Five Miles From Outer Hope (10 page)
‘I can’t believe I lost my twig,’ he keeps saying. ‘I just
can’t
believe I lost it.’
I cast out again, firmly resolving to simply ignore him. After a brief two minute silence during which time La Roux is noisily consuming the remainder of his sticky yellow ball of wonder-bait, his voice pipes up again. ‘I need protein,’ he says determinedly. ‘Bring me the lugworms. Just pass the tub over.’
‘No,’ I growl, ‘we’re
fishing
with them
.’
‘Then give me an Iced Gem,’ he wheedles.
‘No.’
‘You know what?’ Jack says, as if suddenly awakening from a temporary reverie.
‘No, what?’ La Roux answers.
‘It’s only mentioning starlings earlier that made me think of it…’
I drag my eyes from my fly and turn to look at him. ‘Made you think of what?’
‘The parliament,’ he says grandly. ‘We have one locally. Have you ever seen it?’
I shake my head. ‘Parliament? Nope. I’ve never even
heard
of it.’
‘Me neither,’ La Roux interjects.
‘Well,’ Jack expands, ‘a parliament of starlings happens at sunset. But only in certain places and especially at certain times of year. They flock together – and I mean literally in their thousands – and do all this astonishingly acrobatic flying, in formation. It’s a really amazing sight. Definitely worth seeing.’
I’m immediately fascinated by this phenomenon. ‘Wow. That sounds intoxicating.’
‘You’re telling me,’ Jack agrees smugly.
Suddenly, and without
any
prior warning, La Roux (as if inspired by what Jack has been saying) starts to sing something in the most offensively smarmy wail I have ever yet heard. He has a terrible voice. At once strong
and
weedy. I turn towards him. ‘La
Roux
,’ I say firmly (but calmly), ‘ I want you to
stop
doing that right now.’
He stops. ‘Doing what?’ he asks.
‘I want you to stop singing that insufferable shit right this instant.’
‘It’s Andrew Lloyd-
Webber
,’ he tells me (as if astonished by my ignorance). ‘It’s
Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
.’
‘So?’
‘
Joseph
, I tell you.’
‘So?’
‘It’s the song Joseph sings when he’s been forcibly kept by Herod’s men against his will.’
‘
So
?’
‘You mean to tell me,’ he pauses in horror, ‘that you have never even seen
Joseph
?’
‘No,’ I echo blankly, ‘I have never even seen it.’
La Roux’s eyes bulge through his balaclava.
‘I went and saw it in London a few years back, actually,’ Jack intervenes, almost apologetically, ‘but I can’t say I entirely recognized it from what you were just singing.’
‘Oh, come on.’
Jack shrugs. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh, come
on
.’
Jack merely smiles.
‘As it happens,’ La Roux tells him, ‘I personally
own
the original English Lloyd-Webber version on record. But in truth my favourite recording is the all-South-African-cast one. I went to see it in Johannesburg when I was seventeen. It featured the wonderful South African singer Bruce Millar as Joseph. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him over here?’
Jack shakes his head. ‘Not that I can recall.’
‘Well,’ La Roux continues determinedly, ‘I would happily bet a considerable amount of money that Bruce was probably the best Joseph in
any
production.’
Jack says nothing (He seems to have no particular feelings either way on this subject, and why
should
he?).
‘The South African version had some minor differences to the English version,’ La Roux continues, ‘but they were all
good
differences in my opinion. They were
improvements
.’
Jack continues fishing in silence for a while and then he suddenly says, ‘How can you be
sure
of that? You didn’t even see the English version. Or any others, for that matter.’
La Roux (plainly delighted at having finally provoked some opposition, no matter how half-hearted) instantly jumps onto his high-horse and straddles it like a pincer-kneed professional. ‘That’s hardly the point,’ he says. ‘In my experience of musical theatre – which is extensive because we have a real
passion
for it in South Africa – I have never seen an actor so well cast for a role as Bruce was for
Joseph
.’
‘But you didn’t even
see
the English
Joseph
,’ Jack counters dogmatically.
‘I heard him on record and that was enough for me. He was useless. In fact he was
embarrassing
.’
