“Lion Girl be all right?” he asked.
“I will be,” she said. “Thank you.”
She slipped out into the night. Within minutes, hell broke loose next door.
“Lion Woman roar,” said Man. “Need castle walls.”
“You’re right, darling,” I draped his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s have Mjomba make some tea. It might be more palatable now he knows how to boil the water.”
Chapter Fourteen
In which Jamie Peters takes me shopping and we have a guest for dinner
The next day, Jamie Peters arrived with lists of what Baby needed to study now he was being home-schooled. He suggested joining the local library would help and, once we got our wi-fi installed, the World Wide Web would be invaluable for research purposes.
“World wide web,” said Man. He was remembering, like I was, the occasion when he had rescued us from the lair of a giant spider, slashing the beast’s legs off one at a time, while trying to free us from the cocoons in which we were wrapped and helpless.
“Internet,” said Jamie Peters. “You know, ‘surfing the net’?”
Man chuckled. “Net no good for surf. Net have holes.”
Jamie Peters turned to me. “I can never tell when he’s joking; can you?”
I told him not to worry about it. We left Baby in the care of Man and Mjomba, who were planning to home-school him in the preparation of luncheon, using the stove.
The Beetle bore no traces of the mud from our last excursion and Jamie Peters made a great show of bowing low and opening the passenger door. “Your carriage awaits,” he said.
“Thank you, kindly,” I laughed and got in. “Really, this is very kind of you. Giving up your lunch-break to take me out.”
He pulled a face as he buckled his seat-belt. “Oh, it’s all part of the service,” he said. “We don’t keep regular hours, we brave social workers. Besides, I’m happy to.”
“That’s all right, then. To the supermarket, Jamie, and don’t spare the horses.”
“Oh, I can go one better than that,” he wiggled his eyebrows.
“Oh, dear. I’m not being abducted again, am I? I would so hate my husband to be distracted from his teaching.”
“You’ll love it!” Jamie laughed. “Trust me.”
I did.
***
He drove me down unfamiliar streets - which could apply to most of the town, for I had visited few places since my arrival - and all the way he gabbled about how much I was going to love our destination and I would most probably die, I would love it so much.
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” I said. He laughed. Such a sweet young man, I thought and not for the first time. Why has he attached himself to us? Surely all this attention goes above and beyond the call of his social worker duties.
We came to rest in a car park. He opened the door for me and I stepped out to find myself amid a glittering sea of cars. Sunlight glinted off windscreens all around us. I told Jamie Peters I didn’t understand why he had brought me to this place.
“I haven’t,” he said, cryptically. He extended his arm to point beyond the cars to a huge structure with classical columns and sheets of glass.
“A cathedral?”
“Not really. Sort of...” he said. He offered me the crook of his arm. I linked mine through it and we walked towards this impressive edifice, larger and grander even than the supermarket I had grown accustomed to visiting.
Doors slid open as if of their own volition and we stepped out of the sunlight and fresh air into a cool, dim atmosphere. The floor was smooth and cold under my feet. At either side of us, storefronts glowed, their hoardings inviting us in with the promise of a large percentage off the asking prices.
“Let’s do some serious shopping,” Jamie Peters picked up the pace.
I wanted to dawdle, to linger at every shop and barter with the stallholders as one does in a souk - but that is not the Dedley way.
“Shoes!” Jamie Peters enthused. “You must love shoes?”
I said it had been so long since I had worn any, I could not really remember.
“You really are an extraordinary woman,” he laughed. I pointed out that not all women are the same, and neither are all men - he himself was proof of that. He said, “Touché!” and I wondered what he meant by that.
We visited a couple of shoe shops, both of which seemed to me to be aimed solely at the one-legged market - until Jamie Peters explained they kept the matching shoe of each one on display in a back room, to obviate thefts.
“Unless of course, the thieves are one-legged,” I pointed out. At his insistence, I tried on a few pairs. I must say I was impressed with the craftsmanship that had gone into their making but I could barely stand in the things, let alone walk. Patient shop assistants - whose enthusiasm increased when they got wind of my gold card - stood by, making enthusiastic noises with every pair Jamie Peters suggested I try on.
“I’m afraid it’s no sale,” I said, when my feet were at last free to enjoy the shop’s carpet unimpeded. “Unless... ”
I pointed at Jamie Peters’s footwear and asked the girl, who was chewing something like an ox with its cud, pulled a face and said she would check ‘out the back’.
While she was gone, Jamie Peters asked if I was serious and did I really want a pair of sandals just like his.
“Just like yours,” I smiled. “Why, what’s wrong with them? They look perfectly functional and comfortable to me. Is that not the case?”
“Well, yes,” he conceded. “I thought you might like something with heels on; that’s all.”
“Heels? My dear fellow, if I need to reach something from a high place, I shall climb up, or Man, if he’s around, will lift me. I don’t need to waddle around wishing I was taller than I am.”
He was staring at me. “Your outlook is refreshing,” he said. “I guess I can cross the make-up counter off our list.”
