‘Ants,’ I whimpered, still cavorting.
Nina approached cautiously and started to swipe at my legs and arms with one hand. The other, in which she held the torch, was covering her nose and mouth and she was shaking.
‘It’s all right,’ I muttered. ‘You can laugh out loud.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But you looked so funny leaping around. Like a puppet.’ I called her a heartless bitch and that made her laugh even more. She began brushing her hand gently down the front of my thighs to sweep away the last few tenacious ants, and in spite of the pain I could feel the tweaking of an imminent boner, so I had to turn away quickly and concentrate on trying to picture James Callaghan with no dothes on – a trick which has worked for me since my teens. Nina didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, but instead said, ‘I’ve got a pair of tweezers in the Land Rover. I could pull those claws out. But I’m not sucking out the poison,’ she went on, over her shoulder, and I followed her thinking James Callaghan, James Callaghan, James Callaghan . . .
Anyway, I lay on my stomach on one of the bench seats with the light on so Nina could see what she was doing, and she scrabbled around in the luggage for a while until she found the tweezers and then set to work to remove the pincers one by one, dabbing each puncture mark with TCP.
‘I smell like a thirteen-year-old on his first date,’ I grumbled, wincing as I felt the sting of torn flesh. ‘Are you sure those are tweezers you’re using and not a fish-hook?’
‘You’re in no position to complain, so I’d advise you to shut up,’ she said firmly.
‘I can’t afford to lose too much blood, you know. Mine’s a rare group.’
‘What is it?’
‘A.’
‘It’s not that rare,’ said Nina. ‘I’m A myself. We can donate to each other if necessary. What were you doing outside anyway?’
‘Looking at the stars,’ I said. ‘I was in the middle of this transcendental religious experience. Now I’ll never know whether it was the Holy Spirit or formic acid.’
‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying sometimes,’ said Nina. ‘There.’ She showed me a palm full of black ant fragments. ‘All done.’ And she smacked my bum, hard, to indicate that she’d finished, and then blushed violently. ‘Sorry,’ she said, furious at her own discomposure. ‘I thought you were someone else.’
26
Nina sat in the meteorological station at In Salah, listening to the hum of the iced-water dispenser, and watching the condensation run down the sides. A pile of white paper cones like dunce caps sat beside the tap to tempt the unwary. A treacly twist of flypaper, studded with corpses, hung from the ceiling. The man from ENEMA had left a note on the open door explaining that they could find him in Adji’s bar, or make themselves comfortable until his return – not an easy option in a room with only two chairs.
Guy and Hugo had volunteered to track him down, while Nina waited behind in case he came back by a different route without having passed them. Martin, who had fallen asleep on the journey, was still slumped in the front of the Land Rover, which was parked in the shade of the courtyard. Nina had taken a photograph of him through the window, as peaceful as a baby. She was tempted to go and wake him now. The others had been gone half an hour, and she could picture them comfortably installed in a bar, cold Cokes in hand, while she sat sweltering.
‘Don’t touch that water, whatever you do,’ had been Hugo’s parting instruction. ‘You’ll have the screaming shits for a month.’
She gave a start as the door opened and Martin stood there, newly awake and disorientated, the red imprint of the seatbelt across his neck like a fresh scar. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, rubbing his eyes. ‘Where are we?’
‘In Salah,’ said Nina. ‘We’ve arrived. Guy and Hugo have gone to find our contact.’ Martin made straight for the drink dispenser, plucking a paper cone from the top of the pile and filling it.
‘Hugo said not to drink that,’ she exclaimed, before he could put it to his lips. ‘That iced water is meant to be the worst stuff of all.’ As soon as she’d said it she knew it had been a mistake to attribute the advice to Hugo. A third-rate psychologist could have told her that wouldn’t work.
Martin hesitated a second. He glanced down at the paper cone, and then at the liquid in the dispenser. It was crystal clear, almost blue, through the tinted plastic. ‘Looks all right,’ he said bullishly. ‘I mean, they wouldn’t put it here if it wasn’t drinkable,’ and before Nina could point out the fatuity of this line of argument, he had drained his cup with a gasp of pleasure. ‘In for a penny,’ he said, helping himself to a refill.