Jack immediately takes offence at La Roux’s harsh and fatuous criticisms. He indignantly draws himself up to his full height. ‘He certainly wasn’t useless when I saw him.’
‘Well, he was useless on record. And Bruce was
great
recorded. That must mean something.’
Jack snorts derisively. ‘I’m afraid I simply can’t agree with you. A recording is a very different kettle of fish
indeed
from a live performance. Someone could easily perform live brilliantly and then record badly. It happens.’
‘Fine,’ La Roux concedes, ‘but if you’re such an admirer of his talents, how about telling me the actual
name
of the actor who played the English
Joseph
?’
Jack thinks hard for a minute. ‘I can’t honestly say I remember. All I can recollect is the fine performance he gave. I don’t believe he was especially famous. I can’t even recall having seen him in anything before or since…’
‘But doesn’t that
tell
you something?’ La Roux expostulates victoriously. ‘He performed in
Joseph
and then he sank without a trace. You
never heard of him again
. Listen to yourself! It’s so
easy.
It’s like snatching candy from a little baby.’
‘No. I said
I’d
never heard of him since. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have a perfectly respectable career after. I just don’t happen to follow the world of musical theatre as closely as…’
‘
Enough!
’ I bellow. ‘What the heck is
wrong
with the two of you? That is
it.
If I hear another fucking
word
about
Joseph
I am going to kill somebody. I am
fishing.
Don’t you know what that
means
? It’s a
spiritual
experience. It’s a kind of
devotion
. I need some peace and bloody
quiet
!’
Both men turn and stare at me with expressions of surprised incomprehension, as if my sudden show of bile is
entirely
disproportionate to the net irritation caused.
‘Fine then,’ Jack eventually mutters. ‘Very sorry, I’m sure.’
He turns his back on us and reels in his line. As soon as he’s not watching I poke a stiff finger into La Roux’s spine (he yelps like a kitten). ‘I
know
what you’re doing,’ I whisper ferociously, ‘and you’ll live to regret it if you carry on. Just shut the
fuck
up and stop driving me
crazy
.’
La Roux leans back a way and stares at me indignantly. ‘Well get a load of you, Miss High and Mighty!’ he exclaims. ‘As far as I am aware,’ he continues haughtily, ‘you have absolutely no reason to believe my voice isn’t actually deeply
alluring
to fish. In fact, you have no logical or scientific basis for thinking fish aren’t actively
attracted
to my singing.’
‘La Roux, just put a bloody
sock
in it,’ I hiss.
I return to my rod. A mere five short seconds later, La Roux cheerfully commences whistling the overture to
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
(the English version, naturally, to garner support from his Lloyd-Webber ally), then calmly proceeds to perform it in full. With a whole
infuriating
variety of embellishments.
Straight after the overture comes the first vocal number. And it is exactly half-way through his hyper-energetic performance of this song (during which the narrator kindly sets the
BC
scene) that I finally decide to throw my first punch.
Thereafter, things get
really
ugly.
When we arrive back at the island (a tumultuous twenty soggy, splashy, salty, sweaty minutes later), knuckles have been bitten, bruises have blossomed on lips and on backs-of-heads, blood has been drawn.
Jack clambers out first, ties up the boat, then turns and peers down at me.
‘Is he still breathing?’ he asks anxiously.
I peruse La Roux at my leisure. ‘Of course he is. Can’t you see his chest moving?’
‘But did you really have to sit on his face
all
the way home?’ Jack persists.
I smile, brightly. ‘Come on, Jack, I gave him fair warning. When I sat astride his chest he still
persisted
in whistling. In my book that’s a declaration of war and at that point I was actively
obliged
to take the appropriate action. There
was
no alternative.’
Jack still doesn’t look convinced. ‘For heaven’s sake,’ I tell him, ‘this man has had six months training in the South African armed forces. He’s seen military action. I am a sixteen-year-old girl with a short fuse. It’s hardly unfair competition.’
La Roux kicks out his right leg, furiously. Jack shrugs, rescues his mackerel and quickly makes off with it. As I watch him retreating, I take a good, deep breath, clench my buttocks one last time and then rise from that boat like a tall, teen, phoenix.
Unrepentant, ruddy-cheeked and
righteous.
Yeah,
Buster
. That’s me.
