Jungle Out There

by William Stafford

  “Lady wake!” said Man, clearly relieved. He kissed me - much to the annoyance of Detective Inspector Benny Stevens.

  “Hoi, hoi; there’s a time and a place for all that,” he grumbled, sounding like a man who had known neither for ages. “Now, your ladyship, those two men have been proved to be telling the truth. They’re in the clear and we shall send them on their way, but they say they won’t go anywhere until they’ve spoken with you.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Waiting at the front desk,” said Detective Constable Pattimore. “I said you would be pleased to talk to them after all these years.”

  “Wait minute,” said Man. He did not share my enthusiasm and why should he? He had never known them. “Two men clear. Where Son?”

  “That is the question,” Benny Stevens stroked his moustache. “So far that social worker hippy is keeping his gob shut. We’m back at square one, waiting to chuck a six and we’ve lost the bloody dice.”

  “This is no time for games, Inspector. Perhaps these old acquaintances of mine can shed some light? They were following me at the time, were they not?”

  “She’s right!” said Pattimore. “I’ll bring them in, shall I?”

  Benny Stevens had the air of a man trapped in quicksand, resigning himself to the fact that things were out of his control and he may as well just let them flow over him. “Can’t wait,” he muttered.

  “In the mean time, Inspector,” I offered him a cheery smile, “a pot of tea would be most welcome.”

  Stevens turned to Pattimore who was just leaving. He looked to Policeman Andy but a raised eyebrow from Man intimated that our friend’s presence was non-negotiable. Muttering all sorts of terrible oaths, the detective inspector stormed out ot fetch the tea.

  ***

  It was them, indeed, those faces from my former life, only greyer and more jowly, their bodies stooped by the ravages of the two decades that had elapsed since I beheld them last.

  They were shown in and I was immediately transported to the old estate when Father would summon servants to his den for reprimands or dismissal. They shuffled towards me, their eyes downcast in the manner of those who know they have done something wrong and for which they must now be held to account.

  “Jakes! And Gable!” I failed to keep an equanimous tone.

  “Oh, your ladyship!” Gable the former head gardener looked ready to fall to his knees.

  “We really are most terribly sorry, your ladyship,” said Jakes, wringing his cloth cap. He looked on the point of prostrating himself at my sandals.

  “Why men sorry?” Man cut through their fawning and grovelling. Jakes found he could look me in the eye - anything was preferable to looking directly at my big, scary husband.

  “We’re sorry about your boy. We’re sorry you think we could have taken him; sorry you think we’d be capable of even thinking of such a thing.”

  “Get point!” Man clearly had no patience with the old men but then we were all under a lot of stress.

  “Why were you following me?” I asked in a softer tone, in contrast with my husband’s curtness - Perhaps the police might adopt this approach when interviewing suspects... I could be on to something here...

  Gable cleared his throat. His face was red - but then, I remember, it always was, from spending his days outdoors in all weathers. Odd that; Man, Baby and I had hardly spent any time indoors and we were a lovely colour. “At first we wasn’t sure it was your ladyship.”

  “It’s been a lot of years,” interjected Jakes.

  “Lot of water, lot of bridges,” reflected Gable.

  “But we saw you in the paper and - well, I didn’t see it; Arthur did and he phones me up and he says have you seen the paper and I says no I haven’t and he says have a look at the paper so I goes to get the paper off of the doormat and I can’t bend down like I used to but I gets the paper and I goes back to the phone and I says what am I looking at and he says the front page and I see it at once and I says are you thinking what I’m thinking and he says I think so but I can’t be sure and I says neither am I because it’s been years but I says how like her late mother she looks and it must be her and no mistake after all these years and us giving her up for dead and he says we shall have to get a closer look in case we’ve got it wrong and so we come up to town and well, here we are.”

  Jakes stopped for breath at last; Gable filled the gap by repeating his line about water and bridges.

  “What men want?” My husband there, incisive as ever.

  “Well, ah...” Jakes wrung his cap again.

