Darkest England

by Christopher Hope

  3

  Probably the baobab tree.

  4

  This reply is less ‘obvious’ than it may appear. For Booi is alluding, or perhaps dimly recalling, another lost Bushman, the convict known as //Kabbo, a member of the /Xam Bushmen of the Cape. The prisoner//Kabbo, when asked by a friendly interrogator in the 1870s ‘What is your place, its name?’ gave this answer: ‘I come from that place, called Home’ (see Stephen Watson’s wonderful renditions from the original/Xam: The Return of the Moon, Cape Town, 1991).

  5

  The lynx – a common predator in the Karoo.

  Chapter Eight

  Among the wifelings of Goodlove Castle: participates in a series of ‘hands-on’ experiments: learns something of their sexual practices, and rather more of fox-hunting

  I was that evening alone in my room, shaking my head with astonishment at the strange turn of events when, without so much as a knock at the door – carried, as it seemed, within a thunderstorm of giggles, whistles, blushes and flashing eyes – there burst into my room a gang of immensely cheerful wifelings, which introduced itself ‘collectively’ as the ‘Goodlove Science Group’ and individually as Beatrice, Jade, Victoria and Tracy.

  Beatrice was a buxom matron whose ankles I had heard the Lord speak of with adoration; Jade, very petite, but somewhat faded; Victoria, dark, full-lipped and, I thought, sharp as a jackal; Tracy, a heavy-bosomed, sleepy blonde, who had performed, in some relief agency, a form of manual labour by which she ‘helped’ men in some way I did not quite understand; one day the Lord had chanced upon her and taken her on because she was very good with her hands. I looked at her small, smooth, pale fingers and found it hard to believe Tracy had ever been a manual worker.

  The Goodlove Science Group, explained Beatrice, their spokeswoman, wished to offer me a deal and to ask a favour. One hinged upon the other. I would have noted the demeaning confinement of the Lord’s wifelings. They, in turn, had noted my servile status, the tag around my neck, the suffering in my eyes and perceived I was not enjoying the iron hospitality of their Lord. Well – here was the deal: do them a good turn, and they would help me to escape. The favour she had to ask of me was related to the offer of freedom. But it was such a small favour she would not even mention it, since she felt sure that I would find their offer far too tempting to baulk at the little service they asked in return.

  Naturally their offer was very interesting, but I told them that I desired to know the favour before I considered the deal.

  Very well, said Victoria, the Science Group wished to carry out an experiment.

  For I seemed to them, declared Beatrice, to contradict one of the essential laws of physics.

  That what went up, smiled Jade – except in my case it didn’t – must sooner or later come down.

  Now the four women fixed their eyes upon my qhwai-xkhwe with such passionate interest that I began to understand why people of the New World have a reputation for scientific advancement. They believe all must be put to the test.

  Proceedings must be strictly confidential, Victoria continued. The Lord had forbidden any close inspection of my endowment.

  Jealousy, Beatrice opined. Plain and simple.

  Absolutely typical, said Victoria.

  Until I had arrived, declared Jade, the Lord had felt himself to be a seeder without rival, an inseminator extraordinary, father of half the damn country. Suddenly here was a creature, only half his height, who appeared eternally primed for seeding purposes.

  His Lordship’s instrument – declared Tracy – was, in fact, flaccid, slow, unwilling and required patient stimulation before it ventured forth, as the schoolboy, creeping, like the snail, unwilling to school. Then, no sooner had it appeared than it performed, and vanished, shy as the tortoise that pulls its head into its shell. But now they had found a horse of a different colour! And Tracy reached out a hand.

  But this was altogether too sudden for me. I was still considering their offer. To win a little more time, I now asked how they could be sure that the Lord would not arrive home at any moment and disturb their experiment. Or turn murderous, as jealous men can be.

  Jade laughed and declared, mysteriously, that the biter was bit.

  Just as puzzling was Victoria’s gleeful remark that the fox was not in the chicken coop that night; he was detained elsewhere.

  And serve him right! cried Jade.

