Will Self - The Butt

The trio were abandoned, each to his or her own discomfort. The flies infiltrated themselves into the rotten environment of the little vehicle. The heat built — then built some more. The stony bled crumpled up — then disappeared, subsumed by sand dunes that came flowing in from the east and the west.

At first these were low swells, then gradually they whipped up and up, until the rutted track was plunging through a mountainous sea of eighty-foot-high dunes. The SUV, never the easiest car to control, twisted and slid on the uncertain surface.

Tom couldn’t suspend disbelief in his own driving: it felt as if he was being rolled over and over through the desert. The lack of low-flying helicopters, checkpoints and even the threat of ambush, far from being a relief, was a further oppression; for without tension he couldn’t prevent himself from lapsing into a stupor.

After five draining hours, two signs staggered towards them out of the heat-haze. The first read TIREDNESS KILLS — TAKE A BREAK, the second YOU ARE NOW ENTERING ENTREATI TRIBAL LAND, SMOKING PERMITTED.

‘Smoking permitted,’ Tom croaked. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Exactly what it says, right?’ Gloria replied sententiously. ‘The desert tribes — the Entreati in particular — have never been fully subjugated. They live, for the most part, as they’ve always done. Not, you understand, that smoking is widespread, for the most part the mobs use—’

‘Engwegge, yeah, I know that.’

Prentice was gurgling with suppressed laughter. In the rear-view, Tom saw that he had one of his fat packs of Reds out and was fondling it suggestively, sweaty fingers slipping on the cellophane.

Two oil drums sprang up in the road, and, as Tom brought the car to a halt, two toga-swathed figures came from behind a dune and strolled towards them. They carried long hunting spears in one hand, automatic rifles in the other.

‘Entreati checkpoint, yeah?’ Gloria said superfluously. ‘Let me do all the talking — I’m the rabia. And remember,’ she preened, ‘don’t worry — you are my companions and your safety — both of your blood and your possessions — is in my face.’

‘Mind if I get out, old chap?’ Prentice ventured. ‘I need to stretch my legs.’

Tom got out and tipped his seat forward. Prentice emerged blinking into the harsh sunlight. He immediately scrabbled open his cigarettes, ostentatiously lit one, then paced up and down beside the Entreati tribesmen, taking exaggerated puffs.

Tom observed him with clinical loathing.

Gloria spoke to the men in a pidgin of clicks, clucks, tooth clacks, rights and yeahs. She indicated her companions, then led the Entreati to the rear of the SUV so she could point out the rifles and the ribavirin boxes in the trunk.

The Entreati were interested in all this. As they bobbed along with Gloria, their black garb and fast-nodding heads made them seem not threatening but pantomimic: children’s TV presenters taking part in an ethnological playlet.

Eventually, Gloria came over to where Tom was slumped in the shadow of a dune, sipping tepid water from his bottle.

‘There’s not exactly a problem,’ she began. ‘More of. . an issue.’

‘Issue?’

‘It’s a ceremonial thing, yeah? These blokes’ makkata needs to examine you and Brian — your cuts, that is.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Tom knew full well what Gloria meant; he just didn’t want to know. The Entreati were leaning on the SUV, smoking. Gloria had presented them both with cartons of cigarettes. Snaggle-toothed grins unzipped in the hoods of their black robes as they drew on them.

There was a rustling on the face of the dune, and, glancing round, Tom saw the spidery figure of a makkata surfing down it, hanging ten on an invisible board.

The ceremony — if that’s what it was — was mercifully short. Tom was first: he followed the makkata a few paces from the road and dropped his pants. Feeling the light inquisition of the makkata’s fingers on his inner thigh, Tom flashed back to Bimple Hot Springs. Surely Prentice would fail this test? He had no scar. He would be unmasked while half naked. But Prentice showed no apprehension when it was his turn to go with the wizard.

When the makkata returned, he entered into muttered conference with the two other Entreati. This lasted a long time, many cigarettes were smoked, and the sand at the makkata’s feet was dashed by the long streams of engwegge juice he had ejected. Eventually, one of the robed men approached the three travellers, who were squatting in the ditch beside the road. He squatted as well and consulted with Gloria.

This is it, Tom thought, scrutinizing Prentice’s venal features. It’s the end of the road for you, kiddie-fiddler.

The clicking stopped and Gloria said, ‘Uh, OK, that figures.’

‘What?’ Tom said. ‘What figures?’

‘This bloke says the makkata has determined that your degrees of astande have been swapped over. We’re allowed to proceed, yeah? But since Brian is now astande vel dyav and you, Tom, are astande por mio, you can’t drive the car any more, right?’

‘What?’ Tom cried.

‘You heard me.’ Gloria was adamant. ‘Brian will have to drive — if he can, that is.’

‘Of course I can bloody drive,’ Prentice said huffily.

‘Why can’t you drive?’ Tom asked Gloria. He was unwilling to trust his safety to Prentice, even though he doubted his own ability to drive the car any further.

‘I can’t drive because I’m a rabia, yeah? I’m only along for the ride — if I drive I compromise my status. It’s obvious, yeah?’

Prentice tamped his latest butt into the sand with a fussy motion of his boot. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s settled, then.’ He marched over to the SUV, a resolute expression on his face.

His face? Clambering into the SUV, where he then sat awkwardly pinioned, knees tucked up to his chest, Tom took surreptitious peeps at the hateful countenance. In the rear-view he confirmed his suspicion: ‘It’s cleared up.’

‘Whassat?’ Prentice was yanking at the stick shift.

‘Your psoriasis — it’s gone.’ Tom leaned forward between the front seats. ‘Yesterday it was as bad as ever — don’t you remember, I had to smear your fucking cream on? Now it’s gone.’

‘Yes, well, it does clear up like that sometimes; it could be the desert air, y’know.’ He had managed to get the SUV going and was piloting them along the track — it was barely a road any more — with hesitant pumps of the gas pedal.

‘Bullshit,’ Tom said succinctly. ‘It’s to do with the astande stuff; your skin has righted its own goddamn wrongs.’

‘Don’t bicker, you two,’ their big sister intervened.

Tom fell back. The jump seat was savagely uncomfortable. If he sat sideways, he got cramp in his legs; if he faced to the front, his back ached. The boxes stacked in the tiny trunk kept sliding forward and jabbing Tom in the neck. Then there was Gloria’s package, which she insisted on having in the back so whoever was sitting there could ‘Keep an eye on it, right?’

Tom kept an eye on it — and it eyed him. The trompe l’oeil effect he had noticed in his room at the Hilton was no illusion: the package really did have eyes — and a nose and mouth. It was a severed head, Tom realized with mounting horror, its putrefying skin legible with coded messages: ‘600-Horsepower Chrysler Marine Engines. . Premium Aluminium Siding. . Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. . Would like to meet M 45–50, GSOH. .’ He read the enigma of its features as, uncomfortably lulled by the bumps in the track, he began to slide in and out of consciousness.

The package was on Tom’s lap and he was chatting to it. ‘Sorry I had to take you out like that, old chap,’ he said, undoing the string and pulling away the newspaper to reveal Prentice’s ancient foetal features. ‘Nothing I could do to prevent it. You shouldn’t have fucked with the kiddies, man; no one likes that.’