Homesickness (33 page)

They were finishing the instant coffee—‘good old nylon coffee'—a crack—and two or three, the ladies, had trouble fitting their mouths around the huge hero sandwiches. Many wore coats, furs, mufflers and whatnot; and the early tea certainly added to the atmosphere. It was almost dark outside. The traffic had more of a distant night sound. Abruptly Doug Cathcart breathed on the pale blue eyes of his binoculars and felt for his handkerchief; Kaddok there had the leather-hooded telephoto lens protruding ready from his abdomen.

The tour organiser from the hotel hurried over. Natty, natty.

‘All right, gang,' he said looking at his watch, ‘you're on. Good luck.'

Good luck? What does he mean?

But the entrepreneur clapped Gerald on the back, smiling. Americans can do that: easy.

The Landrovers, long wheelbase models, were fitted with metal spades and spare cans of juice, spotlights and winches. Driving the front one a barrel-chested American had a scraggy silver beard, a scar on his forehead and whisky on his breath. When he spoke he either swore or grunted in some Indian lingo—a nasty bastard. He was the Park Ranger. The second driver, his partner, never left the vehicle and only afterwards when the party compared notes did they discover he was the ranger's exact double. Both men also wore the same crumpled safari jacket equipped with sheath knife, a cartridge clip and a water bottle. In this respect they were similar to their specially equipped Landrovers.

A practised forward-arching motion of his arm out the window; the ranger then shoved into whining four-wheel drive and the convoy got going.

The Game Park was located in the central most unexpected part of New York, uneven terrain of abandoned benches, of bushes, rock formations and small ravines.

The ranger wasn't answering questions.

So Phillip North said to Sasha, ‘Well I'm told they have foxes, jack-rabbits, skunks and owls. And of course the squirrels.'

At that the ranger let out a roar of a laugh and shouted over his shoulder: ‘You hear that, Charo? That's rich.'

‘Yes, bwana.'

A black man in khaki shorts and bare feet crouched in the back; had to uncoil slightly to answer.

Muttering to himself the ranger laughed again or rather hissed through his teeth. It sounded remarkably like the Landrover engine.

Wedged against him, Sasha glanced at North. He shrugged. Better leave him alone.

Turning into the park the headlights were switched off and Violet in the back was told to douse her cigarette. The ranger drove carefully. Many of the trees had lost their leaves. The track wandered in and out; edges of dark branches tried to scratch and sprang back. Black bushes bulged like boulders, yet ordinary footpaths and stone benches were glimpsed at the sides. Before long the petroleum hum and horns of Detroit faded, the lights of the surrounding tall buildings almost all blotted out. The Landrover swung into a large bush; they were enveloped unexpectedly in leaves.

He switched the engine off.

All quiet then: the leaves rustled when anyone moved.

Quickly, they followed the ranger out some thirty paces, all but Kaddok stumbling and tripping, the virtually invisible black man taking up the rear, lugging two wicker hampers under his arm like suitcases.

The ranger shinned up a large black oak—remarkably agile for a man of his size and age. The pleat in his safari jacket opened to reveal a Colt .45 in its tan holster. Violet and Gerald were giggling and whispering, but a sharp word came from above among the vibrating bending branches. Gwen, the first to follow, found a wooden ladder. Doug began pushing his wife up. Heh, heh. The life of the party, Garry, bunted Sasha with his head, and she told him to stop; the others were glancing around furtively instead of laughing.

So subtle and naturally camouflaged was the panelled treehouse that they were inside it before they fully realised, In the moonlight they made out an upholstered bench around three sides, and sat down automatically, shoulder-to-shoulder.

The bearer too finally made the climb with the hampers, and after giving him a playful punch in the stomach the ranger closed the door.

‘You can speak normally,' he said in his twang, ‘if you whisper.'

They could hear him breathing heavily as he made space for himself by the slot which they now noticed opened like a window behind their necks. It explained the draught, the cold.

Staring outside into the dark the ranger moved his hand and found the special switch.

‘You've got the hand it to the Yanks,' Garry whispered, the first words spoken.

Directly below, an ordinary-looking street lamp coruscated then lit up with unexpected vividness a typical intersection of footpaths which are found in the park. A bench and a casually placed trash bin set the scene, and the surrounding grass was pale green. A newspaper blew across and clutched the base of the lamp. Inside the specially constructed blind the same light illuminated their faces and shadowed the walls.