  So there was plenty of time to conduct the experiment undisturbed and in fine detail – as true science demanded, said Tracy, rubbing her soft, pale hands.

  It was the matronly Beatrice, of the ankles, who took pity on my confusion at their mysterious remarks. For years, she explained, Lord Goodlove had deserted his ladyloves at night. By long-established custom he ranged through the countryside like a hungry wolf, seeking fresh pickings. All were regarded as his property. There was scarcely a barn, a hedge, a hayrick where he had not tumbled some village maiden; not a byre, a bed or a barn where he had not tupped some local matron; not a cellar or a stable where he had not spent his noble seed. He took all and any: single women, old wives, and ailing grandmothers.

  Or, at least, so he boasted, Victoria explained.

  They saw scant signs of it closer to home, sighed Jade.

  It was as if, said Tracy, their Lord could unfurl only in foreign parts a flag he seldom flew at home.

  The women of Goodlove Castle said they hated these nightly gallivantings. And these raids were also detested throughout the region, from Little Musing to Much Musing, from Much Musing to the Black Mountains.

  Sometimes a maddened lover, father, brother waited with a horsewhip at the gates of Goodlove Castle, threatening to thrash the errant Lord within an inch of his life. But the bearded old reprobate merely laughed in their faces and vanished into the fastness of his castle, crying that indeed he deserved horsewhipping – but first they must catch him!

  A feeling of helplessness spread far and wide. By what spell had he turned farmers’ wives and post-mistresses and village policewomen into bewitched slaves into whose willing wombs he nightly deposited a cargo of little lords a-leaping?

  None could answer this question. Or prevent their own humiliation.

  Not the wifelings sequestered in their quarters.

  Not the angry husbands and fathers, and brothers, and lovers with the horsewhips, itching to thrash him within an inch of his life.

  Not even, it seemed, the Lord himself, who, though proud of his nocturnal prowlings, was just as puzzled as to the motives behind his predatory raids. On the one hand, in a show of candid soul-searching, he confessed that his morality was perhaps not everyone’s. But then he was not everyone. He was the Lord of Goodlove Castle, and the glimpse of a well-turned ankle, a delightful bosom, excited him. He grew excited often: in barns and taxis, in trains and in foreign parts. And, being honest, and vigorous, and in touch with the life of the True Pulse; being the only White Zulu in England; soldier, philosopher, hunter, gambler, curator – he let no shadow fall between desire and action. He took as he chose – and a good thing too!

  And so it might have gone on for ever, sighed matronly Beatrice, but I had arrived – the pygmy from Heaven.

  Their Lord, praise be the Lord, was hunting that night, as usual. They had come to take advantage of his absence, confided Jade.

  And to offer me the hospitality of the Castle, said Tracy.

  And to satisfy their scientific curiosity, declared Victoria.

  Before I could stop myself, I had given my agreement.

  Cheering and applause greeted my acceptance.

  Would I please recline so as better to facilitate their examination? Beatrice asked. And, without waiting for a reply, she lifted me in her strong arms and, raising my loincloth to facilitate their view, laid me tenderly in the middle of my acre of a bed.

  The women took up positions around me, and the experiment began with a barrage of questions. Tracy, stirred perhaps by some dim memory of her former trade, took hold of my qhwai-xkhwe in pract
ised hands, and presented it for inspection by her colleagues. Victoria was intrigued by the little holes, one on either side of the head. What did they signify? Beatrice asked if it stayed unflagging, even while I slept? Little Jade simply stared.

  It is a wonderful – God wot! – to address an audience aflame with scientific curiosity.

  I explained that my permanent semi-erection was a perfectly normal phenomenon among the San, whether the People of the Eland, or the river Bushmen, or the mountain Bushmen; this sturdy dependability was a celebrated fact in Bushmanland. And was often shown in our paintings. To demonstrate the purposes of the shafts through the crown, I took from behind my ear a needle of porcupine quill and threaded it through the flesh. What a commotion ensued! What a chorus of screams, a throwing up of hands! And a burst of applause when the needle successfully negotiated the narrow gateways and emerged on the far side of my qhwai-xkhwe, and yet that valiant stalwart did not slacken in the least.