  “What’s ours,” said Gable, crossing his arms. “By rights.”

  “And what might that be?” I too was losing patience; how was any of this getting us close to retrieving my Baby?

  “Your ladyship, when you, ah, to all extents and purposes, kicked the bucket - well, we wasn’t to know - nobody was - When you was declared missing presumed dead, your poor widowed mother - rest her soul! - went into a sort of decline, like that woman in that book - and the old place fell into rack and ruin and we all got laid off. With no severance pay, mind.”

  I interrupted. Talk of my dear mother was too difficult to hear. I had had to resign myself to a new life in the jungle and abandon hope of ever seeing my family again. The best way to do that was never to think of them but the mere sight of these two old retainers had poisoned me with guilt as bitter as any venom.

  “So that’s what this is all about, is it? Filthy lucre! Very well, gentlemen; you shall both be compensated and generously so. I shall instruct my solicitor, Mr Lyons, to that effect.”

  The men expressed their gratitude and tugged at places where forelocks had fallen victim to male pattern baldness.

  “Now, get out!” I was ready to dismiss them. They had stirred up painful memories at a time when the present was too agonising to allow.

  “Wait!” Man stood, “Men follow Lady. Men see Son? Who take Son?”

  He thumped the table top, rousing Detective Inspector Stevens from stupor.

  “Answer the question!” he insisted although I doubt he knew what the question was.

  “Well...” Gable’s nose wrinkled.

  “There wasn’t anything untoward,” said Jakes. “Not what we saw - but then we was focussing on your ladyship so when you left the shop, so did we and all.”

  “Lady leave shop?” Man looked stricken.

  Uh-oh!

  “I needed air, darling! All those sweaty feet.”

  “Lady leave shop. Lady leave Son in shop.”

  “It wasn’t like that, darling!” I burst into fresh tears. “I was distracted only momentarily. I had a lot on my mind.”

  “What on Lady mind?”

  Suddenly I was the one under interrogation. I looked into that strong face and piercing eyes. Man was trying desperately to understand so that he might forgive me. He took my slender hands in his broad ones. I couldn’t not tell him.

  “Oh, darling! I am so sorry. I was distracted, it’s true. It was ungracious and uncalled-for but I let myself get upset because you were spending time with someone else.”

  Man stepped back, holding me at arms’ length.

  “Lady upset Man talk to gorilla?”

  In his sweet confusion, I saw how foolish I had been to doubt his devotion. No matter how much or how often Jenny Porter - or anyone else for that matter - threw herself at him, my Man would always be this: mine.

  “I couldn’t have been out of that shop for more than a minute. If that. But that was all it took.”

  Detective Inspector Stevens, sounding bored with the whole affair, refocused the room’s attention on the two old retainers. “So, you two was there and you didn’t see nothing nor nobody?”

  “Not really,” said Gable.

  “Well...” Jakes drew
out the word for an insufferably long time. “Apart from... Do you remember, Leonard? I pointed it out to you - and I only noticed because there was a bit of a whiff, a bit of a pong... ”

  Uncle Mjomba, if you ever read this, forgive me; my immediate thought was of you.

  A light came on behind Gable’s eyes. “That’s right! I remember!” he seemed pleased with himself.

  “What? For the love of God!” This was Stevens, of course. Flecks of angry spittle got caught in his moustache.

  “A bloke in wellies,” said Gable.

  “And I said he’s going to get him some proper shoes, I said,” said Jakes.

  Stevens was galvanised. “Pattimore, get the CCTV on the go again. We’ve got a lot more bloody searching to do.”

  As we moved along the corridor to join Ian the technician, Man pulled me back. Wordlessly, he signalled to a fire escape. My eyes grew wide. Man wiggled his eyebrows.

  Let police look at CCTV, that wiggle said. Man know where Baby is.

  ***

  Seconds later we were out of Serious. Man led me by the hand and we hurried along side streets until we had put some distance between us and the police.

