I decided to give up my quest for the parrot, temporarily, and head for home – sweet irony – to my own people. Back in my village I debated seriously with myself the appeal of staying with your own kind rather than mixing on equal terms; the virtues of untrammelled nature; the split between magic and science. I was getting nowhere happily when the ear-blasting sound of a helicopter landing brought me from my hammock. Lo and behold! I was confronted by the notorious Cosmetics Queen, the tycoon who frequently drops in on my village searching for recipes from indigenous people. I told her immediately of the wonderful face cream we make from ants’ balls.
She swallowed it. Eyeing my grandmother’s spectacular black hair, she asked her what traditional recipe she used to keep it so shiny.
Before I could slap my hand over her mouth, my grandmother replied shyly: ‘Brylcreem – when I can get it.’
Despite this, the tycoon set about organising a Brazil-nut plantation. The pay was good as she had promised. But it turned out that no one had time to mend their huts or plant their farms. Then it turned out that those who planted the nuts were paid less than those who harvested the nuts and those who harvested them were paid less than those who pounded them for hair-oil. Fights broke out as the wives of the harvesters left their husbands for the pounders. Turmoil ensued. Cries of ‘I goin’ break she blasted leg’ resounded through the forest. Heads bounced off rocks. Teeth sank into buttocks. Arrows thwacked into arms and legs. The village collapsed. We all headed for another part of the forest.
I confided in my grandmother and told her that I had not found the parrot despite trekking all through Europe. She said that the parrot had returned home to South America, but that in large areas the forest was cut down or the trees were poisoned and denuded and looked like a regatta of ships’ masts. She told me that the parrot had been seen fluttering from pole to pole but that it had no feathers and a big tumour on its neck.
For a long time I sobbed.
And then I thought: Well, you know you can’t trust grandmothers – they’re full of all that crap. Mine can’t tell the past from the future – they’re both woven together on her wonky loom. Unable to decide whether we should stick to ourselves or throw ourselves on the mercy of the wide world, and sick to death of ants, jiggers, mosquitoes, tics, flies, bugs and cyanide in the rivers, I decided to return and take up residence once more in the stars.
Now that I’m leaving I will let you into the secret of my name. It is Macun … No. I’ve changed my mind. But yes. I will tell you the story of the parrot. Another time.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to:
George Simon.
Chofoye Melville who gave permission for the loan of his name to a character quite unlike himself.
Wayland Gordon who, similarly, loaned his nickname.
Elaine Radzik for advice on a formal dinner menu.
The Royal Astronomical Society.
The London Arts Board.
A Note on the Author
Pauline Melville’s first book, Shape-shifter, a collection of short stories, won the Guardian First Fiction Prize, the Macmillan Silver Pen Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book. The Ventriloquist’s Tale is her first novel.
PRAISE FOR PAULINE MELVILLE
THE VENTRILOQUIST’S TALE
‘Striking and brilliant … A tale of sensual bliss and comedy.’ Daily Telegraph
‘A wonderful début novel … A stunning multilayered depiction of Amerindian life and a brilliant metaphor for the meeting of two worlds … Melville is a superb storyteller, capable of writing that is both earthy and expansive, sharp and lyrical, successfully evoking the sounds, smells and textures of the savannahs.’ Observer
‘A remarkable, enthralling first novel … Melville interlocks the warp of the personal with the weft of miscegnation and its endlessly mutating consequences. She evokes the extraordinary melting pot of races, cultures, religions and superstitions that is modern Guyana, the only English-speaking country in South America.’ Scotland on Sunday
‘A beguiling first novel … The humour and earthiness are matched by lush description. The result is absorbing fiction that wears its complex ideas lightly — with compassion and mischief.’ Guardian
‘Dazzling. This first novel shows her confidently tunnelling under the ramparts of institutions and myths to run out chuckling just before the charge went off.’ Independent
‘In this marvellous, moving and wittily informed book, Melville marshals her themes dispassionately, skilfully paralleling events in the past and present and combining passages of lyrical beauty with wonderful comic vignettes.’ Sunday Times
‘A must.’ Graham Swift, Sunday Times
‘The story is rich with the sounds and smells, myths and legends of Guyana. Revenge and betrayal, disease and death become strangely coloured threads in a tapestry of beliefs and fantasy … The result is an exotic yet contemporary novel rich in sensuous understanding, and threaded through with delightful intellectual games.’ Literary Review
‘A parable on desire, disaster and the magical laws of love.’ She
‘A sharply funny, richly fantastical story, in prose as lush and corrupt as her sensual characters and luxuriant settings … An exhilarating novel that combines myths and modern life with a dazzling exuberance.’ Mail on Sunday
‘A haunting and intelligent first novel … beautiful cadences and luminous writing.’ TLS
‘The Ventriloquist’s Tale brilliantly juxtaposes South American and western attitudes to history in a dazzling story.’ Caroline Gascoign, Sunday Times Books of the Year
‘Pauline Melville shows wit, panache and imagination in her seductive first novel.’ New Statesman
‘The Ventriloquist’s Tale is told by a beguiling new voice. Pauline Melville writes with an unusually dispassionate lushness that is both intellectual and sensual. By taking a notably cool look at an extremely steamy story, she has created an eyeopening fiction. I believe her to be one of the few genuinely original writers to emerge in recent years.’ Salman Rushdie
First published in Great Britain 1997
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 1997 by Pauline Melville
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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eISBN: 978-1-4088-4931-6
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