‘You idiot. Don’t come crying to me when you get amoebic dysentery,’ Nina retorted, but her display of indignation was entirely trumped up. If she was honest she didn’t care whether he made himself ill or not, provided she wasn’t expected to nurse him. The sense of revulsion for him, which she had tried to communicate to Hugo before they left, had mutated into indifference and occasionally disdain. It seemed as though the further from home they travelled, the fainter her feelings had grown. He didn’t even look like himself any more. With his tanned face and sun-bleached hair, coarse and matted from nearly a fortnight without washing, and the uneven beginnings of a fuzzy blond beard, he looked altogether wilder than the man she had set off with. Like John the Baptist, she thought. Or Stig of the Dump. The worst of it was that he appeared not to have noticed any change in the relationship at all: either she was a brilliant dissembler, or he was even less observant than she thought.
‘So lovely and cold. I couldn’t resist it,’ he was saying, crushing the paper cone in his fist and looking around for somewhere to drop it. There was no bin, so he was left to pass it from hand to hand and finally tuck it into the pocket of his shorts.
‘I’m thirsty too. I managed.’
‘Ah, well, you’ve more self-control than me,’ said Martin, sitting next to Nina on the only other chair and squeezing her thigh in a proprietorial manner.
‘Evidently,’ she said, coldly, moving her leg away a fraction.
‘Mind you, in some respects I haven’t done badly in the self-control department,’ he went on. ‘Do you think we’ve got time for a quickie before the others get back?’
Nina shook her head. ‘They should have been here by now. I can’t think what they’re doing.’
‘Well, maybe now we’ve got somewhere to stay there’ll be a bit more privacy. I quite fancy doing it in the open air. Under the stars. Don’t you?’
Yes, thought Nina, but not with you. ‘It’s an idea,’ she said, non-committally, and was spared having to pursue this conversation by the sound of voices and footsteps outside heralding the return of Guy and Hugo. They were accompanied by a young Algerian in flared jeans and a tight cheesecloth shirt. In spite of his rather lush moustache he looked to Nina to be about eighteen. His skinny fingers were freighted with gold rings. The three men seemed to be great mates already.
‘This is Hamid,’ said Hugo, introducing Nina and Martin in turn. ‘He’s come all the way from Algiers to give us any help we need. Apparently we can camp in the courtyard, or sleep on the floor in here if we prefer.’ Martin automatically glanced at Nina, who kept her head down, refusing to meet his eye. ‘So, he’s going to take me for a drive to look at barkhans. When I’ve found a suitable one we can set up the equipment and a rota.’
‘What do we do in the meantime?’ asked Martin.
‘If you can fit in my car,’ said Hamid, in only slightly accented English, ‘I will take you to the palmery. You can wash and keep cool there – it’s very pleasant.’ He waited while the others hurriedly ransacked the Land Rover for towels, warm bottles of Coke, books, football, and other paraphernalia, and then led them out to his dusty blue Citroën. Hugo automatically took the front seat, but since he was much the fattest no one challenged him. They drove through the town’s wide, dusty streets, between flat-roofed, brownstone buildings, past the industrial quarter – a yard stacked with piles o
f bricks and lengths of irrigation piping, and shops which were no more than windowless hovels containing nothing but bolts of fabric or a crate of melons. As they passed the post office, a newer, cream-coloured block in the same style as the meteorological station, Guy asked to be let out. He disappeared inside and returned a few minutes later holding a pale blue envelope bearing an English stamp.
‘From my mother,’ he explained, wedging himself back in between Nina and the car’s rear door. ‘Poste restante. I knew she’d write.’
There were a few people out on the street – soldiers in khaki uniform, Tuaregs in blue jellabas, and a few men in Western trousers and nylon shirts – but they were outnumbered at least two to one by donkeys. There seemed to be one on every corner – placid creatures, standing like statues in the midday sun, enduring the torment of clouds of flies with infinite patience.
