“Yes, love?” I felt the driver’s eyes move up and down my body. A dread realisation struck me.
“Oh, dear,” I chewed my lip. “I am afraid we do not have tickets.”
Rebecca, who had moved to the foot of the staircase, came back. “That’s ok,” she said, “The driver will give you tickets.”
“Splendid!” I beamed at the man and held out my hand.
“But you have to pay...” Rebecca added from the corner of her mouth.
“Ah,” I dropped my hand. I reached inside my top. “Gold card?”
“Haven’t you got any change?” Rebecca whispered. “Sonny?”
Sonny shrugged with his whole body and his face as well. He had no clue what she was talking about - I had little idea myself.
“Never mind; I’ll pay.” She dropped some coins into a gaping maw. The driver jabbed a couple of buttons. There was a noise like a pelican trying to swallow a boulder and both Baby and I were startled when a snake uncoiled itself in our direction.
“Relax,” said Rebecca, fearlessly snatching the snake and tearing its head off.
We saw then that it was made of paper. She ripped it into two pieces and gave one to each of us.
Shaking his head, the bus driver pushed another button and turned his wheel. Behind us, making us jump again, the doors unfolded and closed. We almost fell over as the bus moved on and we snatched at the rails for support. Now, Baby and I have traversed many a rickety rope bridge suspended over yawning chasms, the vines snapping in our hands and the planks rotting beneath our feet. None of that experience prepared us for the rocking motion of the bus. Rebecca, like the champion mountain goat in a surefootedness competition urged us to climb the winding stairs to the upper floor.
Baby found his sea (or rather, bus) legs faster than I and he followed our neighbour up and out of my sight. Less than twenty-four hours previously, he had struggled with the stationary steps in our house but look at him now! He is as adaptable as his father - perhaps more so.
I followed, at a much slower pace, and became aware that our fellow passengers were eyeing us with great interest. There was a buzz of gossip going around the bus like a bee gorging itself in a garden. It did not bother me in the least; I have been under the scrutiny of some of the most hostile people in Africa, often at knife- or gunpoint. The murmurs of elderly busybodies were not going to faze me.
Rebecca and Baby were occupying seats at the front. Baby was marvelling at the world going past - it was all still very new to him and his eyes couldn’t drink it all in fast enough. I took a seat behind them, ignoring the catcalls and whistles of some of the other passengers.
“I bet you don’t get buses like this where you come from, do you?”
“You would win that bet,” I agreed.
“It’s like riding an elephant with a lid on,” said Baby. I reached forward to ruffle his hair. He squirmed under my touch. “Mother!” he complained.
I sat back and tried to enjoy the view through the window at my side but the glass was too dirty for me to make out anything. This is where elephants have an advantage: an elephant will at least clean itself.
“Have you really ridden an elephant?” Rebecca looked at Baby with marvelling eyes.
“Many times,” Baby shrugged. “Haven’t you?”
“No! What’s it like? Is it smelly?”
Baby pulled a face as he considered his answer. “A different kind of smelly,” he concluded.
We were jostled and jolted for about a mile or so - I found it impossible to tell, although I could run you a mile across open countryside almost to the exact yard. Passengers got on and got off at various stops along the route and, with each stop and start of the bus, Baby and I grew more accustomed to its movements, its shocks and its swerves.
Rebecca stood up. “This next one’s us,” she announced and headed for the stairs. Baby followed, using the handrails and banister as a gibbon would the limbs of trees. I brought up the rear, aware that some of the native males were enjoying my rear as they descended the stairs behind me. If Man had been there he would have warned them off with a steely-eyed glare, but he wasn’t so I let them gaze.
“Nice bum,” enthused one admirer.
I looked over his shoulder and smiled. “My husband thinks so too,” I said. His pock-marked face faltered. “Eat more fruit,” I advised. “Your complexion will clear right up, but as for your manners, I’m afraid that is something only you can address. I will tell you that most ladies do not enjoy being ogled and harangued. See if you can work out how you might adjust your conduct.”