“You think I need make-up?” I frowned. The look of terror that washed over him made me laugh. “Just kidding,” I said. “Show me everything, Jamie Peters - just don’t let me buy it all in one go.”
We spent a very pleasant couple of hours together, trawling through the shops. When I asked him if he shouldn’t be at work, he pooh-poohed my concerns and muttered something about flexible hours.
“I know about those,” I said. “Some hours stretch interminably when Man is away. And sometimes when he’s with me, they pass by so fast.”
I had the feeling Jamie Peters was about to tell me that was not quite what he meant. He laughed instead and suggested we visit something called an ice-cream parlour.
I have to say, plodding around in my new sandals was an unexpected pleasure. My toes were still exposed to open air and the cushioning of the soles made each step like I was walking on water. How could I have forgotten what wearing shoes was like? Perhaps in time, I could see myself in a pair of those bright red stilettos Jamie Peters had enthused about.
Small steps, I told myself.
“Baby would love this,” I said licking the most delicious strawberry ice cream from a cone. “I haven’t had anything like this since I was a girl and Baby of course has never tried it.”
“And Man?”
I opened my mouth to answer and saw writ large on a bright poster, “100% DAIRY”.
“I don’t think my husband would like it,” I said sadly. “He’s a bit against all things dairy at the moment.”
“Oops,” said Jamie Peters guiltily. “Is that my fault?”
“Oh, no, dear. Man has a mind of his own. He’s quite right, too. I never thought about it before. Worse than zoos, he says. And now I’ve quite gone off my ice-cream.” I dropped the cone into a bin. “Now, yesterday you showed us about those virgin people... ”
“Di
d I? Oh, you mean Vegans!”
“Yes. I should like to get Man one of those screens so he can find out things for himself. They do have them in this cathedral of abundance, I hope?”
“Oh, yes, your ladyship!” He gave his cone one last emphatic bite, dropped the remainder into the bin and led me to an electronics store.
I let Jamie Peters do the negotiating - which, in this country amounts to very little. There is no haggling or bartering or anything of that nature. From what I gather, the basic transaction follows these lines:
CUSTOMER. Do you have such-and-such?
SHOP ASSISTANT: Yes.
CUSTOMER. How much is that?
SHOP ASSISTANT. This much.
CUSTOMER. Here’s my gold card.
SHOP ASSISTANT. And here’s your such-and-such.
It’s quick and efficient, to be sure, but where’s the fun? Where’s the dramatic tension? Where’s the role-playing?
Jamie Peters beckoned me to the counter to present my gold card. He showed me the screen thing he had selected as being suitable for my husband’s requirements.
“And it’s got Vegans in it?”
He laughed. “It’s got everything in it. The sum of human knowledge is accessible through this screen.”
“Really? Do you think we should get one for Baby?”
“That’s up to you.”
I looked at the shop assistant who was practically panting in anticipation. “Oh, very well. Another of these, please.”
The shop assistant rang up the new price and accepted my gold card with a flourish.
“Thank you, your ladyship; do come again.”
I said I might bring Baby to have a look at the televisions.
“That’s a good idea,” said Jamie Peters, steering me from the shop. “I think we’ve earned a coffee, don’t you?”
“What time is it?” I asked. Being indoors, I had no way to judge. When Jamie Peters told me, I was seized by panic.
“Oh, dear! I’ve got guests coming this evening. Do they sell food here? Suitable for dinner parties, I mean, and something that won’t upset my husband’s sensibilities?”
He assured me they did. We padded, rather flat-footed in our matching sandals, towards a place called Health Food World, wherein, my companion assured me, we would get everything I needed. I grabbed his arm and pulled him behind a pillar.
“Don’t look now,” I said. “We are being followed.”
“What?” he laughed nervously, craning his neck to see.
“I said, Don’t look!” I snapped. “Two men. They’ve been on us since the shoe shop.”
“You’re imagining it!”
I shook my head. “I’m deadly serious. I’ve learned to be alert to danger. I know when I’m being watched. I’ve been jumped by enough leopards to know when something’s out to get me.”
Jamie Peters was incredulous. “You’re paranoid. You’re not used to being among so many people. It’s a strange environment for you.”
“I never thought you would be patronising, Jamie Peters,” I told him. I’ll go first. You count to twenty then follow.”
“If you like... ”
“I’m serious, Jamie Peters.”
I approached Health Food World, walking in a zigzag, occasionally dropping to the ground as if to adjust the buckles on my sandals. I slipped through the automatic doors as soon as they began to open and waited for the social worker to catch me up.
“That was kind of fun,” he said. The look I gave him warned him against laughter.
We roamed the aisles of this rather specialised supermarket but I could not concentrate on the range of fare on offer. I could feel that old familiar tingle at the back of my head - like the yellow eyes of a big cat were boring into me. Or the red dot of a poacher’s rifle. My nerves must have been contagious because Jamie Peters, who was less capable of concealing his emotions than me, became as skittish as a mantis in a frying pan.
“Act casual,” I said through gritted teeth. “Don’t let them know we know.”
He gripped the handle of our shopping basket until his knuckles turned white.
