Do you compete with other people?
You can if you have friends, but as it happens I am on my own this evening.
Whose last words were—Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees? asked the screen, offering a choice of Stonewall Jackson, or Michael Jackson, or Jackson Pollock, with clues.
My glass had refilled itself again. I guess they hired Lindsay because she can see in the dark, as well as being quick in the kitchen and a good shaker. I could feel the Samuel Adams unknitting my nerves, and began to get feelings of divine immanence.
Who wrote Gone with the Wind? asked the screen, offering Jane Austen, Margaret Mitchell and Clark Gable, with clues.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it …
Thomas Jefferson and his countrymen did not believe that the upper orders of English society had the right or the wisdom to boss people about. Having come across some of the upper orders of English society at Oxford I am with the Yanks all the way on that one.
When the war against England was won it seemed to the American Church that it was no longer appropriate to pray that wisdom be granted to George III and his ministers, if only because previous prayers had been unanswered. So in the prayer book some names of the earthly powers were changed and a few other changes made but not many, because we don't want to be nasty about it do we? The person who explains all this in the foreword to the Episcopalian prayer book was a gentle soul—he was writing in 1789, not a forgiving time.
Now it is the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, centuries later—
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh …
The mood in St Thomas Pentecostal Church in Cedar Road was still gentle—a big congregation: the worshippers in sports jackets, slacks, shorts: ordinary guys, quiet people, couples, grandfathers, angel granddaughters. Unlike English churchgoers they did not sleep during the sermon or sit trying to recall Winston Churchill's middle name. They were listening—and they wanted you to know they were listening. One gentleman of a certain age had his arm round his wife, and they both leaned forward, encouraging each other with the listening and showing they were having a great time.
We had seen the same attentiveness the night before, in Hooters. Hooters is American for tits. Although Hooters was almost full Monica and I were shown to a table right away and two seventeen-year-old ladies in singlets and knickers came and sat down with us—Howya doon? I shifted my chair as another seventeen-year-old sped past sitting on a tray. She crashed into the counter and everyone cheered.
One of the seventeen-year-olds fetched us a gin and martini and a twenty-four-ounce glass tankard of Samuel Adams, ice cold. The tankard, heavily misted, was a joyful sight on a hot night, and would not have dismayed me on a cold one. The other young lady asked about the food and we each ordered a sandwich based on a fish billed as the cousin of a grouper. The cousins of the groupers came at once, the plates piled. A sandwich over here is a Sunday dinner with a bread roll on the side.
A hundred and fifty people having a great time—the restaurant well lit: same sex groups, families, grandfathers, angels. And they wanted you to know they were having a great time: glancing around to say Hey, can you see I am having a great time! Waitresses sped between the tables sitting on trays and young men too, trying to impress the knickered ones.
Every few minutes a yell from the open kitchen where an African-American gentleman put loaded plates on the counter—Hey I've just cooked this and here it is and I'm having a great time!
The plates were heaped and the customers were fat and laughing and shouted and shouted. The cousins of the groupers were superb and we put the half we could not eat in a box for Jim, who was not having a great time because he was still on the boat. They would not have him in Hooters, even on the balcony.
But that was last night—this morning here we are in St Thomas Church and the reading is from Deuteronomy—
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat without scarcity, where you will lack nothing … You shall eat your fill and bless the LORD for the good land that he has given you.
The Lord your God has certainly delivered on that one, I thought.
The gentleman of a certain age with his arm round his wife leaned forward and a choir of bells on the balcony began to play and the couples and the grandfathers and the angel granddaughters all began to sing.
Bread of Heaven, bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.
THE DAY OF MY OPERATION DAWNED BRIGHT and clear. At least I guess it did because it was half past five when we left the boatyard for Virginia Beach Hospital and what with one thing and another I wasn't around when the sun rose.