They looked around, interested. For some reason Gwen Kaddok and Atlas both smiled.

‘I'm not liking this,' Sasha whispered.

‘They can't see us,' the ranger breathed. And he looked around at them, settled on Violet, then Louisa, before returning to the window. Those with cameras and binoculars set them up and waited.

The effectiveness of .357 magnum rifles cropped up in a polite and professional conversation with Phillip North. On this the ranger proved to be extremely knowledgeable. Elephant and aardvark entered the conversation. Single syllable impressions of Africa.

‘My heroes,' Violet yawned. ‘How boring.'

‘Quiet, woman.'

The ranger glanced at his watch and took a swig from his hip flask. Soon after, the bearer opened the hampers for the others. It was good eating the ham sandwiches and coffee, steaming black. It all came in the price.

‘Ever shot a red roo?' Garry leaned across. That reminded him. Ha, ha. Friend of his, Bill Smallacombe, last year—

‘Bwana!'

The ranger held up his hand to the others.

‘Is that our decoy?' Garry enquired. He gave a low whistle.

‘It should be an old man on crutches.' The ranger looked at his watch. ‘I knew he was late.'

So they looked down at the woman in the fur coat. She was young and paced up and down as if she waited for someone. They could see her white face.

‘She shouldn't be there,' the ranger went on. He was being earnest. ‘She could get hurt.'

‘Not a bad decoy though,' Garry laughed, a bit nervous.

The others were silent.

‘A mob was sighted at dusk farther along. About five; all males. She's going to frighten them off or she'll get hurt. She'd better move on.'

He took another swig and scanned the undergrowth behind and on either side of the woman. The street lamp formed a yellow canopy blurred at the edges, hundreds of moths circling the centre as the woman paced up and down.

‘She's going to spoil everything.'

‘It is finished,' said Charo. He stood up.

‘No. Wait.'

No one spoke. Experienced travellers, they make allowances. In the poor light Ken Hofmann could move his hand to touch the neck of Violet Hopper. Louisa had squeezed Borelli's hand.

‘Capitalism,' Borelli was saying to Gerald, 'free enterprise, is by nature violent. It's structured on power, speed and visibility. It relies on them. Visual differences and selfishness are promoted—'

‘There has to be a winner,' said Kaddok.

‘No wonder those who are flung out to the edges feel the recourse is simply to grab.'

‘Survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle?' Kaddok threw in. Another platitude.

‘But you're not political, are you?' Louisa whispered.

‘Not especially, no. I've just been thinking.'

Phillip North tapped the ranger's arm. ‘Shouldn't we warn her, call out or something?'

‘No, that would frighten them.'

This being their last night in America, the Cathcarts took the opportunity to scribble messages on a pile of postcards.

‘Bwana,' whispered the bearer.

The woman had stopped walking. She swung around.

‘No!' cried Sasha.

‘Shut up,' the ranger hissed.

Puerto Ricans in leather, one white face among them, stepped out from the shadows, nonchalant-like, as dark and as silent as the shadows, surrounding her. The woman glanced one way, then the other. She held the neck of her coat.

‘They're big,' the ranger breathed.

North shook the ranger's arm. Leaning forward, watching intently, he didn't seem to feel it.

The woman tried running. She pushed against one and fell. They closed in around her, the circle. Rolling on her back she tried kicking, and lost a shoe. First, her handbag was pulled off her. She began sobbing.

‘Somebody stop them!' Sasha cried. ‘The animals!'

The ranger pulled her back from the window.

‘You wanted to come. Now stay. The woman has committed an error in life. Nature takes its course. That's life.' He turned to North. ‘You too, sit!'

Poor woman, her white thighs parted in the moonlight. The fur was pulled open, her dress torn up and sideways. Others pinned her arms. And the shadows multiplied the union in all the angles, violent, interlocking blackness.

None if any noticed Sheila, her mouth and eyes wide, and the tremor which spread through from her warmth, electrical at the nerve-ends, which suddenly, violently, splayed her feet. Sheila stifled a cry. But then while a few tried to preserve some detachment the majority were breathing in and shaking their heads at the spectacle, or making that perplexed clicking sound with their tongues. ‘Chhhhrist!' Garry let out hoarsely. He spoke for the majority. ‘They're animals, look at that.'

