Читать книгу Obstacles to Young Love - David Nobbs - Страница 6

They climb for well over an hour, high into the parched hills. At last they see a crowd of people standing outside a simple house. The best man claps Simon warmly on the shoulder and beams at Naomi. They shake hands with all the guests, even with some tiny toddlers. Everyone smiles. These are real mestizo people, a mixture of Spanish and Indian.

They say – translated by Paul, of course – that they are very grateful to Simon and Naomi for having honoured them with their presence on this great day. Simon and Naomi look instinctively for mockery. There is none. These people’s hard lives leave no room for mockery.

Paul – Padre Pablo to his parishioners – is Simon’s uncle. He has been a parish priest in Peru for thirteen years, and has invited them to visit before he returns to England next month. He found the climb difficult. He likes his rum and is somewhat overweight. Simon and Naomi, however, have no problems with the altitude. They are fit. After all, it was at Simon’s gym that they met.

The little house is no more than a small barn. It’s built of mud reinforced by lines of stones. The roof is tiled. Paul explains that one day it will be a two-storey house, but Naomi wonders if the second floor will ever become more than an intention.

There’s no toilet, no running water, no electric light, and no possibility of their ever having those things.

Normally the only decoration on the walls is a small mat, rather like the mat Naomi bought on a reed island in Lake Titicaca. Hers told the story of the life of the woman who wove it. She will give it to her mother, who will love it. She thinks for a moment of her mother, and is suddenly homesick for L’Ancresse.

Today, the house has been turned into a church, and there are decorations hanging from the beams, pictures of buses, condors, rabbits, pumas, a fish, a dog and some dancers. There is a table covered by a white cloth, and a simple homemade shrine to the Virgin. The simplicity overwhelms Naomi. She’s afraid that she will burst into tears. Hastily, she pretends that she’s an actress in a film, that she’s being directed by John Huston, that he has told her that if she cries she will never work for him again.

Round the walls on two sides of the dirt floor are low benches. A cloth covers one of the benches.

‘The cloth is there for our privileged, first-world arses to park themselves on,’ explains Father Paul with a gleam.

Padre Pablo dons a long, beautiful white robe and stole, and the ceremony begins. Naomi and Simon feel extraordinarily privileged to be able to witness the wedding of Marcelina Mosquiera Teatino and Alberto Cerquin Chuqchukan. Paul has explained that they had a natural wedding many years ago, when they worshipped the Sun God, but now they have converted to Catholicism. They’ve had eight children, three of whom have died. ‘It’s par for the course in these parts, I’m afraid.’

Naomi feels so happy for them in their happiness, and yet so sad, for she is convinced that they are deluded, and she cannot think it good to be deluded. Yet she realises that her reactions are more suited to Coningsfield than to the village of Tartar Chico, high above the Cajamarca Valley in the mighty Andes.

The service is very simple. One woman breastfeeds throughout. A dog drifts in, decides that there’s nothing for him, and wanders out. Paul’s voice is low and warm and kind. The groom repeats his vows strongly. The bride repeats hers shyly, almost inaudibly. Some things are the same the world over. Father Paul puts the stole over them both, and they take communion. Their intense pride is heartbreaking. There is absolute silence in this simple home. Naomi feels the desperate heat of the faith that is warming this cold room. Again, she fears that she may cry. She fights the emotion by becoming a government inspector, directed by Stanley Kubrick, who will bully her if she breaks down.

After the ceremony, everyone goes outside. A vast pot of boiled maize appears, and they offer some to Paul, Simon and Naomi.

‘We must accept,’ says Father Paul. ‘It would be a great insult not to.’

The three of them go back inside, but the other guests don’t follow. Naomi lowers her privileged, much-admired, occasionally kissed, first-world backside onto the cloth that saves it from coming into contact with the hard, rough bench beneath.

Paul explains that nobody will eat until they have eaten.

‘You may hate it, Naomi, but it has to be like this. I tried to change it, and it didn’t work. Believing that all men are equal is one of the privileges enjoyed by those who are more equal than others. These people have incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.’

A tray, with a cloth on it, is brought in. On it are two vast bowls of maize, one with one spoon, one with two. Married people eat out of the same bowl. It is the custom.

A bowl of sauce is brought. Paul warns that it will be very fiery.

‘These people wouldn’t be so poor if they were allowed to practise birth control,’ says Naomi.

‘Naomi!’ hisses Simon. ‘This is not the time.’

‘No, no. Feel free to say what you think, my friends,’ says Paul, ‘but say it casually, as if we’re discussing the weather. Don’t let these good people see that we are arguing. They would be very upset.’

‘I don’t know that I’m up to that,’ says Naomi.

‘Really? I thought you’d just left drama school,’ says Simon. ‘I thought you were a fully fledged actress now.’

The remark hits Naomi just as she is experiencing her first taste of the sauce. The fire burns right down her throat. She can’t breathe.

‘That wasn’t very nice, Simon,’ she gasps.

‘Children, please. We’re on show. Don’t spoil their day,’ warns Paul again.

The maize is palatable, if not exciting.

‘This will be their permanent diet,’ Paul tells them. ‘Ten years ago, there’d probably have been a little meat. Not now, even for a wedding. These people are cut off from everything except the effects of recession. Prices for their pathetic little crops remain stable, while inflation rises.’ His voice remains calm, he is smiling, only his eyes show his anger. ‘And these are the people with whom, in markets and railway stations, tourists think it clever to haggle.’

