized with perhaps a tall hat; the other, much smaller, appeared to be sitting on the taller man’s knee. As the curtain dropped behind me the image fell into gloom. I felt Quench’s arm around my shoulders, pressing me down, and we dropped to our knees. There I stayed, listening to my own breathing, uncertain. The smell of the dry-earth floor mingled with something acrid, seeming to emanate from a pot hanging over a dwindling fire across the way. Fresh sweat joined stale sweat under my top.
I waited for someone to speak. No one did.
Then I heard movement. The Shaman and his colleague had risen. Padding feet approached, slowly. Something touched my shoulder from behind and I flinched, barely containing a squeal. Next the other shoulder, then the same two light taps came from in front of me, as dark shapes passed by. I suspected I was being circled and anointed with a stick.
On the third circuit the movement stopped and at once a hideous apparition took shape just inches before me in mid-air: a countenance of rotting stumpy teeth and burning widened eyes, with thick white stripes, like a tiger’s markings, dragged across glowing dark flesh.
I flung myself backwards, exhaling my fear, and would have fallen head-first out of the door had I not missed it and cracked the back of my skull against a wall.
“Hahaha!” went the apparition.
Then I realised: it was the larger of the two figures – the Shaman, no doubt – shining a pocket torch under his chin.
Oh yes, very effective, very funny, I thought, part pissed off, part petrified. If this little ritual were for my benefit, it was working.
Next, a blind was lifted at the rear of the hut and sunlight flooded the space, the sudden glare causing me to shield my eyes. The figures now sat illuminated from behind, drenched in shadow. Even in such awkward lighting I could tell there was something odd about the smaller fellow. The way he sat, bolt upright like a meerkat, back on the Shaman’s lap.
The Shaman spoke, in a language that was all deep consonants and contorted tongue, rising and falling, the effect not that dissimilar to the sound of a didgeridoo. I glanced toward Quench for advice, but he remained kneeling, head bowed.
The smaller figure’s head turned to face me. “I an great Shaman son,” he said. “He not skleak your tongue so I translate thor you his great oo-ords… his great skeakings… things he say. Stek ford.”
What did he mean, “Stek ford?” And something about the voice. So unnaturally pitched, and strangulated. Though my senses were disoriented by the entire experience, something was niggling at the back of my mind.
“Go on!” hissed Quench.
“Go on, what?” I hissed back.
“Step forward!”
I had to remind myself why we were there – Dextrose’s crazed sketch – having become more concerned about remaining sane. What could I say that might resemble decorum? How did one even address a shaman?
I rose and walked forward. The closer I approached the shamanic duo, the more I could make out. The Shaman himself was dressed in a skirt-type garment made of animal skin, into which multi-coloured beads had been stitched in seemingly random shapes. His torso was bare, his nipples both run through with an ivory hook, and he had a pot belly. Garlands of dried leaves hung around his neck. His face, painted with those white stripes, looked haggard but hard. He wore a conical hat, like a wizard’s, with sun and moon designs set in beading, another of his precious shrunken heads hanging from its peak.
And… Bugger me, if my suspicions about his son weren’t correct.
“Hmmn!” went the Shaman, thrusting out his hand.
“See!” translated his son.
Among the shafts of sunlight I saw the Shaman’s bony index finger held out towards me. Running through it appeared to be a bloody nail; however, the red-paint job was poor and there was no blood on the digit itself, which was a dead giveaway. In fact, I’d once bought the same ‘Nail Through Finger!’ trick as a child.
The Shaman quickly withdrew his hand into his lap and returned it with a flourish, his now nail-free finger miraculously ‘healed’.
“Klowerthul nagic!” declar
ed the son.
“Sorry?” I said.
“’E means ‘powerful magic’,” Quench explained from the back.
“I see. That is powerful magic indeed,” I lied. “Listen. Would you mind if I had a quick word with my friend?”
The Shaman started. The boy regarded his father then me, and his mouth dropped open, incredulous.
I didn’t bother waiting for their answer.
“Who’s the nutter with the ventriloquist’s dummy?” I hissed in Quench’s ear.
“Be careful what you say!” he hissed back. “That’s the top dog round ’ere you’re talkin’ abaht.”
“With the lame nail-through-the-finger trick?”