  “Darling, where are we going?”

  “Find Son.”

  “Yes, darling; but where is he?”

  “Lady remember farm?” The question went through me like a jolt from an electric eel with a cattle prod.

  “Yes...” the breath escaped me. “You mean Jamie Peters’s friend, old Whojimmyflop.”

  “Gary. Yes.” Superb memory, my husband’s - he could beat any elephant in a trivia quiz.

  “It’s all beginning to make sense. That’s why Jamie Peters took us all the way out there. He wasn’t trying to foster Veganism in you at all. He wanted that horrid man to have a look at me so he would know who to target in the shopping mall.”

  “Suppose,” said Man.

  We came to a standstill.

  “It’s miles, darling. Perhaps we ought to leave it to the police.”

  “Police fools.”

  “Now, darling, that’s unfair. I didn’t take to that Stevens fellow, I must admit, but our friend Andy is all right in my book.”

  Man shrugged. He was looking up and down the street. “Lady drive?”

  “Honestly! This is not the time for a round of golf - ”

  “Car! Lady drive? When girl?”

  “Well, I had a few lessons. Never took the test.”

  “This test now! Find car!”

  I tried to tell him it wasn’t that simple. You don’t just get into a car and tootle off at will. It’s not like in the jungle when you can drop from a tree into a moving jeep, shove the driver overboard and make your escape or whatever it is you’re doing.

  “Get car! Gold card!”

  “Well, yes, I suppose. But that could take time, darling, and there’d be tons of paperwork, I expect. Insurance! They would want to see my licence. Which I don’t have.”

  I chewed my bottom lip.

  “Man call Jenny Porter. Jenny Porter drive.” There was no ulterior motive behind his words, and no intended slight, but I felt the sting of them all the same.

  “She won’t answer even if she hears you. She hasn’t the lung capacity.”

  Man delved a hand into his loincloth and rummaged. He pulled out the portable telephone I myself had given him - and now he was going to use it to call that woman!

  “Jenny Porter insert digits,” he peered helplessly at the contraption. I refrained from making comment. He handed me the phone. I thumbed a couple of buttons and Jenny Porter’s name - just her first name - appeared on the screen. I pushed the ‘call’ option and put the phone to my ear.

  “Hello, Man!” gushed the voice of Jenny Porter in my ear.

  “This is his wife,” I said in a tone that I hoped would freeze her ear off. “We require your assistance. Our son has been kidnapped -”

  “Yes, yes, of course!” Jenny Porter interrupted - very rudely, in my view. “I saw it on the news. I was going to call but I thought I’d best keep my nose out.”

  “Well, now we’re asking you to stick it in, Miss Porter. We need a lift. Right away. Man will give you directions when you get here... What? Where are we?” I gazed around for a landmark. “We’re across the road from an establishment that appears to purvey tobacco products, exotic fruit and hair extensions... Yes, that’s right: Cigs, Figs and Wigs - you know it? We shall expect you presently.”

  I disconnected and handed the device back to Man.

  “Lady not say thank you,” he pointed out.

  “Didn’t I?” I couldn’t care less. “How very rude of me!”

  ***

  I will say this for Miss Jenny Porter: her driving style would be well-suited to a cross-jungle chase. At least we knew that in Dedley she was unlikely to plunge her range rover into a rocky ravine and thereby killing us all. Man was in the front passenger seat, giving directions. I was relegated to the back where my internal organs seemed to bear the brunt of all the bouncing about.

  Man, of course, remembered the way to the dairy farm exactly. He is good like that - one has to be, living in the jungle where there are very few fixed paths; one develops an internal map - Baby and I were getting rather good at it; Baby more so than I. The occasions when we would have to use the Call to bring Man to find us were becoming fewer.