Paul’s little history lesson defuses the situation, but Naomi is still shocked by the tartness in Simon’s remark about her. It seems as if in the tension and embarrassment of the occasion some deeper, less pleasant aspect of his personality has been revealed.

The sauce is fearsome, but in tiny quantities, worked very thinly into the maize, it makes a tolerable meal – if you don’t have to eat it every day.

Their bowls hardly seem to empty, and there is a whole wedding reception out there, waiting patiently. Patience is sprinkled over this land like a condiment.

‘In Cajamarca,’ Paul continues, ‘there’s a room called El Cuarto del Rescarte – the Ransom Chamber. After he’d been defeated and captured by Pizarro and his little band of conquistadores in 1532, Atahualpa realised how greedy for gold the Spaniards were.’

Naomi thinks back to Peter Shaffer’s play, and wonders, briefly, what Timothy is doing at this moment.

‘So Atahualpa offered to fill a large room with gold and silver in exchange for his release. But Pizarro had no intention of releasing him. Realising this, Atahualpa tried to escape. Pizarro wanted to keep him alive, but was overruled. He was led out into the Plaza de Armas, to be burnt at the stake. He accepted baptism, and the sentence was commuted to strangulation.’

Naomi winces and mutters, ‘Fear. Always fear,’ through a mouthful of recalcitrant maize.

‘I took an American economist to the Ransom Chamber a few years ago,’ continues Father Paul. ‘He looked at it in deep awe, and said, in tones of wonderment, “I’ve always been telling my students that inflation began in this room in Cajamarca, and now I’m here.” I really think he was almost on the point of having an orgasm about inflation.’

‘Have you ever had an orgasm, Paul?’

Naomi says this to shock Simon. She is sorry to have to shock Padre Pablo, but there is something about Simon today that makes her really want to shock him.

Simon is shocked, but Paul isn’t, not remotely. He smiles, and replies very casually, so that the waiting guests might think he was saying, ‘Jolly good maize, this,’ or, ‘Pity England didn’t qualify for the World Cup finals.’

‘Hundreds,’ he gleams. ‘Not that I’ve kept count. Nobody ever pretended that celibacy was easy, or that priests are sexless freaks. Each time I have one I remind myself that if I hadn’t taken Holy Vows I might be doing it with a beautiful woman and not just with my veined old hand.’

A small child enters with a bowl, a child much too small to realise that they are superior beings who eat alone and undisturbed. Several appalled adults rush in and remove the child, who doesn’t cry. They learn to accept life’s restrictions at an early age in this land.

‘Actually, Naomi, I have grave doubts about celibacy. It’s too difficult except for saints. And it separates us from our parishioners and makes us less able to understand their problems.’ He smiles at her and there is naughtiness in those deep, understanding eyes. ‘Besides, you remind me of what I have missed.’

Simon raises his eyebrows in surprise but Naomi knows that there is no lechery in the remark, and accepts the compliment gracefully.

At last Paul thinks that they have eaten enough, even though their bowls are far from empty. They mime their delight, and the fullness of their stomachs, and there is laughter.

They shake hands again with every single person, and every adult thanks them for coming.

And every adult is glad that they are going.

They walk down the great hills in silence.

That afternoon, in the warm sunshine, Naomi, Simon, Paul and Greta sit in the garden of the Parish House, the Parroquia. Greta is German. She’s training to be a nun. She is of medium height and slim, with straight, sandy hair. She has a disappointed face and strikingly good legs.

The Parish House is on the little main square of the village of Baños del Inca. On the other side of the square are the hot baths. The water in the streams round the village is so hot that every morning Simon has to collect a bucket of hot water from one of them, carry it home and mix it with at least the same amount of cold, before he can shave with it. Simon and Naomi go over to the public baths every morning, and have a hot bath together in a space big enough for a football team. Twice they’ve made love in the hot baths. It’s their delayed honeymoon, after all. But today for the first time Naomi doesn’t feel that it’s quite like a honeymoon. Today for the first time Naomi is not in paradise. Today for the first time she cannot be content with small talk.

‘You Catholics are so caring about the poor,’ she says. Simon glares but she takes no notice. ‘How much better their lives might be if there weren’t so many of them.’

‘To which of them would you deny the joy and excitement of existence?’

‘That’s nonsense, Paul. A person doesn’t exist until they’re conceived. Birth control doesn’t deny any actual person life. It just makes life better for those who are conceived. The arguments for birth control are overwhelming. How can you not see it?’

Simon thinks how young she looks. She hopes his uncle will forgive her because of this.

‘Of course I think about these things,’ says Paul. ‘And I’m not unsympathetic to your views. I’m what they sometimes call a worker priest, Naomi, and as such not always entirely popular with my superiors. I have to tread carefully, but I can assure you, I and many others of my kind turn a blind eye.’

‘For…’ She is going to say, ‘For God’s sake,’ but she stops. Simon smiles to himself as he witnesses the battle between her passion and her manners. ‘Sorry, Paul, but I just don’t think a blind eye’s enough,’ she says quietly. ‘The message needs to be shouted from the rooftops.’

Paul smiles. Suddenly he looks weary. Perhaps he has faced enough of the world’s poverty.

Greta, who has listened intently, moving her gaze back and forth like a spectator at Wimbledon, crosses her legs. Her skirt is tight and the stretched material makes just the faintest rasp. Simon turns to look at her legs, and Naomi notices, recalling suddenly how Timothy had only ever had eyes for her.