As they drove Hamid pointed out various landmarks – the mosque, the barracks, the gendarmerie, Adji’s bar, as much it seemed for his own benefit as for theirs. It emerged in the course of conversation that he had grown up in In Salah, but had gone to university far away in Algiers and had not been back to visit his home town for some years. His apologies for its shabbiness and squalor were overlaid by a hint of protectiveness.
Nina complimented him on his English, but he waved this away with a laugh, his jewellery flashing. ‘No. It’s really ever so bad. I lived in Montpellier for one year as part of my studies. I shared a flat with one French and two English. At the end of the year we are all speaking English.’
‘Well, that’s typical,’ said Nina. ‘I don’t suppose the others had picked up any Arabic.’
‘Of course not,’ laughed Hamid. ‘Except some swear words. They thought that would be all they would ever need.’ Nina pointed to the back of Hugo’s head and nudged Guy and Martin to share the joke.
Hugo, badly misjudging the slant of this conversation and taking it as an opportunity to pick up a few more handy obscenities and tips on pronunciation, began regaling Hamid with his repertoire. Hamid looked genuinely uncomfortable, and then suddenly held up one hand, palm outwards, and said ‘No!’ rather forcefully. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, in a more measured tone, ‘that last thing you said. That’s really very, very rude. Don’t ever say that to anyone round here. It’s different in the cities – but maybe even in the cities you shouldn’t use that either. But here you would get into a lot of trouble.’
‘Oh,’ said Hugo. ‘Sorry.’
‘No need to say sorry to me,’ said Hamid. ‘I just had to tell you. So you know. We’re nearly here now,’ he went on, as Nina glimpsed a fringe of palm trees above the rooftops and caught the first trace of fetid water on the breeze.
The palmery was a shady area of date palms and other fruit trees, irrigation ditches and long, low troughs around which groups of local men sat, bathing their feet, smoking and passing the time. In one of the blackest and rankest smelling of these troughs a few women in billowing chadors crouched to wash laundry.
‘In Salah means “the source of the salinated water”,’ Hamid explained, as he dropped them off. ‘It’s quite rich in minerals. You’ll be able to feel the difference.’
‘Enjoy yourselves,’ said Hugo, waving paternally from the front seat. ‘Make the most of your leisure time. It’ll be all work from now on.’
‘What did you say to him, for God’s sake?’ Nina heard Martin whispering through the window, while Hamid was unloading their clobber from the boot. ‘Oh, I’m not sure,’ came Hugo’s reply. ‘Something to do with mothers and camels. Obviously touched a nerve.’
One of the men by the troughs recognized Hamid and came across to embrace him. There followed a rapid exchange in Arabic, during which glances were thrown in the visitors’ direction. ‘I’m explaining that you’ve come all the way from London to study the barkhans,’ Hamid said. ‘My friend is very impressed.’
When he and Hugo had departed, Nina, Martin and Guy found a shady spot at a discreet distance from the main area of troughs and set about making themselves inconspicuous. The fact that they had been introduced by Hamid had prevented them from being treated with hostility, but they remained objects of curiosity, covertly observed from afar. Martin stood half a dozen Coke bottles in one of the nearest troughs to cool, and having tipped water over his head, he shook himself like a dog and lay on his towel reading Hugo’s copy of The Doors of Perception. Nina produced a child’s sewing kit – the sort that comes on the end of a keyring – and tried to make repairs to one of her clogs where the leather was coming adrift from the sole.
Guy opened the letter from his mother: the blue paper gave off the faintest trace of her perfume – Yardley’s lily of the valley. When he closed his eyes she was there before him in her usual navy skirt and high-necked blouse, a combination that had proved impregnable to the dictates of fashion over the years.