“Well it fools everyone else.”
“Did it fool you?” I snorted.
He changed the subject. “’Ow did you spot the dummy?”
“What, you mean his son made of wood?”
“Wood, yeah.”
“Wearing a monocle, top hat and three-piece suit?”
“That’s right.”
“You did know it was a dummy?”
“Course! After a little while.”
We debated very hastily the point of continuing with the plan, while the Shaman sat mumbling with his son in tongues, clearly put out. I was all for leaving, until Quench pointed out that if we quit now we only had Dextrose to fall back on. It was a deal clincher.
Bar my dignity, I had nothing to lose. And how many times during my travels had that remained unscathed and intact? I was reminded mercifully briefly of my abduction on Emo Island, by the madman Borhed and his minions, when to win my freedom I had been obliged to choose the winner of an ‘Insect Race to Death’. And I had actively cheered on a dung beetle.
I returned to the Shaman and knelt (playing along). “Great Shaman, I wish for your wisdom.”
His son spoke: “You hath angered great Shaman. Thery dangerous. Cun closer. Oo-otch!”
The Shaman beckoned me forward with a bony finger until I was within a metre of his face. His lips were terribly chapped and the madness resulting from power danced in his eyes.
He held out the palm of his hand – the one that wasn’t up his son’s bum – between our two faces. On it was laid a small pile of brown powder. He looked at it, looked at me, and leered, all fucked teeth and gum disease. Then he blew it in my face.
Immediately I sniffed, sniffed again, then could not hold it back. As I sneezed violently, I ducked just in time to avoid covering the Shaman in snot.
Sneezing powder.
“Klowerthul nagic!” declared the son.
At that range I could see his daddy’s lips move.
I showed the Shaman Harrison Dextrose’s sketch, which had become rather limp in my sweat-drenched back pocket. He studied it closely, turning it this way and that, as Quench and I had done previously.
Eventually he said something in that didgeridoo language of his.
I addressed the dummy. “What’s he saying?”
“He say there is klace where the cattle klay thootgall.”
The Shaman and wooden boy both stared at me.
I stared back. “There is a place where the cattle play football?”
The Shaman laughed, a deep, rumbling, laugh – “Hrr-hrr-hrr-hrr-hrr” – while his son’s mouth clattered woodenly up and down, red tongue flashing on and off.
The Shaman reached forward and patted me on the shoulder, now wheezing at his own wit.
“Shanan idea oth joke,” said the dummy. “Gut he does know neaning oth your riddle. Thirst oo-ee nake deal. Yes?”
We had cut a deal, the Shaman and I.
He needed to travel deep into the jungle to pick up some “nagic sucklies” – “magic supplies” – from a “lost tribe”, as the Shaman called them. I happened to be in possession of a motorbike and sidecar.
The Shaman claimed to understand Dextrose’s sketch, and would explain it to me once I had chauffeured him into the interior of the jungle. Though I was convinced he had by far the better end of the deal, I was too polite to say so.
Then we were back out in the sunshine, among the non-talking heads. Immediately, a wooziness hit me.
“Wow!” I said, as sky became orange and purple. “I feel unusual.”
“Me too,” said Quench. “Did you notice the smell in there?”
I nodded, which only made me feel dizzier.
“Psychoactives. The Shaman brews ’em. From roots an’ leaves an’ suchlike. ’E uses ’em to visit uver spiritual planes. Least that’s what ’e says. I reckon ’e jus’ loves gettin’ wasted! But dahn’t you worry, son, you’ve only breaved in a few fumes. ’E drinks the stuff!”
I began choking, feeling nauseous.
Quench went on: “So. I reckon that went pretty well.”
I regarded him from my bent-double position. “Did it?”
“Sure!”
“Really?”
“Well. Last time I visited the Shaman ’e give me some soap, an’ after I used it me face turned black!”
As I followed Livingstone Quench into the bar, knackered and drenched after the walk back, I fully expected to find Dextrose in his usual spot. He did not disappoint.
Already his table was covered in empty bottles and he looked half-cut, staring morosely into the latest glass neck. I felt a pang of self-pity take shape in my gut. What chance did I have of getting through to such a sorry mess?
“Alright, ’Arry!” called Quench, quite jovial, no doubt used to the sight.