She hasn’t given a thought to Timothy for months, and now she’s thought of him twice in one day.

She wonders where he is.

She would be shocked if she knew. He is also on his honeymoon, and he is also in Peru. He was married eight days ago, in Coningsfield, in the church where he was confirmed and from which Naomi ran so dramatically. Tommo, who failed to get into medical school and so had little hope of becoming a gynaecologist, was his best man, and was surprisingly nervous when making his speech. Dave Kent managed an afternoon off from his dad’s greengrocer’s. Steven Venables was amazed to be invited, but Timothy explained that Christians believe in forgiveness. He suggested Peru for their honeymoon. Peter Shaffer’s play had given him an interest in the country, and Maggie hadn’t needed much persuasion. She wasn’t one for lying around on beaches. Her naked body was known only to her and her Maker, and she was having a bit of difficulty in letting even Timothy in on the secret.

And now here they are on a train from Puno to Cusco. The train has run along the shore to the head of Lake Titicaca, which died gently in a salt-bed of mud and reeds. There were wading birds everywhere, including egrets and birds that looked like a South American species of curlew. Timothy thought briefly about Naomi’s curlew. He wondered if she still kept it on display. He wondered who the handsome young man in the photograph in her room had been, and why she had refused to tell the truth about him. He wondered if she ever thought of him, of Romeo and Juliet, of their nights is Earls Court. But it was only a passing thought. He has long ago recovered from his Naomi-itis. In all probability he will never see her again.

They have found the great Andean Altiplano breathtakingly lovely. The emptiness of the land, the great wide skies, the bare hills, the thatched adobe villages, the silver ribbon of river in the plain.

There have been cheese sandwiches for elevenses. A three-course lunch of avocado, beef stew and a banana has been served throughout the train. As they ate, the train had still been in sunshine, but dark clouds had sat on the high peaks like cowboys’ hats. And one lone cowboy had stood in the empty land, miles from anywhere, and watched the train go by just as every passenger had been eating a banana. Timothy has wondered if the man had ever seen a trainload of people all eating bananas before, and what he had thought of it. But he hasn’t mentioned it to Maggie. It wasn’t the sort of thing that interested her.

Now the train is descending into the valley of the Vilcanota, which becomes the Upper Urubamba, which becomes the Lower Urubamba, which becomes the Vilcanota again. Anyway, they are all tributaries of the mighty Amazon. Timothy and Maggie are going to visit the Amazon before they return home. Well, Roly Pickering is not too well, and his eyesight is bad. One day quite soon the board in the garden of number ninety-six will state ‘T. Pickering – Taxidermist’, and then Timothy is going to be busy. They may never get another chance.

More cheese sandwiches appear throughout the train. The countryside is much more fertile now. There are picturesque, tightly grouped villages, huddled against the hostility of the world. There are eucalyptus trees in abundance. And all the way the river rushes with them.

Twilight falls. The train stops. Somebody gives them the unwelcome news that on this very train last week, forty-six people were killed by bandits.

The delay is interminable. It’s now dark outside, and the lights inside are dim and unencouraging. More cheese sandwiches appear. An American further up the carriage calls out that they will not be allowed to move until all the cheese sandwiches have been eaten. The laughter is distinctly hysterical. Maggie doesn’t laugh. Timothy suddenly realises that she almost never laughs. Not that he wants her to. They are dedicated to seriousness. They face life sternly, hand in hand.

An American lady wants to go to the toilet but is told that the door at the end of the carriage is locked, so that thugs can’t get at them. This locked door will hardly save them from bandits, though. It has a huge glass pane running almost its entire length. Or appears to have. When the conductor steps right through it, they realise that there is no glass.

‘Don’t worry,’ says the conductor. ‘We have armed guards protecting you.’

This does not reassure them.

Suddenly, stubby fingers scrabble at a window. Timothy’s heart almost stops. Goose pimples run right down his back. He holds out his hand to comfort his bride. Are they to die after eight days of wedlock?

But Maggie doesn’t need comforting. She’s facing her Maker with a grim face, set in the granite of her courage. She is a sight to discourage all but the most desperate of bandits.

But the stubby fingers do not belong to a bandit. Somebody manages to hoist the owner of the fingers up until she can see into the train. The fingers belong to a short, stubby Indian lady. She is possibly the world’s unluckiest seller of cheese sandwiches.

There is laughter throughout the crowded, tense carriage. Timothy and Maggie are outraged by the cruelty of the laughter, but even Timothy cannot avoid a slight amused tremor. He looks out of the window, lest Maggie spots it.

The explanation for the delay turns out to be extremely banal. The engine has broken down.

Naomi sits in the bar of the Hotel de Turismo in Cajamarca. She has been buying little knick-knacks for her friends at drama school. Simon wants her to get presents for his friends too. He’s happy to pay but can’t be bothered to look. It’s just one more little stain discovered on the shining surface of his perfection.

The bar has dim lights, bare tables and one other customer. He smiles at her.

‘May I join you?’ he asks politely.

‘I’m expecting my husband,’ she says hurriedly.

‘Oh no, I am not trying to…I am German. I am a travel agent. I am on a fact-finding mission to improve services to my clients.’

‘Well…fine…I hope I can help.’

He moves over to her table, bringing his beer. He is tall, stiff, flaxen-haired, quite good-looking in a rather inanimate way. He looks like a well-made waxwork of himself.

‘The North of Peru is neglected,’ he begins. It’s his idea of introductory small talk. ‘But it is much more interesting than the South. Most of the South is very overrated. Lake Titicaca, for instance, is very boring. Don’t go there.’