I left him gaping as the bus came to a halt, the jolt almost knocking him from the stairs.
Baby and Rebecca were waiting for me on the pavement. Baby and I shared a glance of relief to have survived. Then, in perfect synchronisation, we both doubled over and threw up our rice-o-pops. Rebecca backed away until we were quite ourselves again. As they passed us, other people looked us up and down and muttered commentary to each other. My admirer looked abashed and despite his embarrassment and the teasing of his companions, muttered an apology.
“Soz, lady,” he grunted, his face livid with heat.
“That’s ‘sorry, your ladyship’,” Rebecca jeered after him.
“Oh, hush now, Rebecca,” I waved her to be quiet. “Let’s have none of that; I want us to be treated just like normal people.”
Chapter Five
In which we learn the ways of the supermarket and Baby performs a heroic act
The supermarket was quite the largest building we had seen up close and seemed altogether a splendid edifice in the modern style. It was built on pillars that kept its main body off the ground. In the shadow of its underbelly, many cars were at rest and I asked Rebecca if the area was prone to flooding (I could see no river in the vicinity) and, if it was, might it not be better to house a number of boats rather than the cars in order that people might more readily be evacuated?
Her response was to give me a look I had seen on her parents’ faces - especially her mother’s - a look of sudden bewilderment and confusion. I suspect all the people of Dedley perform that look and that it must be a cultural thing, like those bush people I once encountered who make clicking sounds at the roof of their mouths when they want you to put your clothes back on and get out of their sacred burial grounds.
“Just follow my lead, your ladyship,” young Miss Lyons had also got her mother’s eye-rolling down pat too.
“We trust you to be our native guide,” said Baby with an earnest expression. The girl looked at him and laughed.
“I can assure you,” I told her, “when Ba- Sonny - says he trusts you, he is not joking.”
“It’s not that,” she composed herself. “It’s the ‘native guide’ thing. I suppose I am. I should have a machete to hack a path through the shoppers.”
“Perhaps we can acquire one within?” Baby suggested.
The cultural expression flickered across the girl’s countenance once more. As for me, I was no longer sure who was joking and who was not.
She led us to a corral wherein several large wire baskets were penned and pulled one free from its confinement.
“Marvellous!” I declared. “Look, Baby; it has wheels. We shan’t have to carry it between us.”
Baby was looking wistfully at the halted cars. “I’d much rather ride in one of those, Mother. May we not trade ours up?”
Rebecca Lyons shook her head, then she rattled the wheeled basket. “You don’t ride in this, you plum,” she giggled. “Well, you might if you’re a baby, I suppose.”
“He’s my Baby,” I reminded her.
“A little baby,” she clarified. “No, you push the trolley around and place all the items you want to buy in it as you go. Then you pay for the things and put the trolley back here.”
B
aby and I looked crestfallen; I suppose for different reasons.
“We do not keep the trolley?” I had to ask.
“Nope.”
“Ah.”
“Come on.” Rebecca led us inside. She stood on a sloping path and began to ascend to the upper storey without moving a muscle! Baby and I were agog. We had no idea the younger Miss Lyons was possessed of shamanistic capabilities.
Then we saw other people performing the same trick. Baby tugged my arm.
“Are all the natives witchdoctors, Mother?”
“What are you two waiting for?” the great and powerful Rebecca Lyons called down from halfway up the slope. “Get on; it won’t hurt you.”
We saw then that the slope itself was moving, crawling upwards at a steady pace as though it was being carried by a line of army ants climbing a tree. Baby gingerly placed the ball of one foot on the surface. At once his foot was carried away from him. I clung onto him but his legs were stretching wider and wider apart. I had visions of the summary justice of the Tree People I mentioned earlier; my boy was going to be split in twain.