“And stop sweating,” I whispered harshly. “They can smell fear, you know.”
“Who can?”
“Leopards!”
“I thought you said it was two men.”
“Let’s just pay for these things and go home.”
The woman at the till couldn’t ring the items up fast enough in my opinion. Jamie Peters was chewing his lower lip. “Calm down,” I told him, “Or people will think you’re stealing things.”
The colour drained from his cheeks. We stumbled from the shop, our hands full of bag handles, and out into the stark sunlight.
“Should have bought sunglasses,” the social worker muttered. He stood gazing around; I asked him what the matter was. He admitted he couldn’t remember where he had left his car.
“Honestly,” I said. I strode directly to the vehicle with the confidence of a mother flamingo finding her own chick in the flock. I read his puzzled expression and said, “You learn to remember the way you’ve come, in the jungle, in case you ever need to retrace your steps.”
Puzzlement turned to amazement.
“Just open the door!” I urged. As far as I could tell, we had lost the two men - if indeed there had been two men.
That was the trouble with moving to civilisation. I was beginning to doubt my own instincts.
And that could prove fatal.
***
Jamie Peters was unusually quiet during the journey home. His Beetle was crammed with the spoils of our shopping trip. I had to say everything twice before I could get a response.
“I said, Do you think Baby would like a pair of sandals like mine?”
“I should think so,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. I caught the occasional flicker to his rear-view mirror.
“It’s all right,” I said. “We’re not being followed.”
He seemed far from convinced. He helped me to carry the bags into the kitchen but declined to stay for refreshment of any kind.
“Oh wow!” said Baby, eyeing up my sandals. He jumped - up and down quite a bit - at the chance to have a pair of his own. Jamie Peters agreed to take us back to the shopping mall in the morning.
“Thank you,” I touched his sleeve as he made to go. “You are a godsend to this family.” I pecked his cheek.
“Watch it,” said Man, barely suppressing a grin. “Jamie Peters stay for dinner. Meet Lion Girl boyfriend.”
But Jamie Peters made his excuses and bowed out. I told Man what had happened.
“Two men right to follow,” he patted my backside. “Enjoy view.”
“Oh, you!” I swatted at him with a tea towel.
“Man say already. Lady in trouble, Lady call.”
“Yes, darling; I know. And that reminds me. I’ve bought mobile telephones for each of us. They’re in one of these bags somewhere.”
Man caught me by the wrist. “Phone wait. Where Lion Girl? Lion Girl make dinner.”
“Oh, dear. I suppose the time is getting on. We’d better make a start or it will be raw melon and mango again.”
From the sink, Uncle Mjomba blew a raspberry behind his mask.
We put some peppers, pasta and assorted veggies to roast in a tomato sauce and went out into the garden, to enjoy some chilled almond milk (guaranteed cruelty free) in the last of the evening sun.
“Woo-hoo,” said Alison, poking her head around the side gate. “Sorry I’m a bit late.”
“It’s all under control, darling,” I grinned. I mouthed “Is he here?” and she nodded.
The gate opened wide and Alison led a tall young man into the garden. He was tall and his skin was the colour of dark c
hocolate - I can say that without fear of contradiction, but as to the rest of his build I could not give a definite description. He was wearing a jacket that was padded like the immersion heater Uncle Mjomba likes to sleep on top of in the upstairs cupboard. His trousers hung low. The crotch was where his knees should be. Either the boy was hideously misshapen or his clothes were all the wrong size.
“Welcome, Dan-Joe,” I extended my hand to him. He bumped his knuckles against mind and said, “Yo.”
Man was tickled pink to meet him. He threw his arms around the boy and hugged him long and hard. Uncle Mjomba had to peel Man away so that he too could get a hug. It had been a while, you see, since they had been in close proximity to a black man.
Dan-Joe, who had been taken aback by my husband’s greeting, staggered several steps backwards when he saw Mjomba and let out a high-pitched scream.
“Oh, that’s Uncle Mjomba,” said Alison. “He won’t hurt you. Everyone, this is Dan-Joe. Dan-Joe, this is my mom and dad.”
Chapter Fifteen
In which we learn about yellow lions and brown lions
With Alison and her friend installed on the floor in the front room, I announced that Man and I were going to check on dinner. He eyed them through the serving hatch.
“Man dislike. Man not Lion Girl father - Man swear!”
“I know, darling, but please go along with it for Alison’s sake.” I popped a cherry tomato into his mouth. We were both startled to find Dan-Joe peering at us through the opening.
“This place is well cool,” he grinned. “I like your plants, Mrs Lyons.”
Man jumped around, expecting to find our neighbour behind us. I calmed him with a pat on his arm.
“Thank you, Dan-Joe; we don’t believe in furniture.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “But it exists!” he laughed. “I’ve got some.”
“Well, yes, of course, but why clutter your home? This is more - what’s the word? - spiritual?”
Man almost choked on his tomato. I gave his broad back a hearty slap.
“Oh...” Dan-Joe nodded. “Cool. I didn’t like to say. I thought you might have had everything repossessed.”
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