Nothing to drink since midnight—no cup of tea. Battlefield Boulevard and the interstate highways were stiff with brake lights. I know these people go to bed at nine, but my God look what time they get up!
Now are you absolutely certain, said Andrea, you have had nothing to eat since last night? Please sign this, and this, and this, so you know your rights, and agree to give us the money. Now we will take your temperature, blood pressure, and your credit card number. Please sit here and Dr Wilder the anaesthetist will come and explain everything that is going to happen.
Ah, I thought, the bugger who tripped me at the last fence.
I had imagined my anaesthetist would be a frail creature, hovering because of his calling somewhere between life and death, uncertain in his opinions, pale and partly transparent like Jim. But Dr Wilder was fair and sturdy and looked like he might still be playing for the hospital football team. He shook my hand and fixed me with a strong professional stare. Yallreddy forall yorone we heldup, he said.
Pardon, I said, and he repeated what he had said.
You must forgive me, doctor, I said, I have a bit of trouble with the language.
You don't understand me?
I'm afraid not. I'm awfully sorry.
Don't understand English?
Well, yes, but you have to speak slowly.
Young Dr Berger had arrived—This guy doesn't understand English, said Dr Wilder.
He does if you speak slowly, said young Dr Berger, he's a writer—some of these writer guys are pretty smart.
Dr Wilder looked at me hard and said slowly—You understand me now?
Yes, I said.
I forgot what I was going to say, said Dr Wilder. This guy really freaks me—and my grandfather came from Shipley in Oxfordshire. And I have a cottage that is two hundred and fifty years old. It's up on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. It is made out of brick.
Goodness, I said, that must be a very early building.
Yes, it's red brick framed in oak. One of the earliest on the shore.
Goodness, I said.
Nice to meet you Mr Darlington. Is that all clear now?
Perfectly, I said.
See you on the operating table, said Dr Wilder.
I HAVE NO RECOLLECTION OF BEING PUT TO sleep. It was a nothing experience: like Céline Dion, like Melvyn Bragg. I seemed to wake up naturally and Monica drove us back to the boat for breakfast.
That night I didn't have any pain but I think the narcotics were quite strong. When the air-conditioner comes on it croaks and moans and then settles down to a whistle and a noise like the beating of g
reat wings. I opened my eyes and there a few yards away was a giant frog, its eyes staring and its mouth wide open. I screamed and hid my face. It wasn't a frog—it was the brass clock at the end of the saloon and the matching barometer alongside and under them like a mouth the oval roses and castles plaque by Ron Hough that we bought on the Grand Union Canal. But it looked like a frog in the darkness and it kept looking like a frog and it stared and it stared and it gaped and the lights from the marina caught it and from each eye there rolled a giant tear.
Next morning Andrea rang and wanted to know if I was all right and if there was anything they could have done better to please me or make me more comfortable in any way and Were the narcotics strong enough? It was such a professional thing to do I nearly cried, and I quite enjoyed my first day on the boat as a convalescent, junked out and listening to Alison Krauss.
MONICA AND I SAT WITH JIM UNDER THE TREES by the little marina lounge and looked across the hundred yards of the Albemarle to Chesapeake Canal, smooth and black.
Whose last words were Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees? I asked.
Michael Jackson, said Monica, or Jackson Pollock.
Stonewall Jackson was shot by one of his own sentries, I said, at Chancellorsville up towards Washington. Robert E. Lee won the battle of Chancellorsville for the rebels but lost poor Stonewall. This morning we will cross over the canal and rest under the shade of the trees—it's the first day for months it's been cool enough to walk without dropping dead. We can have a really good look at the banks of the cut to see if we can moor up like we do in England. In some places on our way south there are no marinas for fifty miles. If we can't moor up we may need to buy a dinghy to get Jim ashore, but can you see us getting Jim in and out of a dinghy?
We will take Jim with us, said Monica—he has not had a proper walk in America yet. What a lovely day—it can't be more than eighty-five degrees.