“Let go of him, your ladyship; it’s fine!” Rebecca had reached the summit. Behind us, natives with trolleys of their own were getting restless.
“I’m sorry, Baby,” I said and released him. Baby, standing on one foot, glided up the incline. He laughed and whooped and beat his chest. He wobbled.
“Keep your hand on the rail,” Rebecca advised, indicating the smooth black strip that snaked along to the right.
I felt the nudge of a trolley behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see the grizzled, ruddy face of a bloated elder.
“You getting on the bloody escalator or what, love?” he snarled. It took me a while to decode his singsong accent, during which interval he and his pinch-faced mate (or ‘wife’ I suppose one might call her) looked me up and down.
“Disgraceful,” said the woman. Her spouse’s expression told a different story. His tone softened and he stood up straight.
“Swimwear promotion, is it?” he leered. I begged his pardon. He nodded at my outfit and gestured towards Baby who had joined Rebecca at the top of the - what had he called it? - the ‘bloody escalator’.
Well, I didn’t know how to respond. I merely tossed my hair and pouted in my winning way.
“If you’ll excuse me, my good man,” I placed a hand on his trolley. The man shuddered as though I had tickled him directly. “I believe I shall avail myself of the stairs.”
Blinking and dumbstruck, the man wheeled his trolley aside to let me pass. I didn’t look back but as I tripped lightly up the adjacent staircase I could feel his eyes upon me like a predator’s watching its next repast.
“It’s perfectly safe, your ladyship,” was Miss Lyons’s greeting to me. “Isn’t it, Sonny?”
Baby’s face was alive with excitement. “Oh, rather!” he jumped up and down on the spot. “I should like to ride it again. May I, Mother?”
Rebecca said there was another we would ride to take us back down again. Baby beamed broadly at this bright prospect in his immediate future.
“Right,” Rebecca took command, “Have you got a list?”
I assured her I have perfect posture thanks to years of walking around with books on my head in Deportment class. She giggled. I did too - I suppose it is a funny thing to do.
“No, I mean have you written down what you want to buy?” She read our puzzled expressions and abandoned this line of enquiry. “Never mind; I’ll take you around and you can see what takes your fancy, OK?”
“OK,” said Baby, although he was loath to distance himself from the bloody escalator.
“Very well,” I agreed, suspecting that ‘OK’ is an Americanism and, according to old Miss Frink, headmistress of the Finesse Academy, therefore to be spurned.
“And please don’t go wandering off,” Rebecca added in credible mimicry of her mother. “And,” she went on, marring her impression with a giggle, “don’t go asking for sweets.”
Baby and I exchanged uncertain glances. We held hands and followed the younger Miss Lyons into a vast temple of treasures.
Now, I am sure that many of you will not need a detailed description of the interior of a supermarket. From what I understand they are commonplace and are quite the ‘in’ thing rather than having a string of small, independent shops in one’s local high street. I, whose prior experience of commerce comprises the school tuck shop and then the trading posts in the jungle where one swaps one kind of dead animal for another, found the assault on my senses immeasurable. The sights: all those yards of bright boxes and packages neatly regimented; the smells of bread and fish, the perfumes of toiletries and household chemicals; the sounds of people, the jostle of trolleys, and an almost palpable feeling of tension in the air.
If I was almost overwhelmed by this panoply of abundance, imagine what impact this vista had on Baby (who had never attended school let alone availed himself of a tuck shop). I really thought his eyes, now the size of lily pads, were going to fall out of his face.
“Oh, Mother!” he gasped when he found breath enough to speak. “Do you think this is Paradise?”
“I shouldn’t think so, darling,” I had to confess, “I’d like to think people would look like they were enjoying Paradise rather more.”
Unlike the rest of the glum countenances, Rebecca’s was cracked in a grin, although I imagine her animated expression came from amusement at our awestruck faces rather than from enjoyment of the shopping experience.