Talk about one
helluva
lousy and unproductive fishing expedition. When I finally arrive home again (it’s seven a.m. already – I mean, the day’s literally
over
), completely fish-free and horribly groin-grazed (you honestly think he let me sit on his face for quarter of an hour without champing at my genital region like an avenging two-humped camel?) I spend a fair old while digging out and then trowelling half a bottle of Germolene on to my assorted cuts and grazes.
My lower lip – I mutely observe in the bathroom mirror – is fatter than a Christmas-week turkey and redder and
moister
than a half-pint jug of cranberry jelly.
La Roux (very sensibly) lies low until way after eleven, when I eventually catch a glimpse of him outside on the balcony, struggling to make his creepy peace with Feely (This man’s an emotional
juggler
. If he’s out of favour in one place he’s bound to be energetically ingratiating himself in another).
After the awful Shiro Chan drama I’m astonished the loose-bladdered little one will even
look
at him again, let alone actively
welcome
his clumsy advances. But look he will, and welcome he does (which I guess speaks volumes about the natural, heedless
folly
of Human Nature; or maybe it’s just my small brother the
masochist
voluntarily offering his other cheek in the secret anticipation of yet a further slapping).
Everything falls into place, though, when I finally discover
how
it is that La Roux’s aiming to re-enter the Leaking Sprout’s good graces. Not with Pomfret cakes or gentle kisses or games of Snap or Snakes and Ladders. No. He earns his forgiveness by dint of teaching him the complex and much-vaunted technique of burp-speaking (i.e. to speak coherent sentences in the guise of an extended belch).
This is, without doubt, just the kind of knack any well-adjusted whippersnapper might happily offer up his milk teeth for. Where, after all – I overhear La Roux asking rhetorically – is any real man
without
such a talent when participating in a riotous rugby club dinner, a bachelor party or a five-hour-long car journey?
Where? He wants to know
where
? Whatever happened to lighting farts, or hiring strippers or experimenting with depilatory cream or inhaling a reliably noxious cocktail of correction fluid, nail polish and paint thinners? (Is it just me or is the world really changing far too fast this half of the century?)
The secret to burp-speaking effectively – it turns out – lies in creating a syncopated rhythm of breathing and swallowing. It takes some doing. Although you wouldn’t know it, to watch La Roux in action (demonstrating, experimenting, encouraging, enjoying), since he does it all so
naturally
; to the extent that I’m honestly starting to doubt whether English truly
is
his first language.
Indeed, to see this ginger gentleman valiantly burping is to observe true
indigestive
craftsmanship at it’s absolute zenith. He can even recite the Twenty-third Psalm in belches with no artificial breaks or pauses. And he makes it look
effortless
.
Downstairs in the kitchen, meanwhile, poor Patch has been thrown into a sudden confusion by the unexplained disappearance of her carefully pre-prepared lunch menu (spicy Moroccan Curry Balls, to you).
The oil smokes mournfully in the pan as she stares fixedly into the well-pilfered refrigerator and mutters, ‘I’m
certain
I made twelve of those pesky things. Now there’s only seven left, and two of
those
look partially regurgitated.’
(They actually say Agatha Christie was a regular visitor to these parts in the 1930s, and frankly, on the basis of what I’ve witnessed today, is it really any wonder? I mean, talk about a scintillating culinary-based art-deco murder-mystery in the making.)
Lunch is at one, formally, by which time La Roux has developed a rather attractive shiner (brown on its edges, blue-grey at its centre), and lucky for me the whole family gets to witness it in all its
cinematic
luminosity because today we just so happen to be picnicking on the tennis court, upon a blanket, with the searing midday sun blazing obligingly down and generously picking out each and every vicious Technicolor detail from this showy-looking but insignificant small-scale ocular injury.
After a painful five minutes on the concrete I dash inside again and fetch myself a cushion; this small foam square is found
exceedingly
welcome in my nether regions (ah, some brief respite at long last for my too-too-tender undercarriage).
La Roux and I are still barely speaking. Hitherto nobody (but
nobody)
has dared to mention our dramatic
pot-pourri
of physical maladies (excepting Feely who, at one point, looks from me to the South African and then back again – the kid puts two and two together so effortlessly that I
must
be teaching him
something
properly – his eyes as round as picnic plates, and delightedly whispers, ‘
Wow!