  The town of Dedley dropped away and the greenery of the fields asserted itself as the dominant colour in the landscape. Jenny Porter almost missed the turning to the muddy track that leads to the farm. Too busy ogling her passenger, I shouldn’t wonder. She swerved the range rover around sharply and the front wheel splashed in a water-filled rut. I had to swallow my kidneys before I could breathe again. It occurred to me that, for all his treachery and deceit, at least Jamie Peters had been a better driver - and then the realisation struck me: Jamie Peters had made the trip to the dairy farm many times and not just to bring parties of disadvantaged children. He had been coming here because he was in cahoots with Whojimmyflop - Gary - the dairy farmer.

  My blood boiled.

  Man signalled to Jenny Porter to stop the car. She, of course, obliged. Man bounded out. I sat, waiting to be let out. Eventually, it became clear Jenny Porter was not offering the full chauffeur service. I opened the door for myself, if you can believe it, and clambered from the car, somewhat inelegantly I have to say.

  Man looked cross. “Lady stay here. Jenny Porter turn car. Ready for escape.” His voice was soft like the rustling of the undergrowth as a snake slithers through it.

  “Oh, but darling!” I protested and Man’s angry expression told me I had better shut up or learn to whisper.

  Jenny Porter was already obeying her orders. I stamped my foot; my sandal squelched in something I hope was only mud.

  “Lady stay back. Farmer have gun.”

  “Oh, well, you don’t know that for certain.”

  But Man didn’t hang around to contest the point. He ducked into some bushes alongside the track and was gone.

  “Come and wait in the motor with me,” smiled Jenny Porter. I would rather toss myself into a live volcano. I remained where I was, slowly sinking into the mire. “Oh, come on!” she laughed. “I don’t bite... Often.”

  So! She was using my family’s in-jokes against me! Frightful hussy!

  “Hey! Your ladyship!” I just about heard her call after me for, being my husband’s ever so obedient servant, she dared not raise her voice too loudly, “Where are you going?”

  I did not deign to answer. I stomped and squelched my way up the mud track, determined to get away from that insufferable cow. And, of course, to help my husband find our son.

  ***

  I was so worked up I wasn’t thinking what I was doing. I marched as elegantly as the
mud would allow past the pasture and directly to the farmhouse - if I was a kidnapper I would stash my hostage in there for maximum comfort, but then I know little of kidnapping procedure and practice - from that side of the operation, of course.

  The closer I got, the more I returned to my senses. What are you doing, your ladyship? You are jeopardising everything.

  I calmed down and decided to try a subterfuge along the following lines: Hello, remember me? I came to visit a while ago and I think I may have dropped my precious lion-tooth ankle bracelet. Have you perchance seen it? Might I have a look around? It’s the sentimental value of the piece, you understand. Incalculable!

  So plausible I found my cover story I was almost in tears. I could not contemplate the loss of my beloved ankle bracelet. It was the first thing Man ever gave me, the first sign he considered me his companion rather than his captive.

  The memory brought me to the matter in hand. Shoulders back, girl; stand straight and proud like you belong here. Like those occasions when one was summoned to see that old bat Miss Frink at Finesse and one was going to brazen out some scandalous and probably correct accusation.

  I knocked and waited, practising my most disingenuous smile. In the distance, a dog barked. Presently, the door was opened and there stood the loathsome dairy farmer with a scowl on his face.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he glowered. He did not appear startled or surprised - evidently a master criminal.

  “Hello! Remember me?” At once I felt foolish for sticking to the script I had mentally rehearsed.

  “You came to visit,” he said.

  “I came to visit...” I trailed off. “Look, have you seen my damned ankle bracelet or what?”

  “Snappy,” was his appraisal. “This ankle bracelet: made from lions’ teeth was it, by any chance?”

  “Why, yes! Have you seen it?”

  “I’m looking at it right now.”

  “Oh?” I glanced around in all directions, including up.

  “You’re wearing it,” he said flatly. I looked down. Damn and blast.

  He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me into the house. “We both know why you’re here, your ladyship,” he snarled. I tried to wrest myself free and beat at his chest but it was to no avail. He stuffed me into a cupboard under the stairs and shut me in darkness.