‘We’ve been there.’

‘What did you think of the Chullpas of Sillustani?’

She has never heard of them. What are they? People? Liked him, hated her? ‘I…er…I haven’t actually heard of the Chullpas of Sillustani.’

He jerks his head upward like a frightened thoroughbred. He is astounded. He is contemptuous.

‘What?? But they are the most interesting of all the funerary towers in which the Aymara buried their nobles.’

‘We didn’t actually see any funerary towers,’ she admits.

‘What? But the funerary towers are the only thing of interest in the whole area around Lake Titicaca.’

‘We missed them.’

He is shocked, but he rallies.

‘You didn’t get a boat to one of the reed islands, did you? They are tourist traps.’

‘We did.’

Her coffee arrives, with three slices of sweet apple on a separate saucer. There has been some little extra gift everywhere they have been in Peru.

‘But not the first island? That is a complete sham.’

‘We went to the first island.’

‘But you didn’t buy a mat?’ he asks with dimishing hope. ‘Those mats are phoney. The women tell you that they represent, in pictures, their life story. They do not.’

‘We bought a mat.’

He is silent. This is too difficult for him to bear.

Where is Simon? He should be here by now.

She begins to talk non-stop. It’s the only way to avoid being lectured by him. She talks about Cusco, about the poverty she has seen: an old woman asleep on a pavement beside her wares, which consisted entirely of spring onions; a little boy selling cigarettes one by one; a sweet, pale girl, aged about nine, trying to make a sale in a café, holding out her complete stock on a tray – two toilet rolls. She contrasts these scenes with a description of a treasure she saw in the magnificent La Merced church in the city. It was a representation of the sun, with topazes, emeralds and pearl mermaids, and, at its shining centre, fifteen hundred diamonds.

‘These contrasts are all too easy to make,’ says the German dismissively.

‘But true and obscene just the same.’

He shrugs. He is not pleased. Where is Simon?

He asks her where they are going next.

‘We’re going on a bit of a farewell tour with Simon’s uncle, who is a priest, and then Simon and I hope to be off to the Amazon.’

‘Don’t. It is a very boring river.’ He pauses. ‘But if you do go, don’t go to Iquitos. It is a very boring town.’ He pauses again. ‘But if you do go to Iquitos, don’t go on a trip to any of the jungle lodges. They are a real waste of time.’ He pauses again. Naomi glances out of the window, and an icy blast runs through her veins. She barely hears the last piece of the travel agent’s advice. ‘But if you do go to a jungle lodge, don’t go to the first one. That is a very boring lodge.’

Simon has walked into view with Greta. He kisses her cheek. She walks on, he turns and approaches the hotel.

He orders drinks – a beer for himself, an Inca Cola for Naomi. The German refuses the offer of a beer and says that he has to go. Even when he has gone, Simon doesn’t mention Greta.

‘Had a nice time with Greta?’

Naomi doesn’t like this new sound in her voice. She wishes she could swallow the words back.

‘What do you mean? I met her, that’s all. We walked a bit.’

‘Do you usually kiss nuns you hardly know?’

‘Yes, I’m the secret nun kisser of Basingstoke. I give myself ten points per nun, and fifty for a Mother Superior. No, of course I don’t. But she showed me one or two things and I was grateful and…I kissed her.’

‘You fancy her.’

‘I do not. What the fuck is all this? What’s got into you?’

Doubt. That’s what’s got into her. Not a very serious doubt. Just the very slightest dent in her conviction that she has done the right thing in marrying him.

A minibus collects Naomi and Simon from their hotel in Iquitos at nine twenty-five. Already, the heat and humidity are stifling.

There are three other passengers on the bus – Timothy, Maggie and the German travel agent.

Naomi is stunned. So is Timothy.

So is the German travel agent.

‘What are you doing in Iquitos?’ he says. ‘I told you not to come here. It is too hot, the hotels are too expensive, the town is dull, and it closes at weekends.’

At first, Naomi and Timothy are too shocked to speak. At last Naomi says, ‘What are you doing in Peru?’

‘I’m on my honeymoon. This is Maggie.’

These words, spoken so innocently, are bullets that fly straight to Naomi’s heart. She is astounded to find that this is so, utterly unprepared for her sudden yearning for Timothy’s body beside her in a sagging bed.

‘You?’ he asks.

‘The same. This is Simon.’

Introductions and explanations follow. Timothy’s eyes are making a desperate appeal to Naomi, and she realises what it is. Don’t mention our three nights together, especially the second one.

‘So, this is a happy coincidence,’ says the German travel agent.

‘Happy, yes,’ lies Naomi. ‘Coincidence? Not entirely. We were both in a play about Peru at school. I think something of its magic touched us.’

The minibus turns off the road onto a wide track that leads down towards the river. It pulls up by a locked gate. The driver hoots several times, then gets out and bangs on the gate.

‘Why are you going to the first jungle lodge?’ asks the travel agent, almost angrily. ‘I told you this was not interesting.’

‘We only have time for one, and we did want to see the Amazon,’ says Naomi lamely.

At last an elderly unshaven man, with a touch of the salt about him, shambles up and unlocks the gate.

The passengers proceed down a flight of steep wooden steps to a small pontoon alongside which lies a long, narrow, thatched boat. It seats about a hundred. They are the only five customers.

‘Tourism has died here this year. It is because of the Falklands War. People are frightened. The Falklands are thousands of miles away. European people are idiots,’ says the German travel agent.