Big’s really going to
kill
you this time, sister.’)
Kill
me
?
This
time?! I give La Roux another furtive once over. In the harsh light, and without his balaclava, his hair looks dramatically moth-infested (Patch certainly did a dandy job there). Ringworm? Now it’s finally settling down again it’s starting to look as if someone spiteful’s been yanking out handfuls of it.
He has a graze on his cheek (with an oddly well-delineated bite mark at its centre), a second on his knuckle, and – worst of all – he appears to have chipped his main front tooth rather badly: just a small pointed spike remains where once there was a tombstone (To tell the absolute truth, I had no
idea
I’d succeeded in wounding him so categorically. Perhaps I’m really much more of a bruiser than I’ve ever previously given myself credit for?).
And
my
battle-scars? Well there’s my extensively bruised bottom (and that’s hardly up for inspection), a tetchy shoulder injury, and my swollen lip, which has quietened down considerably (in the swelling department) over the past six hours.
Naturally both La Roux and I have studiously avoided countenancing Big since returning home from our bumpy voyage, but as luck would have it, the Little Man has lain deliciously a-slumbering in his cot ’til noon.
And (doubly lucky), as he bouncily approaches us across the hard green concrete court, he seems to physically
exude
the healthy benefits of his lengthy span of pillow-punching. You might even say his lunch-time disposition is decidedly
jaunty
.
He turns up humming, a melon under his arm, sits down, grabs a knife, smiles at everybody (his expression full of a strangely airy and open geniality), then proceeds to hack up the honeydew and proffer it in chunks to the assembled masses. He says nothing – not
anything
– even when Feely thanks him for his dripping segment in ill-formed burp-language.
Unfortunately, La Roux has recently developed an odd new
tick
to compliment his other, more visible, multi-coloured ailments. And it’s suitably maddening. Each and every time he uses his hands (which is quite a bit when he’s eating), he neurotically presses the individual pads of his eight fingers down – in order – on to his two thumbs as if testing them for something. He’s been doing it all morning.
On the seventh or eighth occasion he does this during lunch, Patch can apparently stand the suspense no longer. ‘La Roux,’ she says, ‘could I ask you a question?’
La Roux wipes some melon juice from his chin, then immediately does this finger thing again.
‘Of course you may.’
‘What’s that weird thing you keep doing with your fingers there?’
The entire assembled company turns, as one, to look at him. ‘My tips are numb,’ he explains (free air whistling through the gap in his tooth as he’s speaking).
‘Oh. Okay.’ Patch seems perfectly satisfied with this answer, but unfortunately not everyone in the party is as easily fobbed-off as she. Big in particular.
At long last, on the back of this deeply inconclusive sally from my nosey sister, he is finally spurred into his own casual enquiry. ‘How did that happen, then?’ he asks gently.
‘Uh… You know what?’ La Roux thinks hard for a minute. ‘I
don’t
honestly remember.’
‘Hmmmn.
Concussion,
’ Big mutters ruminatively, grabbing some curry balls and a handful of green salad, then reaching out his hand, a second time, to proffer La Roux a slice of cucumber. ‘For your shiner,’ he says. Then he turns to me.
‘Been scrapping again, Medve?’ he asks softly.
I gape, then artfully double-bluff him. ‘
Again
? What on
earth
are you implying?’
Patch chuckles fondly. ‘How well I remember’, she callously intervenes, ‘when you got thrown off the under-twelves’ hockey team in Madagascar for breaking the referee’s wrist after a bad decision.
God
, that was funny. And then when you bloodied that girl’s nose in New Zealand for stealing my rubber chicken…’
Big thinks for a while (chewing peaceably). ‘To get back to the point,’ he continues. ‘The rather serious calibre of injuries sustained here would seem to imply
either…’
he emphasizes cheerily, ‘… scrapping of a fairly
serious
nature,
or
,’ he smiles sweetly, ‘a minor traffic accident. But,’ he sighs, ‘there’s no indigenous traffic on this island. And the tide’s been in for much of the morning, so…’ He pauses tantalizingly (I say nothing; I’m simply wondering what’s made him so infuriatingly self-satisfied all of a sudden). ‘In summing up,’ he finishes with a facetious flourish, ‘I guess it
must’ve
been a car accident, then?’
