Will Self - The Butt

Ralladayo was less intimidating in full daylight. Tom could recognize that, despite the neglected school building, and the anomaly of Von Sasser’s dwelling, it was a proper settlement — in marked contrast to the hell-hole of the Entreati on the shores of Lake Mulgrene. The Tayswengo’s humpies were roomy tubular shacks of galvanized iron. There was a shower block, and a number of cinder-block buildings were scattered on the bare ground beneath the overarching eucalyptus, one of which had a red cross painted on its tin roof. Most reassuring — with its air of being a steelily efficient conduit to the outside world — was the hundred-metre-high radio mast planted beside the airstrip.

Tom sprinkled more sugar on his cereal and, as he did so, added generous pinches of salt to the eccentric diatribe that his host had delivered the night before. The kids who were playing in the shade with a tame auraca foal were well fed and dressed in clean clothes. The women doing their laundry in a long trough next to the shower block were chatting merrily. It struck Tom that Von Sasser was probably no different to the other people he had met who dedicated themselves to such development projects: cranky, perhaps, and inclined to take the high moral ground — but this was all understandable, forgivable too, for they had a right to be proud.

If Tom was feeling refreshed, the same could not be said for the other Anglos. Gloria, Adams, Loman — all were subdued. They spoke little, concentrating on rehydrating themselves with reconstituted orange juice. Gloria had a painful-looking pimple in the dimple of her chin. Vishtar Loman’s hands shook.

There was no sign of Von Sasser, but Swai-Phillips — who Tom now thought of as the witchy anthropologist’s familiar — emerged haltingly from the chalet and joined the party. There was no ‘He’s the man!’ gibbering this morning. The lawyer stumped up to the table dragging his right leg behind him. His right arm hung uselessly by his side, and the right side of his face was palsied: a sluggish lip trailed down from his moustache.

The others ignored Swai-Phillips, while his wrap-around shades pre-emptively deflected Tom’s half-formulated remarks. But, watching him struggling with some muesli, Tom realized that yesterday’s highly unlawyerly behaviour had — quite as much as today’s debility — been the function of an all too common pathology: he must’ve had a stroke. He’s come out here to stay with his pal while he recovers. I guess he must be under Loman’s care. .

Dr Loman’s presence in Ralladayo did nag at Tom. Was he on a vacation of some kind or doing Peace Corps-type work? More worrying still, did his being here mean that back in Vance Reginald Lincoln the Third was. . gone altogether?

Pouring himself another cup of coffee from the thermos jug, Tom decided that Gloria had been right back at Eyre’s Pit when she hectored him over his passivity; it was high time he got some answers to all these questions. He took an oblique line, by gaining Adams’s attention: ‘What brings you all the way, er, over here to Ralladayo? Consular business?’

Adams’s manner was more diffident than ever, his pauses seemingly taken up by the conduct of a diplomacy he alone could hear. He slowly inclined his Polaroids to Tom: ‘Ah. . not exactly. It’s true that Erich’s, ah. . community has the same semi-autonomous status as the other tribal homelands, and on that basis a consular official might be called on to assist any of our nationals who were, ah. . over here. But in this case, Tom, it isn’t all about you.’

Tom bridled. ‘I hadn’t imagined that for a second.’

‘No.’ Adams gave a fastidious shudder. ‘I’ve a long-established involvement with the work that Erich does here. I first visited Ralladayo on my drive north after my retirement. His ideas, his, ah. . vision, his personality too — they all had a profound, ah. . effect on me.’

Adams was looking old this morning; he was even unshaven: a silvery blaze on his horsy cheeks. Tom speculated on the hiatuses: was Adams rummaging in the lumber room of his own consciousness, trying to find a useful phrase? Or might there be an Entreati sorceress in there with him, composing these near-instant communiqués? If it was the latter, then the Honorary Consul had received all the instruction he currently needed, because he snapped back to his usual full attention: ‘Erich is unavoidably detained with important work in the dispensary until lunchtime. However, he asked me if I’d be prepared to show you and Mr Prentice over the place — if you’d like me to, that is?’

‘Sure,’ Tom said.

Adams seemed relieved. ‘That’s good. I’ve been coming back here every year since that first visit. Dry season vacations I spend with my, ah, friends in the hill country — but Christmases are always devoted to Ralladayo. It may be something of an exaggeration, but Erich — and the Intwennyfortee mob, of course — have given me a little, ah, job — communications, PR, that kind of thing. It’s undemanding work, but my diplomatic experience can be put to, ah, use.’

Tom was going to point out that it had been highly unpro- fessional of the Consul to withold this information from him when they were back in Vance, but Adams was already on his feet, slurping down the last of his own unsweetened, undiluted coffee.

Prentice had also got up. He stood, looking nauseous and rubbing the raw patch of red skin on his neck. Adams leaned over and whispered something into the wiry cloud surrounding Jethro Swai-Phillips’s left ear. Gloria and Vishtar barely glanced up, only muttering ‘Bye’ as the three men quit the veranda. When Tom looked back, he saw that the lawyer had risen, and was awkwardly dragging his stricken leg back inside.

There were noisy galah birds mucking about in the eucalyptus trees. Their pink plumage and grating cries were faintly uncanny: were they tiny airborne Anglos or had the white interlopers on this island-continent mutated to resemble these plumed natives, whose every song burst ended with a query: ‘Kraa-kra-kraa?’

First, Adams took them to see the domestic interior of a Tayswengo humpy. Obediently, Tom chatted to its proud inhabitant, a grave matron in a black toga, whose cheek bulged with engwegge. She pointed out cooking pots similar to the ones Tom had bought in Vance, and mimed the preparation of auraca meat.

Next, they walked to the far end of the airstrip. Hidden behind a low hill was a galvanized-iron barn two storeys high. The noise of machinery — incongruous in this desert fastness — echoed beneath its roof. When they stepped inside, Tom was surprised to find the menfolk who were so conspicuously absent from the rest of Ralladayo. He had assumed they were away hunting; instead, they were hunched over industrial sewing machines and automated cutting equipment. It was a sweat shop — and the garments the Tayswengo were piecing together were the black togas.

‘Initially, they were a bit of a novelty,’ Adams explained as they strolled from stage to stage of the manufacturing process. ‘Certain, ah, bohemian types down south adopted the togas as, ah, fashion statements. But increasingly the Anglo market is coming to appreciate that these are beautifully designed for outdoor pursuits.’

Tom almost laughed at Adams’s attempts to play the marketeer — they were so at odds with his studied circumspection. But then, as they left the baking-hot barn, the Consul threw back at his charges: ‘Erich’s idea, naturally.’

They doubled back to the airstrip. Here, in a small shack, was the grandly titled ‘Communications Center’. Adams pointed out every part of his little fiefdom — the PC, the photocopier machine, even the water cooler — with unaffected enthusiasm. Tom was reminded of a kid with its playhouse. In a small inner room, Adams introduced the men to a new-looking two-way radio. ‘Feel free’, he said to Tom, ‘to call home. We can patch in to the phone network via a, ah, sympathetic operator in Trangaden.’