The Cathcarts had addressed all the postcards and began licking the stamps.

Sasha had settled to the floor, her head in her arms, comforted by North. And Louisa with Borelli was crying, shaking her head.

But their own position was felt to be precarious, preventing intervention. Directly below were five armed with freedom of excitement and assorted flick-knives. At least up in the tree they were downwind.

She lay, an exhausted animal, the woman, a crippled furry thing, split and torn. She moved her foot as the last two fought over their turn. The tall white one fell on top of her.

Sudden darkness. The light was cut. They felt the bulk of the ranger quickly swing around. ‘Who did that? Where are you?'

‘We've seen enough,' said Borelli.

The voices in the street rose and fell. Then there was quiet.

‘This is not your country, boy. This is my business.'

‘You're wrong there.'

‘That's right,' said North.

‘It wasn't what we thought,' Gerald explained.

‘It wasn't what you thought? Oh you're rich.' Fumbling around for the switch. ‘I'll find this and punch you in the face.'

‘This doesn't happen in our country.'

‘I'm going to punch you in the face.'

Borelli's walking stick hit the window ledge. ‘The light can go on in a minute. Then you can do what you like.'

‘Very well done. Splendid,' said Kaddok who had followed it through Gwen's whisper. ‘Well worth the trip. Thank you very much.'

Gwen pulled him down. ‘We're not going just yet.'

Muttering obscenities the ranger shoved against one or two. Lunging forward he switched on the street lamp. It swam before them. They blinked. A white handkerchief fluttered on the ground, nothing more. They listened, and decided it was safe to go down. Hofmann and others quickly inspected the site before returning to the hotel.

5

What is known about the problem:

1) loss of appetite

2) statesmen and businessmen discover: intricate negotiations can be upset. Decision-making processes suffer

3) air hostesses complain: it upsets the menstrual cycle

4) it is unnatural to break the body's arcadian rhythm. It is going against the spin of the earth, not to mention the other planets. Never happened with propellers: remember the Pan Am Clippers, slow boats to China, zeppelins, flying boats, upholstered saloon carriages?

5) interference with natural biological cycles has been shown to reduce the life-span of animals.

The city appeared to be the same, the mass as remembered, yet it was different. It was they who had changed, if only slightly, a shade. They waited in line for the double-decker at Heathrow. Taking for granted now the long solid objects, the city proper, they followed the contributing details, the ever-changing parts, small and brightly coloured, people here and there sliding across, the movement, the words and the gradual lights.

It all passed in a blur, stroking their eyes. They had to pull themselves up. Tourists, just returned by jet; gazing through glass; distanced, out of step and place. It had been a late last night in New York. That city of verticals already receded, rose up again, receded. Nobody felt like talking.

Old Marble Arch—still standing. It made them feel at home.

Their vagueness showed in the simple grey of the arch, the outline of which was imprecise and not worth the effort; irritation showed when they returned to the British Museum, to their hotel in the dead wing, for it had been Gerald's sensible idea to stick to what they knew. In their previous stay it had grown familiar, informally so, and all had agreed: they had become part of the place. Now beginning with the formerly jovial moustached desk clerk who had once explained with diagrams how he and Gwen Kaddok could well have been related, onto the West Indian porters horsing around and sitting on their luggage, no one recognised or greeted them, or if they did, they chose to hide it, and yet they'd been chatting and joking, seeking directions, only what, three or four weeks ago. A slap in the face, in effect. It put them in place, with all the rest. While the feeling of irrelevance didn't appear to worry Borelli and Gerald, the others grew by turn quiet, indignant, increasingly critical and crabby led by Sasha and Mrs Cathcart. And now that they looked at the place the cream corridors and the cold rooms were down at the heel (not even genteel), like the long thread hanging from the stained cuff of the lift attendant they'd before learned to call ‘Guvnor'. The hotel in New York, even with its jack-hammers and tenacious mountaineers, was preferable to this.

After the flight a hot shower would have helped; it was only natural: but they remembered as they unpacked and ran their tongues over their teeth this hotel was equipped with nothing but vitreous enamel baths. Each one noticed however they had been given the same room.

