V. Naipaul - The nightwatchman's occurrence book - and other comic inventions

He was not the only one. Many of the tourists had been deftly guided to the bookstall.

‘Native author.’

‘Don’t use that word.’

‘Lots of local colour, you think?’

‘Mind your language.’

‘But look, he’s attacking us.’

‘No, he’s only attacking tourists.’

The group moved on, leaving a depleted shelf.

I bought all H. J. B. White’s books.

The girl who sold them to me said, ‘Tourists usually go for I Hate You, but I prefer the novels myself. They’re heartwarming stories.’

‘Good clean sex?’

‘Oh no, inter-racial.’

‘Sorry, I need another language.’

I put on my spectacles and read on the dedication page of one book: ‘Thanks are due to the Haaker Foundation whose generous support facilitated the composition of this work.’ Another book offered thanks to the Stockwell Foundation. My companion — he was becoming my companion — held all his own books under his arm and read with me from mine.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘they’re all after him. I don’t imagine he’ll want to look at me.’

We were given miniature rum bottles with the compliments of various firms. Little leaflets and folders full of photographs and maps with arrows and X’s told us of the beauties of the island, now fully charted. The girl was especially friendly when she explained about the sights.

‘You have mud volcanoes here,’ I said, ‘and that’s pretty good. But the leaflet doesn’t say. Which is the best whorehouse in town nowadays?’

Tourists stared. The girl called: ‘Mr Phillips.’ And my companion held my arm, smiled as to a child and said soothingly: ‘Hey, I believe I am going to have to look after you. I know how it is when things get on top of you.’

‘You know, I believe you do.’

‘My name’s Leonard.’

‘I am Frank,’ I said.

‘Short for Frankenstein. Forget it, that’s my little joke. And you see my friend over there, but you can’t see his face? His name’s Sinclair.’

Sinclair stood, with his back to us, studying some tormented paintings of black beaches below stormy skies.

‘But Sinclair won’t talk to you, especially now that he’s seen me talking to you.’

In the turmoil of the reception building we were three fixed points.

‘Why won’t Sinclair talk to me?’

‘He’s jealous.’

‘Hooray for you.’

I broke away to get a taxi.

‘Hey, you can’t leave me. I’m worried about you, remember?’

Below a wooden arch that said WELCOME TO THE COLOURFUL ISLAND the taxi drivers, sober in charcoal-grey trousers, white shirts, some even with ties, behaved like people maddened by the broadcast pleas for courtesy. They rushed the tourists, easy targets in their extravagantly Caribbean cottons stamped with palm-fringed beaches, thatched huts and grass skirts. The tropics appeared to be on their backs alone; when they got into their taxis the tropics went with them.

We came out into an avenue of glass buildings, airconditioned bars, filling stations and snappily worded advertisements. The slogan PRIDE, TOIL, CULTURE, was everywhere. There was a flag over the customs building. It was new to me: rays from a yellow sun lighting up a wavy blue sea.

‘What did you do with the Union Jack?’

The taxi driver said, ‘They take it away, and they send this. To tell the truth I prefer the old Union Jack. Now don’t misunderstand me, I talking about the flag as a flag. They send us this thing and they try to sweeten us up with some old talk about or, a pile gules, argenta bordure, barry-wavy. They try to sweeten us up with that, but I prefer the old Union Jack. It look like a real flag. This look like something they make up. You know, like foreign money?’

Once the island had seemed to me flagless. There was the Union Jack of course, but it was a remote affirmation. The island was a floating suspended place to which you brought your own flag if you wanted to. Every evening on the base we used to pull down the Stars and Stripes at sunset; the bugle would sound and through the city of narrow streets, big trees and old wooden houses, every American serviceman would stand to attention. It was a ridiculous affirmation — the local children mocked us — but only one in a city of ridiculous affirmations. For a long time Mr Blackwhite had a coloured portrait of Haile Selassie in his front room; and in his corner grocery Ma-Ho had a photograph of Chiang Kai-shek between his Chinese calendars. On the flagless island we, saluting the flag, were going back to America; Ma-Ho was going back to Canton as soon as the war was over; and the picture of Haile Selassie was there to remind Mr. Blackwhite, and to remind us, that he too had a place to go back to. ‘This place doesn’t exist,’ he used to say, and he was wiser than any of us.

Now, driving through the city whose features had been so altered, so that alteration seemed to have spread to the land itself, the nature of the soil, I felt again that the reality of landscape and perhaps of all relationships lay only in the imagination. The place existed now: that was the message of the flag.

The road began to climb. On a culvert two calypsonians, dressed for the part, sat disconsolately waiting for custom. A little later we saw two who had been successful. They were serenading the happy wife. The taxi driver, hands in pockets, toothpick in mouth, stood idle. The embittered husband stood equally idle, but he was like a man fighting an inward rage.

The hotel was new. There were murals in the lobby which sought to exalt the landscape and the people which the hotel’s very existence seemed to deny. The noticeboard in the lobby gave the name of our ship and added: ‘Sailing Indefinite’. A poster advertised The Coconut Grove. Another announced a Barbecue Night at the Hilton, Gary Priestland, popular TV personality, Master of Ceremonies. A photograph showed him with his models. But I saw only Priest, white-robed Priest, handler of the language, handler of his six little hymn-singing girls. He didn’t wink at me. He scowled; he threatened. I covered his face with my hand.

In my moods I tell myself that the world is not being washed away; that there is time; that the blurring of fantasy with reality which gives me the feeling of helplessness exists only in my mind. But then I know that the mind is alien and unfriendly, and I am never able to regulate things. Hilton, Hilton. Even here, even in the book on the bedside table. And The Coconut Grove again in a leaflet on the table, next to the bowl of fruit in green cellophane tied with a red ribbon.

I telephoned for a drink; then I telephoned again to hear the voice and to say nothing. Even before lunch I had drunk too much.

‘Frank, your eye is still longer than your tongue.’

It was an island saying; I thought I could hear the words on the telephone.

Lunch, lunch. Let it be ordered in every sense. Melon or avocado to start, something else to follow — but what? But what? And as soon as I entered the diningroom the craving for oysters and shellfish became overpowering. The liveried page strolled through the diningroom beating a toy steel pan and calling out a name. I fancied it was mine: ‘Frankie, Frankie.’ But of course I knew better.

I saw Sinclair’s back as he walked to a table. He sat at the far end like a man controlling the panorama.

‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Leonard?’

‘Frank.’

‘Do you like seafood, Leonard?’

‘In moderation.’

‘I am going to have some oysters.’

‘A good starter. Let’s have some, I’ll have half a dozen.’

The waiter carried the emblem of yellow sun and wavy sea on his lapel; my eyes travelled down those waves.

‘Half a dozen for him. Fifty for me.’