We drove across the bridge and down to the canalside, and there we were, looking at Atlantic Yacht Basin from the other bank.
Along a crackling path of dried brush and needles and cones and above us the pines. It's just like a real walk, said Monica. Apart from the bamboos we could be walking under the pines on Tittensor Chase in Stone. Now we can start to have a normal life again—it is not much hotter than it gets in England, you are walking properly again, Jim is frolicking; everything is going to be all right. I bet there are butterflies.
Something just bit me, I said, but it is very nice here. We walked back by another way, talking about how nice it was and how everything was going to be all right. The path crunched beneath us—not many people seemed to have walked along it and there was no one around today. There were no butterflies and no birds sang. There was a dragonfly with a face like a monkey.
I got into the car and a white four-wheel drive drove up with CHESAPEAKE on the outside and an old guy on the inside. He rolled down his window and spoke to Monica. They carried on talking. Monica stopped smiling and they talked some more. I thought He is some sort of copper or official and we have done something wrong.
Monica got into the car. Oh dear, she said, that's all we need.
What's the matter? I asked.
They are burrowing into us.
Who is burrowing into us?
The Red Bugs. The old guy is a ranger and he came down a fortnight ago to put up a notice here and when he finished dozens of Red Bugs had burrowed into him. He had to rush home and his wife had to wash him all over and put stuff on his skin.
My leg began to itch.
He stopped me to warn us, said Monica. We must go home at once and shower and then paint the spots where the Red Bugs have burrowed in with nail polish—that's the only thing that works. And wash Jim, because they will have burrowed into him as well.
What happens if we don't?
I don't know—I suppose we will die.
At least let's pick up some ice on the way back, I said, so I can have a cold beer before I begin to die.
At the marina T.J. the dockmaster opened the ice cabinet. T.J., I said, these Red Bugs you have over here, I said—are they fatal?
Red Bugs? said T.J.—never heard of them.
The ones that burrow into your skin—do they kill you?
Oh the chiggers. You can see them where they have burrowed in. They are bright red like a little drop of blood. They itch but you don't die—they do.
Can't you go for a walk here in the US? It's a terrible thing if a man can't go for a walk in the woods with his dog.
Of course you can go for a walk in the US—this is the land of the free, and the home of the brave. It's just the chiggers, and the poison ivy, so best not to go walking except at the right time of year. And the poison oak of course. And the ticks that drop on your head from the pines—they carry deadly diseases. And there are the snakes.
What does poison ivy look like?
It varies a lot.
What is the right time of year?
Well it's not very long, and it depends where you are and what you don't want to come up against, said T. J. Personally I find it best to stay at home. Have a nice day.
Back at the boat I saw a mosquito bite on my leg, but we couldn't see any Red Bugs so we didn't shower or paint ourselves with nail varnish.
THE NEXT DAY MY ANKLES BEGAN TO ITCH. THEY itched for two days and then at three o'clock in the morning they had swelled halfway up to the knee. I put ointment on them and took anti-histamine pills but that did not stop the itching or the pain so I took some narcotics as well and lay talking to the faces in the wall. In the morning there were five hundred spots, each bright red like a little drop of blood, on each ankle where my socks had been.
The next day it was really hot again and Jim would not go for a walk, even on the island. We checked him over for Red Bugs but couldn't find any.
A week later in the slow watches of the night the spots swelled up on my ankles and hundreds more up my leg. The Red Bugs have burrowed through me and are coming out the other side, I thought.
Anti-histamines, narcotics, cortisone, alcohol—all is sin and pain.
I should have listened to the old geezer. That's always been my problem—tell me to do something and I will do the opposite. It works in the UK, which is full of busybodies and everyone patrols his bit of territory and hates any new ideas, and the only sensible response is Sod the lot of them. But it doesn't work over here—I don't think they know what is going on themselves. Most of the time they don't warn you but if they do they bloody well mean it. Will I ever get better—I could have encephalitis and my head will swell up, or malaria coming back all my life, or lose my leg to gangrene. The creatures are inside me, hundreds of them, chewing, shagging, laying eggs, dying. I will be like John Hurt in Alien—they will burst out of me while I am having my dinner and run round the butter dish. The itching, the itching—I can't think of anything else.