Louisa remembered the
Hair Salon
and homed in across the street taking the other women: such a determined group, fast in its gaiety. Well, they were removing themselves from the lives of men for several hours, and planned on keeping them waiting. It made Borelli for one ask aloud whether being groomed by fellow members was an underlying ceremony, organised by and indeed essential to the tribe. Did it occur in all cultures?

Desultory drift of male travellers.

‘It is like a wedding rehearsal?' North suggested.

Well, absence and formality play their part in both.

‘During it,' Borelli tried, ‘the woman also projects and imagines herself. Is that what you mean?'

‘Grooming,' snickered Hofmann; no apparent reason.

‘What about,' Kaddok floundered, but kept going, ‘the animal kingdom? I'd look there if I were you.' Turning to where he expected North, the zoologist, he faced an empty chair. Without Gwen he was tentative; or it could have been the jet lag.

‘Now listen, comparisons with animals are useless. Next minute you'll trundle out the peacock.'

‘I'm not sure that animals help each other anyway,' North said to Kaddok. ‘Generally speaking, animals don't rely on anyone. They're already decorated.'

With Gwen missing they could look Kaddok in the eye. He was brooding, impervious. He was hunched; never said anything funny: a leaning shouldered rock holding his place, not wanting to let go. Over the years he had accumulated and clung onto hundreds of scraps and well-established facts like barnacles. These he bartered, removing them from his mind. Without them he imagined he was lost.

‘There's a reason for everything,' Borelli stretched his arms. ‘But I don't know…'

‘Nothing is as it seems,' Hofmann smiled.

Some of them laughed. Borelli laughed. (They didn't know what they were talking about.)

‘Of course, it could be our fault,' North shifted. ‘They say today it's a male-dominated world. I must say I haven't thought about it much.'

‘Our fault?' Garry echoed. He'd been arguing with Doug Cathcart about something else. ‘Listen, they love getting dolled up.'

And they themselves swung in their seats and made the right noises, changed their way of talking, when the women swept in just before lunch, shining from the outdoors with news to tell. Well-practised—after more than thirty years—Doug let out a whistle from across the room; quite a distance. ‘Whacko! Say, that looks better…' Get in early and be positive. It saved a lot.

Phillip North and Gerald of the old school, stood up.

‘You look fine,' Garry told them. I'm not kidding.'

‘What did I tell you?' Mrs Cathcart said to Louisa.

‘What do you expect from this lot?' said Violet.

‘Hey, what's up?' Doug looked pained; and Garry scratched his neck.

The faces of stupid men looking up from their chairs.

‘Someone tell him!'

‘You're a rotten hopeless lot,' said Sasha. She looked at Phillip North. ‘It just goes to show.'

‘We've been,' Sheila laughed, ‘but we haven't had our hair done.'

‘They're as blind as—' said Violet.

‘Listen,' Garry shouted, ‘we've been talking about you all the time. Haven't we?'

‘It's not serious,' said Gerald. He wasn't much interested.

Mrs Cathcart plomped herself down near Doug. ‘It was a queer place, and who would have known?'

Doug still pulled faces at her hair, trying to see what he had missed.

‘And you didn't know?' Sasha asked North. ‘What does
Salon
mean?'

‘French,' Kaddok declared.

‘It used to be where they had an annual exhibition of paintings in Paris,' said Hofmann.

‘Well it means a large reception room, I think,' said North. ‘I suppose it's been bastardised now.'

‘Our
Salon
over the road is full of special hair. It's a museum.'

Even Gerald became interested.

‘My feet are killing me,' Mrs Cathcart said, while the others were all talking at once.

‘We paid a small admission,' said Sheila, ‘and really quite enjoyed it. The word “hair” comes from “air”—because it's slightly heavier than air. We were told.'

‘But that's rubbish,' Gerald laughed.

‘There is a scientific reason for having hair, for body warmth and so forth,' Louisa entered into her smooth voice, ‘yet it is the most easily alterable part of the body. In most societies the length and style of hair are an indication of a person's religious and political beliefs.'

She patted the back of her head.

Borelli glanced at North.

‘And what were we talking about before? But why didn't you come and get us? We were sitting here scratching our heads.'

‘They had hair,' said Violet looking at them. ‘from a man's and a gorilla's armpit; we couldn't tell the difference. That made us girls sit up.'

‘Come off it!'

