Looking for Mrs Dextrose (10 page)

How to reassure him? “We had a television show in England, called
Beadle’s About
. The host played pranks on people.”

“Yes?”

“He was called Jeremy Beadle… The host, I mean.”

Gdgi shrugged. “Why is this interesting?”

It was a fair point. “He had a withered hand?”

It was the death of the art of conversation.

Gamely, Gdgi ploughed on. “Tell me, Pilsbury, which lands have you travelled to?”

That was an easier one, and I told him of my previous adventures, England to Mlwlw, embellishing only slightly. Gdgi raised an eyebrow here and there, interjected with the odd “My
goodness!” and looked suitably impressed.

“What do you know?” he asked, when I had finished.

Odd question, I thought. “How do you mean?”

“You have been to all these places. What have you learned?”

Blimey. I’d never really thought in those terms. “I’ve learnt never to get drunk at the Frihedhags’ celebration party!”

“Hmm,” he said, frowning. “Do you not feel that the more you discover, the less you know?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.” He had lost me. “So how did you become leader of the tribe?”

“Aha. That is a long story,” said Gdgi, and he must have spotted my involuntary grimace because he added, “But I will tell you quickly. The honour is passed down from father to
son. If there is no boy-child then a new dynasty is chosen. But a new leader must always prove himself worthy. He must go into the forest alone with his spear and he must bring back a wild boar to
feed his people. If he does not kill such an animal, he cannot return, or it will bring shame upon his family.”

I didn’t know much about wild boars. Weren’t they just pigs with tusks?

Gdgi went on: “My brother, Mkki, who was older than me, was killed by a boar during such a test. That is how I came to be leader. I tracked down the creature that took his life, I killed
it and ate its heart, and my people stripped its bones.”

He looked around him. “What do you understand of my people?”

“A little,” I hazarded.

“The truth is you understand less than that, Pilsbury. Though we seem happy tonight, tomorrow we shall be sadder. Many times we return from hunting trips empty-handed. Our forest is being
destroyed by companies who bring bulldozers and tear down the trees, encroaching upon our lands. We have sent delegations to speak with them and they make promises, but bring only destruction.

“And as they destroy the forest they kill many animals and drive others far away. If we “Q’tse die, Pilsbury, our ways and our language will die with us. And who will know and
who will care? I wonder this often.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“One of your TV explorers came here some time ago and we talked when the cameras were not working, about our histories. He told me that there had been two world wars. I was shocked. My
people had not heard of these. I said to him, ‘How could they have been world wars if we were not invited?’”

“Right,” I said.

Conversation-wise, he had waded out of my depth.

Gdgi must have cottoned on to this, because he smiled and stopped talking about himself. “I notice, Pilsbury, many times while we have talked, you have looked at your Shaman. I wondered
why. I have never asked how you became friends.”

It was true. I’d been desperate to keep an eye on both shamen. What would happen when mine suspected his dastardly poisoning plan had been somehow foiled?

“We aren’t exactly friends,” I said. “Really I’m helping him out.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Well, it’s a long story. He has a map I need to see.”

“He will not show it to you?”

“No…” How much should I tell Gdgi, I wondered? Perhaps if I gave away enough he would offer to help me out. Might indiscretion be the better part of cowardice? “To be
honest, I’m finding him rather devious.”

Gdgi laughed. “You do not surprise me! What has he promised you?”

Tread gently. “He told me he’d show me the map if I brought him here. But he didn’t. And then” – How to word this one? – “…there was a funny
thing with his brother…”

“His brother?”

“Yes. Your shaman.”

“Our shaman? But that is not his brother. Indeed the shaman you bring here is a classic only child.”

Really? “So he doesn’t have a brother?”

“No.”

“They didn’t go to shaman school together?”

Gdgi slapped his thigh and roared with laughter. “Shaman school! That is very funny. Oh dear. Shaman school. Goodness me!”

I wasn’t finding it funny. “He said they were big rivals.”

“Goodness me, no. They are great friends!”

“But. That fight when we arrived?”

“Oh, it is for show. They are always doing that. The people love it.” He noticed my deepening concern. “Is something wrong?”

“Do you trust him?”

“No. Of course not.” This time he didn’t laugh.

My mouth opened but nothing emerged.

Gdgi spoke: “Did you trust him?”

I didn’t dare explain. “He wouldn’t want to harm your shaman, then?”

“He would be more likely to harm me, Pilsbury. He enjoys power. I am sure he would love to become leader. That is why I would never accept anything from him. He is a true shaman. He
understands the powers of all the plants and trees in the rainforest. There is no poison he could not make… Is there a problem here, Pilsbury?”

The cigar.
How easily that could have been laced with something. And I had pretended it was from me. Had Gdgi smoked it? I hadn’t noticed, but then I had hardly watched him
throughout the entire feast. I scanned the table for it, for a scrunched-up butt. Checked the ground. Saw nothing. Should I ask him if he had smoked it? But then, what if he had? If I said anything
now, I could drop myself into a whole heap of trouble. What to do? Shit. Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.