The boat eases slowly out into the stream, and chugs off on its two-and-a-half-hour journey to the jungle lodge. Everybody wants to admire the scenery. Nobody wants to talk. There is going to be plenty of time for talking at the lodge.

Naomi links arms with Simon. She hopes he is unaware that she is doing this for Timothy and Maggie to see.

Outside the town they pass a great confusion of ships, shipbuilders’ yards, half-finished boats, abandoned boats, rubbish dumps, timber yards, and rusty cargo vessels.

Three tankers, the Tupa, the Rio June and the Alamo, are moored at a large petroleum installation. They’re all registered at Manaus.

Naomi gives a little sigh.

‘Something wrong?’ asks Simon.

‘Not at all.’ If only he was better at understanding her thought processes. ‘The registrations on ships excite me. All the way from Manaus. Suddenly the Amazon all makes sense. I mean, wouldn’t you be excited if you saw a ship registered at Valparaiso?’

Simon smiles and oh my God it’s the smile of someone attempting to pacify a child. How will they get through their night in the lodge with Timothy so close? This is devastating. Only a week ago, Simon was Mr Perfection. Julian had told her that he had wandering eyes, that he loved his own body, hence all that keep fit. Always quick to see the worst in anyone, Julian. He’ll have a very successful career as a lawyer.

They meet thatched boats coming upstream, heavily laden, mainly with bananas. People in canoes are hauling in their nets. And all the while there is the rainforest on both banks, punctuated by small villages of thatched houses on stilts. One village looks very much like another. One house looks very much like another. One stilt looks very much like another.

‘I told you,’ says the travel agent. ‘It is a very boring river.’

‘And how very brown it is. How very, very brown,’ says Naomi in a Noel Coward voice.

There is a question she has to ask of the German.

‘You say Iquitos is boring. You say the Amazon’s boring. You say the first jungle lodge is boring. Why are you here?’

He snorts like a horse approaching a jump which frightens it.

‘For research for my clients. My clients demand these places. They are cowards.’

They see two large kingfishers. How beautiful they are. Simon, give him credit, loves birds. She points to them, and he smiles and squeezes her arm. Maybe things will still be all right. She certainly doesn’t want Julian to be proved right. It’s his hobby.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmurs.

Yes. Beautiful. But Maggie is so ugly. How can Timothy possibly fancy somebody so ugly?

A lady with a bright pink parasol rides in a canoe towards the green grass and well-tended fields of yet another thatched village. She carries more of an aura of Henley than of the jungle.

Ugly is putting it far too strongly. She has to admit that. The nose is a little too wide, but not horrendously so. The lips, though on the thick side, are reasonably shapely. Some people probably find bushy eyebrows attractive.

Maggie’s skin, though white and lifeless, is not much marked. Except for the mole on the right cheek, of course. But the mole is really quite small and it’s only when the sun strikes it that you can see the two thin hairs that are attached to it. Naomi turns now, and sees them in the sunshine. No, to her regret, they aren’t horrendous.

She is appalled by her feelings. What sort of woman is she?

A big diving bird with a white head and a long, forked tail is hunting for food. Vultures and large hawks wheel slowly overhead. They see a small tern with a black head, birds like sand martins, birds like sooty chubby swallows.

Simon shakes his head. ‘If only we’d brought a bird book.’

‘Never mind. They’re lovely.’

They kiss. It becomes quite a long kiss. Their tongues are two snakes mating.

Naomi turns round, hoping that Timothy and Maggie will have seen, but they are busy looking out over the water and Maggie is making notes. Only the travel agent has noticed, and he looks very wistful.

‘Maggie?’ asks Naomi, feeling strange to be actually talking to her and addressing her by name.

‘Yes?’

‘Can you identify any of these birds?’

‘Sorry? What birds?’

How could a taxidermist fall for a girl who didn’t like birds? Maybe taxidermists only like dead birds. Naomi is comforted by this thought.

No, Simon is great. What does it matter if he isn’t interested in the registrations of ships? They will watch birds together, jog together, do yoga together, do Pilates together, ride bicycles together, use rowing machines together, make babies together. Life will be good.

Babies? Where did that thought come from? How would that square up with her career?

They swing round to nose upstream to a little landing stage. They step out into a Turkish bath, and walk slowly to the thatched lodge.

The five of them go for lunch in the large, thatched dining room, which seats a hundred. They had assumed that they would be joining other visitors, but they are the only five.

‘I suppose…er…maybe the four of us should share a table,’ suggests Timothy.

‘It would be awfully British not to,’ says Naomi.

‘I think we have to, really,’ says Maggie.

What a charming way of putting things she has, thinks Naomi.

The travel agent has gone straight to another table and is already sitting down. He is immaculate in shorts and sneakers.

‘What about the Kraut?’ hisses Simon.

Naomi glares at him.

‘He looks happy enough,’ she whispers.

‘I suspect he’s a bit of a bore,’ whispers Timothy.

That’s rich from someone married to Maggie, thinks Naomi.

The German is aware of what they are hissing and whispering. They might just as well have talked normally.

‘No, I am fine,’ he says. ‘I am used to my own company. You will have much to catch up on.’

It’s a buffet lunch, with fried fish, fried rice, spicy kidney beans, French beans, tomato and avocado.

‘So, how are things, Naomi?’ asks Timothy.

‘Yes, fine. Really good, thanks. Yes, really good. Simon and I got married eight months ago. He runs the gym where I go.’