But they all thought that was good; seismic hiccups for once entered the shoulders of Kaddok.

‘Did old Sampson get a guernsey?'

‘So did Lady Godiva, poor thing.'

‘Violet, what was that proverb strung across the wall, from wherever it was?'

‘No, we decided not to mention that.'

‘The Persian proverb,' said Sheila. ‘“Women have more hair than brains.”'

Haw, haw. Horse laughs.

‘Sheila!'

And Garry slapped Violet on the back.

‘People are afraid of hair,' said Gwen quietly. ‘The hair of others is difficult to brush off.'

A little snippet; it made Borelli slap his forehead.

‘That's not bad. That's all right.'

‘Why are you so interested in hair?' Louisa quietly asked.

‘We all are. It's constantly on our minds!'

Gerald leaned between them, his elbows on their chairs, ‘Freud, you know, was supposed to have said about weaving that it was a woman braiding her ah, pubic hairs to form an absent…an absent penis. That was what Freud said.'

‘How silly,' said Louisa. ‘All his ridiculous theories.'

‘Of course he was bald,' put in North.

‘We don't seem to require all these theories,' said Louisa meaning the women.

‘They had a diagram,' Gwen went on, largely for Leon's benefit, ‘which showed that if the hair from one day's cutting from the world's hairdressers was swept up into a pile it would be bigger—imagine—than Mount Kanchenjunga. On Fridays they say it is higher still. The disposal of hair is a little known but serious problem.'

‘It's a growth industry,' Kaddok nodded pursing his lips. His sideburns were thin and greying.

Hair in cushions, in horse collars, glued on dolls' heads; the extremely lucrative toupee industry in Hong Kong. These were some of the solutions offered by the
Hair Salon
.

The ‘blonde myth', the problem of women with hormone moustaches, was exhaustively discussed by means of closed-circuit video equipment. The
Salon's
trichologists had assembled extremely good examples of superfluous hairs, of short and curlies, locks of royal hair and other bigwigs, tonsures of certain religious freaks, bits of mysteriously singed hair; lanugo and an oily filmstar's quiff had made the ladies shiver. A small room with flesh-coloured walls was filled with nothing but eyebrows (‘supraorbital ridge hair'). Whose eyebrows are these?
a
) Karl Marx's.
b
) Sir Robert Menzies'.
c
) Rasputin's.

‘Guess how many hairs are estimated in the head of a typical thirty-year-old Englishman?'

Gwen turned to her husband; Mister History didn't know.

‘Eight hundred thousand, three hundred and twenty-odd.'

Terrible photographs showed how the head is forcibly shaved—by fellow members of the tribe—as punishment, a sign of disgrace.

‘They didn't have only hair,' Sasha said.

There were secondhand combs, shaving gear through the ages, disgusting hair-powders, many nickel-plated depilators, a hair-trigger from a .303 rifle and examples of dangerous hairpin bends. An ingenious skull had been rigged up on a table to show at the flick of a switch how hair stands up with an electric shock.

‘Any turbans?' Kaddok enquired. ‘You'd expect them to have turbans.'

Yes, a good cross-section: the East African and Indian types were both represented.

Glancing at North, Violet whispered to Sasha, ‘Never trust a man with a beard. My mother always said.'

Hair continues to grow for several hours after death, the last to get the message.

‘I had no idea hair was so important,' said Louisa. ‘We had a marvellous time, didn't we?'

Sasha and the women laughed.

‘You should have come,' Sheila said to them. ‘It was very interesting.'

The social factors behind the left-hand part. Bottles of seban: translucent, secretive. The world's longest recorded moustache (that Punjabi rice merchant).

The real truth about crabs; brief history and estimated daily tonnage of dandruff. In the dandruff stakes England was the world leader.

‘Very interesting,' Kaddok moved his lips to commit it to memory.

‘Yeah, but what conclusions if any did it draw?'

That hair is symbolic, a visual measure in more ways than one; that hair has its own history and power.

Reproductions of hair paintings included ‘Woman Combing Her Hair'.

‘What's-his-name?' Louisa clicked her fingers at her husband, looking at him for the first time. ‘The modern French artist…'

‘You always forget,' was Hofmann's comment—not a hair out of place. ‘Pablo Picasso.'

‘Was that all?' Borelli looked around at them.