Think positive. “No, no trouble,” I replied, smiling weakly. “Tell me, where do you get your delicious honey?”

One can only take so much apiculture when one’s mind is firmly elsewhere. At least it took his mind off our shaman chat, and eventually he seemed to bore himself and
announced that he had to answer nature’s call. Seizing the opportunity, I zipped back to my seat. The Shaman was there, his bastard dummy dead-eyeing me through its cracked monocle.

“You’re coming with me,” I said, tunnelling fingertips into his bicep.

“What did you do to the cigar?” I demanded, still gripping him by the upper arm.

He shrugged me off. “Oo-ouldn’t you like to know!” went his puppet.

I grabbed the dummy round its scrawny neck. “Did you poison the cigar?”

The Shaman’s eyes flared. He wrenched the boy away and, pulling back, I tore its fucking head off.

The Shaman screamed, snatched it from me, thrust the wooden neck back into place. Now even the dummy’s eyes seemed aflame. “You klay dangerous gane.”

Rubbish. “I was buying your ‘klowerthul nagic’ from joke shops when I was six years old. You don’t scare me.”

The Shaman peered at me over imaginary specs, dirty grin spreading. “Thery thoolish oo-ords,” he lisped. Not even attempting to speak through the dummy now.

Fuck it, I thought, and punched him, hard, in the face. It surprised even me. I wasn’t a violent person. In my defence, the Shaman wasn’t a nice man.

He saw it coming too late and went down like a gigolo on a client. The dummy flew backwards into the wall of the hut.

I pulled open his cloak while he groaned, found the map, snatched it out and folded it into my back pocket. That still didn’t seem enough payback, not after all his double-crossing and
lies. An idea came to me. Striding to the back of the hut, I picked up the dummy.

“Think I’ll take this with me!”

Prone and groggy, the Shaman craned his neck to see what I was doing and howled, though pitifully, like a crone all out of newts’ eyes. He tried to grab my ankle as I made for the door but
I kicked his hand aside. As I walked outside, breathing in the jungle and wood-smoke, he croaked after me: “You oo-ill klay thor this.”

I made straight for the motorbike and sidecar, fortuitously parked near the village’s entrance/exit, away from the ember glow of the feast.

No time for second thoughts or guilty concerns. No time for goodbyes. Time to scarper.

As I reached the bike a commotion came from the direction of the feast: voices rising and a woman’s shriek, then more screaming. People were gathered around a prone form – at the
table where I had been seated, the head table. It could mean only one thing. Gdgi had gone down.

I had to keep telling myself: it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.

I threw the wooden boy into the sidecar and straddled the saddle. Unnoticed still, my heartbeat in my eardrums, I desperately patted down my pockets for the key. From nowhere, a boy appeared
beside me. The last thing I needed: attention. And I recognised him. What was his name again?

“Hello, my name is Nzonze,” said the kid.

With a surge of relief I felt the key in my back pocket.

“What is your name?” he said.

Ramming it into the lock, I turned the ignition and ripped back my right wrist.

“Forget it kid,” I replied.

That joke wasn’t funny anymore.

The flight had been all about adrenalin. Now, as I steered along a barely existent track, illuminated by a headlight with all the candle-power of a firefly drowning in beer,
back – I hoped – towards Gossips, paranoia was setting in.

If the cigar had been poisoned and assuming Gdgi was indeed lying dead, who would the people blame? Not the Shaman, who could lie his way out of a locked trunk. They would blame me – and
who could blame them?

Why on earth had I claimed the cigar as my own gift? How could I have been so stupid as to trust the Shaman? Was I even going the right way? Surely I was low on petrol? What would happen if the
fuel ran out in the middle of the jungle? Were the tribespeople already on my tail? What if…

Stop it
, I told myself. Panic wasn’t helping. I needed a little perspective…

Did something just
touch my arm
? Not possible.

My senses were alert. Was that pressure I felt, on my other shoulder? Did it really feel like… a
hand
? I twisted my head but saw nothing. Tension coursed through my bones like
liquid calcification. Then… No. Not. Possible.

Something was crawling over my back, something large
.

As I turned to look, my gaze whipped past the sidecar. Double-take. The passenger seat was empty. The wooden boy had disappeared… No. Not. Possible.

Breathing, in my left ear.
Breathing
.

A shape entered my peripheral vision. A head, beside mine.

Rouged cheeks, chiselled jaw, monocle. We stared at each other, the devil-boy and I, nose-tips touching, flesh on wood. Dead, malevolent eyes.

“Ny Daddy skliked your drink,” he whispered in my ear.

The dummy threw back his head and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

The laughter would not stop.

The world exploded.

And fire rained down on me.

Faces, places, memories and shapes, swirled outwards. Out towards a pinprick placed in unreality, stationed at infinity.