It took three weeks for the spots to stop itching, and a year later there were still scars on my legs.
By my troth, said Lancelot, this is a dreadful place.
IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A THURSDAY MORNING when Hurricane Ernesto came up from Florida. His lungs were empty and his petards were blown and all he had left was his rain, which was huge. The water beat on the roof all day and we went to bed and dreamed we were on the Trent and Mersey in a wild night, and in the morning we would turn the boat in Tixall Wide and come back up the Trent Valley, the fields green and brown and the last leaves yellow and rust and the soft rain and the duck-egg sky and the sun dying like a red fish netted in the trees. And here we are in the Star for early doors—A pint of Banks's please and a bag of scratchings and that's a nice fire and has Stanley been in?
When we woke up the boatyard was partly under water. The men in the yard came in and went home. Can't understand it, they said—it has never been this bad, but it will soon go down.
Après nous le déluge. We sat waiting for the flood to go down and it got deeper and deeper.
We have got to get poor Jim on to some grass before we go to bed, said Monica. I will go out and you can pass him over to me.
I can't I said. He weighs thirty pounds. I am Tits Magee, the ruptured hero, forbidden for four weeks to carry more than the weight of twelve ounces of Samuel Adams and a bag of beef jerky.
Monica stood on the gunwale and coaxed Jim up on to the gas locker, where he trembled and stared. Jim does not like jumping when he can't see a landing, and he won't walk in water unless he can see the bottom. He is in some ways a sensible creature. Monica picked him up in her arms and trudged off through the flood like St Christopher.
I am a grandmother, said Monica when they came back. I am seventy years of age. All my life I worka like a dog. I have a rich network of social connections—friends to run with and play bridge with and church friends and children and grandchildren I adore. I have a lovely house with a patio and a forty-inch telly and I can go outside on any day of the year. When I find myself stumbling through gravel in ordinary shoes in the middle of the night in a foot of water fetid with diesel oil and coffee grounds and dead crabs and worse, infested with poisonous snakes and snapping turtles, carrying a cowardly dog that will not jump or walk or swim, with a crippled husband sitting in his armchair covered with red spots, drinking and listening to Mantovani, I say to myself, Monica, somewhere you turned left when you might have turned right.
WE KEEP PUSSER'S RUM ON THE PHYLLIS MAY for the hard times, because it is very strong and can be taken at any time of day and has a long nautical tradition.
I hope you were careful and didn't step on any of those little tiddlers swimming over the boardwalk, I said. It's not their fault—they did you no harm. Here darling—for a brave Mon.
The rum reminds me, said Monica, of when we began to live on the boat and sail round England. Our mooring at Hoo Mill was beautiful and England was beautiful and you knew where you were with things. I mean there were adventures, like the Harecastle Tunnel and the Tardebigge Locks, but people had got the measure of them. I don't think the Americans are in control of their country and sometimes they act as if they don't understand it. Have you noticed how they can't name their animals or birds? Their weather forecasts are wrong, their cities get blown up or washed away and they stand helpless—look at New Orleans. They go off to war and then change their minds. They elect liars and fornicators as presidents. There is a looseness, a cog missing, a knot that has come untied or has never been tied up properly. Maybe they know this and that's why they seek security—why they have gated communities like Eagle Pointe, why they have fundamentalist religion and country music, why they fight crazy foreign wars, why they have guns, and television linkwomen with false teeth. That's why they need Tony Bennett, and why they need Engelbert Humperdinck and we don't, and why Andy Williams, dear Andy a hundred years old, is still their Huckleberry friend.
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