Dextrose noticed him. “More beer!” he called back.
He didn’t even look at me.
“Brought your boy, Pilsbury,” said Quench. “Maybe it’s time you two got to know each uver, yeah?”
“No, it’s OK, Livingstone. But thanks for trying,” I mumbled. “I think I’ll go and lie down.”
“Bollocks!” said the barman, manhandling me towards Dextrose’s table. “You take a seat and we’ll all ’ave a nice chat. Beer?”
I wasn’t convinced. “I might have something soft, thanks.” I’d seen what alcohol could do to people.
“’Ave a beer,” he persisted. “I might ’ave a few meself tonight.”
It struck me that Quench had not yet taken any money from me, which led to me recalling my financial situation: £175 in travellers’ cheques. Enough for bed and board, I imagined, though hardly sufficient to get me home.
Home: England. Familiarity, stability and sweet ennui. What was I even doing in Mlwlw, I wondered, sitting opposite this propped-up dolt?
I dropped my head into my hands and rubbed my eyeballs so hard that shades of crimson and purple lolled around inside my eyelids.
A voice broke into my self-absorption. “Cheer up,” it slurred. “Might never minking happen.”
Dextrose, of all the cheek! He was staring at me, elbows on table, half-sneer on his chops.
“It already is happening!” I snapped back. “And you’re causing it!”
“Is I?” He looked baffled. “How?”
By being revealed as my father – and a useless drunk – frankly. Yet what should I have expected? I’d read his book. I knew what he was like. Had I never picked up the thing, become so drawn into it, I would never have met him. Then again I’d still be a sofa-sloth back in Glibley. His book had opened my eyes; was it his fault I now wished I could close them? Cause and effect.
In the end, the best I could reply was: “You’re supposed to be my father.”
“Is I?” He blinked. Or tried to; the right eyelid refused to open and he prised it apart with filthy fingers. He peered at me, as if through specs. “Yer know, that rings a minking bell.”
Rings a bell! And so it all spewed out: the confusion, the fear, the righteous indignation. “Mr Dextrose, I have spent the last month following in your footsteps. I’ve been trussed up and imprisoned, I’ve been hung over the edge of a volcano, I’ve been drugged, I’ve been shot at. I feared for my life. But I made it. Which amazed me. Believe me, it did. And when I arrived here I me
t you. Out of the blue. My hero. And just to put the icing on the cake, you turn out to be my father! And you know what?” It was obvious from his expression that he didn’t. “I’m gutted. You don’t remember me, do you? What’s my name, Mr Dextrose? What’s the name of your son?”
He licked his lips, rested a hand on my forearm, spoke slowly and soothingly. “Would yer like us to sign a book for yer?”
“You smug bastard, I…”
“Now-now,” cut in Quench, banging three bottles down on the table. “That’s no way to start, is it? ’Ere, ’Arry, tell us abaht that time you met them fat lasses in that place… Enzo Island? Elmo Island?”
“It’s not Elmo. It’s Emo,” I huffed. “Emo Island.” That place with that bloody dung beetle.
Dextrose took a few swigs of beer and wiped a forearm across his mouth. “So. Yer wants a few stories, does yer?”
My rage vanished like a bloodstain bleached at the prospect of hearing Dextrose’s adventures from the author’s own mouth. How well I knew his own tales of Emo Island. And those ‘fat lasses’ Quench referred to, so indelicately – surely they couldn’t be the lusty Frihedhags, those aged sisters uneasy on the eye, who had helped to save me from Borhed?
I’d slept with Piggy Frihedhag, by accident – being rather drunken following the celebrations of Borhed’s demise – and had woken up with an arm trapped in the terrible vacuum between her voluminous buttocks.
But of course, it was I who had vanquished the malevolent Borhed, no one else, and it was I who should take the credit. This, I realised, was an opportunity for a little showboating of my own; Dextrose’s braggadocio could wait a moment.
This’d floor them. Earn me a little respect.
“Livingstone,” I said, “have you ever killed a man with a dead penguin?” Because I had.
I’d expected him to regard me with manly pride, shaking his head in mute disbelief. But no – he actually stopped and thought for a while, as if he had often considered employing an arsenal of viciously pointy taxidermy.
Looking for Mrs Dextrose Page 3