‘Oh. So you’ll both be pretty fit.’

Naomi reminds herself that Timothy was never known for his sparkling repartee.

‘Things didn’t work out with Steven then?’

‘No. You were right. He isn’t very nice.’

‘And how about work?’

‘Well, I’ve only just left drama school, but I’ve got my first job.’

‘Great!’

She realises that his enthusiasm is utterly genuine.

‘We go into rehearsal the first day back.’

‘Oh, I’m thrilled for you.’ The sullen look leaves his face and he smiles with boyish excitement. Naomi had forgotten how handsome he was.

‘Yes, that’s really good news,’ says Maggie, and Naomi has to admit to herself that she sounds pretty genuine too.

‘So what’s the part?’ asks Timothy. ‘Not Juliet?’

‘No. Sadly I have to learn my lines. It’s an Ayckbourn play.’

‘A what?’

‘You must have heard of Alan Ayckbourn, Timothy. He writes comedies. He’s very famous and very good.’

‘I’ve heard of him, of course,’ says Maggie. Naomi puts the ‘of course’ into the debit column of her newly opened mental ‘Is Maggie nice?’ ledger. ‘But I’m afraid we’re really rather serious in our theatrical tastes.’ Debit. ‘I wish I’d seen your Juliet. People still talk about it.’ Credit. No, double credit.

‘This food’s good, isn’t it?’ says Simon, just so as not to be left out really.

‘I suppose it is,’ says Maggie. ‘I’m afraid I’m one of those people who get talking and thinking and forget to taste what they’ve eaten and suddenly find it’s all gone and wish they’d concentrated on it a bit more.’ Debit. ‘But it’s difficult. I have a lot of responsibilities in my life.’ Debit. They’re piling up.

‘Maggie teaches RE at Coningsfield Grammar.’ Debit. Massive debit. Oh, Timothy, you should have gone for somebody who brings light into your shady life. No. Don’t think like that. He’s happy. He’s in love. It’s touching to see. Fucking irritating as well, though.

‘Food’s good, isn’t it,’ Simon calls out to the travel agent, in the hope that he won’t feel left out. Naomi is pleased. It reminds her that there are pleasant sides to his personality.

‘Very palatable. Did you know that until fifteen years ago, Peru was a net exporter of rice. Now it imports. Why? Because the Velasques government broke up the haciendas and gave the land to the peasants. When it’s theirs, they don’t expect to get their fingers dirty any more.’

They are glad they didn’t invite him to join them, on the whole.

‘So, how about you, Timothy? How’s the taxidermy going?’ asks Naomi.

‘Oh, very well. Very well. Dad’s leaving it to me more and more.’

‘How is he?’

‘Oh, he’s very well, but his eyesight’s failing.’

‘Give him my best wishes.’

‘I will. He’ll be pleased. He really liked you. He was…’ Timothy stops. Naomi knows he was going to say that his father was upset they split up. So does Maggie. ‘He really likes you too, of course, Maggie,’ continues Timothy unwisely. He turns to Naomi. ‘The first day back will be exciting for both of us. You’ll be meeting all the other actors and rehearsing for your play. I’ll be going to Kilmarnock Zoo to collect a tiger that lost its will to live.’

‘I’d lose my will to live if I was in Kilmarnock Zoo,’ says Simon.

‘I hate zoos,’ says Maggie. Credit. ‘And if you think that puts me in a difficult position over taxidermy, it doesn’t. Timothy’s the most ethical person I know. He would never have anything healthy and happy killed to further his business.’ Easy to mock, but, actually, rather reluctantly, credit.

After lunch, they have a walk in the jungle. Their guide, Basilio, is young, even boyish, and quite small. He takes his terrier with him, which gives it the feel of a Sunday walk in the park rather than an intrepid voyage of discovery. He shows them an achiote tree, picks a fruit from it and opens it up to demonstrate how the Indians paint their faces red. He thinks he hears rain.

‘We are not having the jungle walk cancelled,’ hisses the German. ‘I will not accept short measure.’

The rain holds off. They see many kinds of trees, and some ants, but no animals. Basilio apologises for the lack of animal life. There are too many people here. Clearly, to see the animals of the jungle you have to go where you aren’t.

The skies darken. The trees murmur their indignation at the increasing wind, and begin to shake anxiously. The walk ends forty minutes early.

‘Short measure,’ whispers the travel agent.

The next item on the agenda is a nocturnal canoe trip. It gets dark early here.

‘They will try to cancel it because of the rain,’ says their new friend. ‘We must insist. I will not accept short measure.’

But the rain stops. They go to the creek and climb into a canoe. Their guide for the trip is Basilio. They drift down the creek beneath the mudbanks, in the dark. They hear the noises of the jungle – crickets, more crickets, and then…Can it be? It is. More crickets. They also see the tail of a young anaconda. Well, they’re told that it’s the tail of a young anaconda, and choose to believe it. They hear a bullfrog. And more crickets. Suddenly the moon shines brightly. Basilio explains that it is now too light for alligators. Presumably, you can only see them when it’s too dark to see them. They are beginning to get the hang of this jungle travel.

The trip is abandoned.

‘Short measure,’ whispers the travel agent.

They invite him to join their table for the candlelit dinner. He is delighted.

They sit right in the middle of the huge, empty, candlelit room. Dinner is served by Basilio. It begins with a beetroot salad.

Their German friend asks Naomi and Simon where they have been since he last met them.