  Beatrice asked the purpose of this penile fenestration. Jade intimated that she would welcome the application of some similar procedure to the Lord of the Castle. And Tracy just stared.

  Among certain Red People, it was the custom, I told my fascinated listeners, removing the quill and replacing it behind my ear, when a boy came of age, to have the spike inserted and to wear it whenever the member was not in use. The porcupine quill was the sharpest dart known in nature and a gift of the daughter-in-law of our god Kaggen, the praying mantis. She was given these admirable darts to protect herself against the hunger of her father Kwhai-hem, for, without this essential armour, the All-Devourer would have gobbled her whole. The test of pain was a measure of the endurance of the hunter; I was sure her people had some similar custom.

  Beatrice corrected me. Pain was used less as a test of endurance, and more as an aid to sexual stimulation. Many males were incapable of arousal except by inflicting pain on women. I might have noticed that in their culture, bound into the notion of romance and marriage, was the expectation of assault.

  Remembering, with a pang, my first exposure to Beth Farebrother, I said I had noticed it rather early on.

  Tracy said that among some classes of indigenous male, inflicting pain on women took the form of beatings, strangulation or even murder. Or variations on these themes. And it was seen as quite natural. Often it was the only way of achieving enjoyment. On the other hand, more expensively educated males preferred to inflict pain on themselves.

  Among such males, said Jade, you often found that the preferred practice was to do without women at all. Either by confining relationships to members of your own sex, a custom widely encouraged in the best schools, with the male taking over the woman’s role.

  Or, as an alternative, Beatrice continued, by taking over the woman’s role oneself. This was generally done by stripping naked and donning one or other intimate item of female underwear, tying a rope around one’s throat, then, after covering the head with a plastic bag and attaching the rope or ligature to some handy household fixture, such as the curtain rail or the banisters, leaping into space. This method of arousal sometimes achieved the degree of lift which my qhwai-xkhwe maintained so effortlessly.

  But sure, I objected, this risked strangulation?

  That was just the point, replied Beatrice. A miscalculation could be fatal. The risk attracted many ambitious men, or ‘high flyers’, as they were called, for obvious reasons. Those who failed perished. But those who succeeded in these solitary practices often went on to make considerable names for themselves in politics. It was a code of conduct: better-bred men did not strangle their wives, they preferred to strangle themselves.

  I said I understood the code of conduct, but since death was the result in either case, I could not see the distinction.

  Perhaps not, said Victoria, but that was because I was not English.

  But now Beatrice announced that it was time for their experiment. The hypothesis advanced by the Science Group was as follows: if my qhwai-xkhwe was employed for a number of times successively, it was bound to slacken. This theory had been vigorously debated. Now the time had come to put the theory to the test.

  Before the experiment began there took place what I suppose I must describe as their equivalent of the gift-giving ceremony. However, it was not as with us, where the lover will present his desired one with the gift of a tortoiseshell, or a springbuck skin, or shoot little love arrows in her direction. No, they presented me with a little rubber hood, or balloon, smaller than, but shaped rather like, the bladders of goats that our children use for footballs.

  When locals were about to copulate they rarely observed these formalities. Tracy explained.

  But as I was from Africa, said Victoria, certain precautions needed to be taken. Terrible afflictions had spread from my country and laid low many of their people who had no resistance to the plagues.

  This is something which must weigh heavily on our hearts. How many European nations have been decimated by our diseases? Without any resistance, these simple souls perished like flying ants. Was it not from the Countries of the Sun that the Black Death had come? And venereal disease? Now another disease struck them down. For which we must again accept responsibility.

  So I wore my little hood with gratitude. It was a shade of fiery red, giving the lie to those who claim that these people have no great liking for bright colour. It was Tracy, so good with her hands, who fitted the device, slipping it over my qhwai-xkhwe with the practised ease of the true scientist. And I could not help thinking, when I looked, that I rivalled in hue the tubular flower of the flame-lily.