Dear Guy [he read]
I hope this finds you well. I wonder, in fact, if it will find you at all. I don’t suppose the Algerian postal system is up to much. You have chosen a good time to be away: we are all suffering under this awful drought – temperatures in the nineties every day, and no sign of it breaking. They are talking of standpipes in the street next. Some counties are already using them. The garden has been absolutely devastated: we are trying to recycle our bathwater for the borders, but the lawn is in a very sorry state. Brown and parched. All the other gardens in the village look the same. The family in the New house have been using the sprinkler after dark, which is typical.
Some wonderful news: William got a First in his Mods. His name was in the Telegraph. I’ve saved the cutting for you. Your father has some leave next week. We may go to Norfolk for a few days, and visit Mother on the way. I wonder if you’ve had a chance to send her a postcard yet. It would cheer her up so much. She isn’t enjoying this heat – her feet have come up like balloons.
I met Julian Pellow’s mother in Marks & Sparks last week. Do you remember? He was head boy in the year above you. Apparently he’s got a very good job with Proctor and Gamble – earns an absolute fortune. I think her other boy’s at the BBC, in charge of something or other. Anyway, she sent her regards.
When you come back I must get you to sort out all the clobber from your wardrobe. We’re going to turn your old room into the guest room as it’s got its own washbasin. And you won’t be needing it any more. I’ve put everything in boxes in the garage for the moment, but that obviously won’t do in the long term.
No other news. I must take Bones out for his run now (Mad dogs and Englishwomen . . .) and I’ll post this on the way. Don’t forget that card to Granny.
Love from Mums.
‘Everything okay at home?’ Nina asked, as Guy folded up the letter and replaced it in his back pocket.
‘No change,’ he said. It all seemed so remote, now, his parents’ world: wilting begonias and Julian somebody-or-other’s meteoric career, and his grandmother’s pneumatic feet. Let them strip his bedroom if they wanted: his self-portrait in the style of Salvador Dali, and those Airfix model Hurricanes trailing their cotton-wool smoke. They could bin the lot as far as he was concerned.
‘My parents aren’t great letter-writers,’ Nina was saying. She had given up on her sewing. The needle was too fine to penetrate the leather: she had succeeded only in bending it into an L shape and impaling her thumb on the eye. ‘But they said I could ring from anywhere and reverse the charges.’
‘I don’t think my mum knows where I am,’ said Martin. ‘When I told her we were going to Algeria, she said, “Oh no! I’ve told everyone you’re going to Africa.”’
‘Your mum’s a sweetie,’ said Nina. She had met Irene only once, some months earlier, at Martin’s suggestion. They had all gone to lunch at the Carvery and eaten enough roast beef to immobilize them for the rest of the day. This was Irene’s idea of Luxury and Value. Nina had taken to her straight away, because she was so generous and welcoming and unaffected. Nina’s mother would have called her ‘a good sort’
– the implication being that she was not exactly their sort. Irene herself had been delighted with Nina, who was so pretty, and so intelligent, and moreover so good for Martin. Irene’s inevitable disappointment was the only aspect of her plan to finish with Martin that was giving Nina any unease. ‘She worships you,’ Martin said. ‘I can’t imagine why.’
‘Do you think I dare go and paddle?’ Nina asked. Her clogs felt as hot and unyielding as a couple of clay ovens.
‘You’ll be all right as long as you don’t flaunt yourself,’ said Martin.
Nina plucked incredulously at her ankle-length, printed smock. ‘Flaunt myself? In this tent-dress?’
Guy looked up from composing a card to his grandmother. He had got as far as Dear Granny, the weather is very hot here in the Sahara.
‘Temptress?’ he said, interested. ‘Where?’
Martin started throwing up that evening. He had complained of stomach cramps during the drive back from the palmery and refused a plateful of Hugo’s chickpea risotto at supper-time. Then, when the others had set up the camp-beds in the walled courtyard behind the meteorological station and were listening to Hugo’s enthusiastic account of his discovery of a textbook barkhan ten minutes’ drive beyond the oasis, he had suddenly leapt up and sprinted inside.
A Dry Spell Page 23