‘We went to Chiclayo,’ says Naomi.

‘Ah! What did you think of the Bruning Museum?’

‘The what?’

‘The Bruning Museum at Lambayeque.’

‘We didn’t go there.’

‘But it’s a marvellous museum, and the wacas between there and Chiclayo are also very interesting.’

‘We missed the wacas.’

‘But there is nothing else to see around Chiclayo.’

‘We went with Simon’s uncle, who is a parish priest, for him to say farewell to some Canadian nuns. We liked Chiclayo, its stubby cathedral covered in vultures, its friendliness, names like the Bang Bang Amusement Arcade. We spent a lovely evening in the nuns’ Parish House. They didn’t know how to mix gin and tonics, though. Either that, or there’s a great shortage of tonic in Peru.’

Naomi is trying to get a reaction from Timothy and Maggie. Even a slight sniff of disapproval would do. But they are impervious. So very disappointing.

The beetroot salad is followed by soup with a fried egg in it, tasty highly spiced chicken with poor fried rice, and a fruit salad. With so few people there the meal is finished in under an hour. Never mind. That will give them all the more time to enjoy the promised traditional local cabaret in the bar.

The cabaret is an embarrassed Basilio with a guitar. He plays quite nicely. Timothy holds Maggie’s hand. Not to be outdone, Naomi holds Simon’s hand as if they are walking down the Ramblas in Barcelona and it’s her wallet. The poor travel agent tries to look as if he is delighted to have no hand to hold.

Basilio doesn’t play all that long, to be honest, and the four English visitors can’t blame him, but the German whispers, ‘Short measure. Always short measure.’

Basilio now has a few words to say to them.

‘Tomorrow we will visit an Indian village. They do not use money. They have nice things to buy, and you will need to barter. The best thing to use is cigarettes. They like cigarettes. If you want to buy things tomorrow, get some cigarettes at the bar tonight.’

Simon fetches more drinks – beer for him and the German, red wine for Naomi, bottled water for Timothy and Maggie. He also buys cigarettes.

‘I will not spread this noxious weed,’ says the German. ‘I have fish hooks with me. Many fish hooks. I will barter with fish hooks.’

Timothy and Maggie also refuse to buy cigarettes. The travel agent offers to sell them some of his fish hooks.

‘I don’t think so, thank you very much,’ says Timothy loftily. ‘I don’t honestly anticipate that there’ll be anything we want to buy.’

By the time they have finished their drinks, the barman is asleep. It’s almost ten o’clock.

Naomi has been wondering about Timothy’s sex life. Maggie doesn’t look sexy. Not that they will be likely to be having sex tonight. The chalets have single beds underneath mosquito nets. It’s not conducive.

‘I love your breasts,’ whispers Simon from his single bed. ‘I wish I was fondling and kissing them now. Imagine kissing hers. He’s got a job on. They’re enormous.’

‘I must say they did remind me of some old English burial mounds I saw once in Dorset,’ says Naomi.

‘You’re a terrible woman,’ says Simon affectionately.

In the morning they’re scheduled to walk to a village of the Yagua Indians. Basilio meets them outside the lodge. He bangs a big drum five times with a gong, explaining that this is an Indian method of communicating.

Their walk takes them about an hour. Animals seen amount to a slightly disappointing total of one iguana.

The German astounds them by saying, ‘I know a German joke about the British.’

‘Oh, do tell us,’ says Naomi.

‘There were two Englishmen who met at work.’

They wait to enjoy the rest of his joke, then realise, to their horror, that he has finished. They don’t get it.

‘They work at the same place, but they have never met, because one or the other of them was always on strike,’ he explains. ‘German jokes are subtle.’

After about three-quarters of an hour the little party cross a creek on a high bridge. They find themselves in a small village of thatched houses on stilts. There are two houses filled with people hiding. They can dimly see that they are wearing jeans and T-shirts. Basilio hurries them past these houses.

Waiting for them on a bench are four Yagua Indians, three men in grass skirts and a woman in a large green kerchief that doesn’t quite hide her breasts, which look two decades past their suck-by date. It’s difficult to say which group seems the more embarrassed by this travesty of tourism.

In front of them, on a wire, are rows of beads, necklaces adorned with alligator heads, and other delights.

The German decides to buy something, and the bartering begins, translated by Basilio.

‘I give you two fish hooks.’

‘Packet of cigarettes.’

‘Four fish hooks.’

‘Packet of cigarettes.’

It’s the only currency they want, and they only want whole packets so they can sell them in town. Of course they use money. The German buys a packet off Simon, says, ‘I can’t think why they want this noxious weed,’ and with the packet settles on a bracelet of alligator teeth. Who is it for? wonders Naomi.

Nobody else buys anything.

Naomi wonders if bartering with cigarettes is the derivation of the phrase, ‘It costs a packet.’ She must remember to find out when she gets home.

Home. Why does the word send a shiver through her? Is she no longer looking forward to home life with Simon?

There’s some embarrassing fooling around with blow darts, and the charade is over. The travel agent, in generous mood, offers the villagers all his fish hooks. They don’t want them. They use nets. He shows for the first time a softer side. He seems genuinely disappointed. Not hurt, just sad. Naomi wonders if there is a woman in his life, or if the alligator teeth are for his mother.

The walk back is slow, as the heat and humidity rise. Naomi and Timothy find themselves walking side by side. Whether they have planned this or whether it’s chance is not obvious even to them.