  Each wifeling in turn now removed her clothing and the experiment began in earnest. I had just time to notice an interesting physiological difference between their women and ours. They have no natural apron of skin, covering the tunnel of children,1 the entrance to which is more hirsute than we are accustomed to.

  But I had no further time for reflection. The experiment was in full swing, with each scientist attempting to assess whether, when exposed to regular and rhythmic stress, my qhwai-xkhwe might eventually flag and fall, and, finding to their mounting excitement that what went up did not always come down, they recorded their discoveries in cries of joy.

  As for myself, the passive partner in these experiments, I did the only thing possible. I lay back and thought of Bushmanland.

  As I lay resting the following morning, after a long night of concentrated experiment, I was surprised by a visit from the Lord. His upper lip looked somewhat stiffer than usual. Staring down at me as I lay in my ship of a bed, he expressed the hope that I had not been too bored in his absence.

  I replied that his womenfolk had been kind enough to include me in discussions of a scientific nature.

  He seemed pleased. His wifelings had been chosen for their inquiring minds. Not the sort of women who lay back and left it all to the chaps. Not at all. The sorts of people who rolled up their sleeves and got down to it. By George, yes.

  He seemed very friendly. And of my close scientific cooperation with the Scientific Group he appeared happily ignorant. Far from exhibiting any animus towards me, on the contrary, the Lord of Goodlove announced that he proposed to honour me by giving me a privileged position for the great hunt which was to take place on Fox Wednesday.

  But, remembering my pain the last time I had witnessed this particular event, I begged to be excused.

  The Lord was eloquent in his plea that I take part. Surely I would not disappoint him? My hunting brother? From me he had learnt the hunting rites of the San, killed his first giraffe and supped on its brain. Now he was offering to repay my kindness by introducing me, at first hand, to one of the most ancient of English ceremonies.

  He urged me to think of those who suffer among my people – of the /Xam people of the Cape, gobbled down like ant larvae, by the invaders black and white. Vanished they are from the land to which they belonged, he reminded me, fled like water in a thirsty time!

  How could I refuse? Put like that. For,
after all, if we do not support their traditions, will we not have only ourselves to blame if one day such specimens of traditional English rites vanish as surely as the hunters of Bushmanland? Where today are our medicine ceremonies of childhood? Who beats the drum when a girl has her first issue of blood? Where is the solemn naming of the fountain by the father in the presence of the son to whom it is being given? Who can remember the respect-names of the animals? Who knows the secrets of rain-making? Where is the Trance Dance? Who observes our food taboos – that woman will eat no part of the red cat, that children must not taste the tip of the springbucks tail? That no one shall taste the jackal in case they become cowardly like him? Or the baboon because he is too much like us?

  Very well – I told him – I would attend, but I would not hunt. I would watch, but I would not kill. This he agreed to very happily.

  He stood me in a fine position just over the brow of a little hill, where I could not see the Castle any longer but where, he assured me, the quarry must pass, when he had been flushed into the open. I would see him run before my very nose.

  We were brother hunters, the Lord proclaimed. I had helped him to bag his first giraffe. He would repay me now with my first fox’s brush!

  But what would I do with the tail, I wondered, in that green field, on that glorious morning? Hunters, when they are true, need their quarry more than it needs them. They love what they kill. But these people hunted what they hated, much as they did in love and marriage.

  I mused on these things in the early morning light, waiting to see the black helmets and pink coats come over the hill, looking for all the world like the red tubular tips of the aloes that stride like men across the Karoo. I heard the distant baying of hounds and the far-off cracked notes of the hunting horn. The call of the hounds grew louder, and I saw the pack begin to climb the long, green slope where we had killed our first giraffe. Behind them came the huntsmen. The sun shone on the little bugle that Lord Goodlove raised to his lips. What I could not see was the fox, and I shaded my eyes for a better glimpse of the wretched quarry.