‘You know what?’ (Uh-oh. I spy a light-bulb suddenly lighting inside La Roux’s dark head) ‘… We were actually riding
pillion
on Black Jack’s delivery bike, when Medve took a really ill-judged corner and we both fell off it.’
La Roux smiles his deep satisfaction at this ridiculous-sounding porky-pie and then does that crazy-making thing with his fingers again.
‘La Roux,’ I speak calmly, ‘would you mind just not
doing
that?’ (It suddenly dawns on me that the whole stupid finger thing is an indirect reference to my most intimate of Girl Places. Don’t you
remember
? His fingers
always
go numb after bouts of vaginal interference.)
‘Why?’ he asks smugly.
‘Because it’s
irritating
me.’
‘I actually quite
like
it,’ Feely contributes (in burp, so it’s hard to decipher) and starts doing it himself like he thinks he’s being clever. Then Patch does the same, but with her left hand only.
Big ignores this (the man’s a terrier). ‘A
bike
accident?’ he repeats casually. La Roux nods. Big frowns. ‘You mean that sharp corner on the road down near where Jack parks the Sea Tractor?’
I immediately start cringing, but La Roux totally ignores my agonized expression and continues nodding along gamely. ‘Yup. That’s the one.’
Big claps his hands delightedly. ‘But there
is
no corner. And Jack doesn’t
own
a bike. His last one rusted to pieces shortly after we first arrived here.’
La Roux’s face stiffens. ‘Oh,’ he says, and does his finger-twitching thing again, but much faster this time. Big frowns sympathetically. ‘Is it a circulation problem you have there?’ he asks. ‘Are your finger pads prickling?’
La Roux licks his lips nervously. ‘Yes. Something like that.’
‘And when did this start happening? Was it before or
after
the invisible bicycle accident on the imaginary corner?’
‘Uh…’ La Roux glances my way anxiously and then does the finger thing again.
‘
Stop doing that!
’ I bellow. Big (still wincing from the sheer volume of my intervention) turns and raises a warning brow at me.
(Enough is enough. This tiny man’s eyebrows have long rendered him the south coast’s answer to Mr Roger Moore. And the sharply cocked brow – as you may well have gleaned – invariably anticipates imminent
slaughter
.)
‘Okay,
okay
,’ I come clean immediately (but with a suitable portion of pitiable
mewing
), ‘we went fishing and La Roux kept on
whistling
, so I threatened to hit him. But he wouldn’t stop – in fact he began singing instead, and really horribly
–
so I
did
hit him. Then he
still
kept on at it so I was faced with no real alternative but to sit on his head to try and quieten him.
‘Which was when his fingers went numb. From feverishly scrabbling on the bottom of the boat. Either that or from the shock, I imagine. And that’s the whole story.’
La Roux’s hyperactive hands seem suddenly frozen. Big is quiet for a long while as if mulling the whole thing over. Feely was right. I
am
in for it this time (the child’s a four-year-old fucking seer).
After a while, having said nothing, Big slowly begins eating again. Gradually Patch and Feely follow suit (La Roux and I merely chew on our tongues and glare at each other). Big feeds well and at his leisure, then – when he’s finally replete, has wiped his lips clean with a paper napkin, has pushed his plate away and cordially complimented the chefette on her sterling endeavours – he turns, scratches his stomach idly and fixes his most sternly penetrating gaze on me.
‘
Whistling
, you say?’ he asks softly.
I clear my throat. ‘Yes. And singing too.’
Big rubs his chin, slowly. ‘It’s difficult to condone violence, Medve,’ he tells me calmly, ‘under
any
circumstances, but to sit on someone’s
face
because they disturb you when you’re fishing…’ He shakes his head as if in utter disbelief at the things he’s been hearing. ‘Only a
saint
could have reacted less savagely under those conditions.’
La Roux’s smug expression melts like a cheap chocolate (from almost-cocky to very-tragic) in a mere matter of seconds. My own face starts glowing with an incendiary piety.