“This way,” she said, leading us to an area where the shelves were stacked with newspapers, magazines and also the colourful wrappers of chocolate bars and packets of potato crisps and other things I recognised as tuck. “These are near the door,” Rebecca expounded, “for people who just want to grab a paper or a snack or a sandwich or something.”
Baby revolved on the spot. Then he was drawn to the photographs on the front pages. They were all similar: images of the same man looking rather angry. He may have been a politician or a famous murderer, I cannot say. The point is Baby has not seen many photographs before. In the jungle, Man taught him to draw, to capture the likeness of someone or something with a stick in the mud or some crushed pigment on a stone. Carvings he did not do. According to Uncle Mjomba, to make a three-dimensional effigy of a living person or creature is bad juju and just asking for trouble.
“Do you want any mags?” Rebecca gestured at the crowded display. “Catch up with the celebrity gossip? You must be years behind.”
I think she divined from my blank expression that I had no interest in such matters because she gave a shrug and pushed the trolley along to the neighbouring section. I followed, remembering at the last minute to grab Baby by the arm, jerking him from his mesmeric state.
“Greetings cards... pens and paper... kitchen stuff...” Rebecca named the wares as we passed. I came to a halt.
“Kitchen stuff,” I repeated.
“Yeah, you know: washing up bowls, cutlery, ladles...” She did not appear or sound particularly enthusiastic but I, in contrast, was brimming with excitement.
“Knives?” I asked.
“I suppose.”
I walked up and down the aisle of ‘kitchen stuff’, holding Baby by the hand until I found a display of knives of all shapes and sizes.
“Haven’t you got knives?” Rebecca asked. I dismissed the question with a wave.
“It’s for Man,” I explained. “A present.”
None of the blades on offer seemed suitable. Too short, too thin, too stubby... I reached down a large, heavy one labelled ‘Butcher knife’ and weighed it in my hand. I tried a few experimental slashes at the air but with the knife still attached to a piece of cardboard, this trial proved inconclusive.
“Excuse me,” said a male voice. I spun around. The man - a tall, h
eavyset figure in a dark uniform, backed away.
“Oops,” I laughed, lowering the knife. “Didn’t see you there?”
The man looked me up and down and then did the same for Baby. When he spoke, he addressed his words to Rebecca.
“Holidaymakers?” he asked as if the notion was unheard of in Dedley. “Why the swimsuits?”
“My new neighbours,” said Rebecca. “They’re from the jungle.”
“I bet they are,” said the man, who I gathered was speaking to us in some kind of official capacity. “Well, they can’t walk around here dressed like that. Or should I say ‘undressed’ like that. We’ve got food out.”
I felt colour rise in my face. This fellow was insulting our standards of personal hygiene, which was rich coming from someone who had been wearing the same shirt for at least three days, had doused himself with sharp-smelling and unnatural chemicals and from whose pores arose the stench of sour milk from his dairy-heavy Western diet.
“Now listen here, my good man,” I began then, realising he was eyeing the knife in my hand rather nervously. I tossed it into the trolley and adopted a more disarming tone. “If you have a dress code, you should advertise it more clearly in the atrium, instead of twenty-five per cent off frozen peas - and why anyone should wish to purchase such tiny vegetables when they have been reduced to three-quarters of their size I cannot fathom, but each to their own and live and let live. Or do you disagree?”
The fellow didn’t know what to say. A badge on his breast pocket revealed his name to be Carl. I chose to address him as such, proving I was not the illiterate savage for which he took me.
“We are newcomers to the town, Carl.” I batted my eyelashes in an irresistible fashion. “And we would appreciate a little guidance. Perhaps you and I could take a tour of this marvellous emporium while the children,” I flashed an urgent signal with my eyes; Rebecca picked up on it at once - clever girl.
“Come on, Sonny,” she led Baby and the trolley away. “We’ll do the shopping while her ladyship schmoozes the security man.”
Jungle Out There Page 5