‘I want to thank you for having the courage to come and tell me that dreadful day,’ says Timothy. ‘I think it really made a difference. Left me with a bit of self-respect.’

‘I hope you got over it quickly.’ But not too quickly, perhaps.

‘I didn’t. It took months.’

‘How long after…me, did you meet Maggie?’

‘Best part of two years.’

‘And how are you now? Really happy? You seem it.’

‘Oh, yes. Maggie’s lovely. You? Everything all right?’

‘Absolutely. Can’t you tell?’

‘Er…yes.’ He hesitates. He wants to confess something. Naomi isn’t sure if she wants to hear it. ‘The…er…not everything is…I mean, it’s different from you and me. It’s…’ His dark face colours slightly, and seems to swell with embarrassment. ‘I mean, we do have sex. I mean, it is our honeymoon. But not…’

‘Everything we did?’

‘No. That was actually a bit special, Naomi.’

‘Well, thank you, but…it was one night.’

‘I know, but still it was a bit…you know. In fact, I can’t believe what I did. I don’t expect I’ll ever do it again. It seems, somehow, with Maggie, you know, something we just wouldn’t do.’

She wants to blurt out, ‘Can’t say I’m surprised,’ but keeps it to herself.

‘…Anyway, I suppose our relationship is more…spiritual.’

Why on earth is he telling her all this? He obviously needs to. She finds that very encouraging. This worries her. Why should she be encouraged by it?

‘Talking about spirituality, how about you? Are you…do you still not believe?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t not believe or you do not believe?

‘I don’t believe.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why should you be sorry?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Why the hell should you be sorry?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t be flippant about hell.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

‘And God.’

‘Oh, Timothy. Loosen up.’

‘I’m not good at that. Sorry, but what have I done wrong?’

‘You’ve patronised me because I’m an atheist.’

‘Oh, you’re not even an agnostic any more. That’s a bit arrogant, isn’t it? Being so certain that you know.’

Naomi has never called herself an atheist before. She has believed that she is an agnostic. But she wants to make Timothy angry. She needs to make him angry.

‘I don’t believe this,’ she says. ‘I can’t believe you people. What are you if not being so certain that you know? That’s what pisses me off about you. You think I desperately want to believe and have failed. I don’t particularly want not to believe, but it doesn’t put me in some sad class of disappointed failures. The reason I don’t believe is that I can find no evidence of a compassionate pattern in life, and it doesn’t mean that I’m any more wicked than you or any less sodding spiritual than you. Oh, what a fucking good decision I made walking out on you, you fucking prig.’

She charges angrily after Simon, but he is disappearing at a fast sulk.

Soon they are back at another perilous narrow bridge, high above the piranhas. Ahead of them is the lodge. It has taken less than five minutes. They realise that the village is almost right opposite the lodge. The five bangs on the gong meant, ‘There are only five of them. No need to try too hard.’

At the lodge, Simon is waiting with a face like the thunder that is beginning to threaten once again.

‘Rather an argument, I see,’ says Simon. ‘Bit of tension.’

‘So?’

‘I didn’t know you still cared enough about him to bother to be angry. I see that I was wrong.’

He is right, of course, which annoys her. She has been feeling pleased with herself for managing to end the meeting with Timothy angrily. It was sad for him, but necessary for her. She wished that she hadn’t sworn, but the future would be difficult to bear if she’d ended on friendly terms with him.

After an early lunch they set off for the boat back. The German, who is staying for another night and is scheduled to have a four-hour jungle walk that afternoon, shames them by walking with them to their boat to see them off.

‘I expect there will be a few more people on today’s boat,’ he says hopefully, ‘and some of them will probably be taking the four-hour walk with me.’

As they watch today’s thatched boat nosing towards the landing stage, he says a rather strange thing.

‘Don’t think too badly of Peru.’

Naomi likes him for that as much as for anything.

There are no tourists on the boat, none. He will be alone for his four-hour walk, alone for his second candlelit dinner, alone for Basilio’s limited repertoire on the guitar all over again. Naomi’s heart goes out to him, and she never even found out his name.

They shake hands with him, politely. His handshake is perfect, firm yet not too firm.

They enter the boat.

He stands on the landing stage, a stiff, erect figure, curiously forlorn and vulnerable.

The boat begins to move. He waves as if they are old friends whom he is going to miss. They wave back.

Just before he is out of earshot, they see him shout. A moment later, his words arrive over the brown water.

‘I will insist on the full four hours. I will not accept short measure.’

Timothy and Maggie move to a seat near the front of the boat.

Naomi sits down quite far from them, in the middle of the boat.

Simon marches right to the back of the boat, and plonks himself defiantly into a seat. God, he’d be cross if he knew how young it makes him look, thinks Naomi.

The journey back, against the flow, takes longer than two and a half hours and feels as if it takes for ever. None of them would have wished not to see the Amazon, but none of them will ever go for a week’s cruise on it. It just rolls on and on for ever, a slow, brown streak among the endless rainforests.

As they make their way off the boat to get onto the minibus back to their hotels, Timothy approaches Naomi.

‘So,’ he says, ‘this is goodbye.’

‘Yep. Sorry it ended in a row.’

‘One last kiss:’

‘It’ll have to be a very quick, casual one. Simon’s furious.’

‘Really? Maggie won’t mind at all. She hasn’t got a sensitive bone in her whole body.’

He means it as a compliment.

At the last moment Naomi relents, holds her cheek against his, tries to put a real feeling of warmth and affection into it. After all, it will probably be the last kiss they ever have.