Jungle Out There

by William Stafford

  It was only then that the three boys began to shout, bawling in their fury, demanding we let them down at once. Rebecca and I exchanged a glance and shrugged. We walked off to retrieve her bag.

  Rebecca asked if Uncle Mjomba always saves me at the last minute. I said sometimes. On other occasions it’s Dad. Or Mother. She asked me if I ever sorted things out for myself. I asked what that was supposed to mean.

  “I’ve seen it all before,” she said. “The big kids pick on the little kids, so the little kids get their big brothers to pick on the big kids, so the big kids get their own big brothers to pick on the little kids’ big brothers, so the little kids get their dads involved, so of course the big kids’ dads have to be called in. That’s how wars get started. When, if the little kids had stood up for themselves in the first place - No, that’s wrong! If the big kids had left the little kids alone in the first place, none of it would have happened and the world would be a nicer place. Do you see?”

  “Er...” was all I could muster. My head was reeling.

  “No, you don’t,” she snapped. “You’re as bad as them.”

  I was about to tell her I took that as an insult but at that point we were intercepted by members of staff and brought to Mr Judge’s inner sanctum, where I was prevailed upon to pen this account.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In which Mr Judge pronounces sentence and we learn what Alison Lyons has been up to

  Well, I have to say, it was quite a story. I congratulated Baby for the brio of his style and the legibility of his penmanship. Mr Judge, who had returned to us with his breath redolent of black coffee, said that I was missing the point. I asked him what point I should be hitting.

  “The point is, ‘your ladyship’, I cannot have such behaviour on the school premises. We have a strict anti-bullying policy and that will guide our sanctions against the three boys who targeted your son. But, we cannot have members of the victim’s family taking vigilante action against the aggressors.”

  Man interrupted with a grunt. “Mjomba not intervene, Son get pulverised.”

  Mr Judge shook his head. “We can’t know that for sure. The boys have said they only wished to scare Sonny - a kind of initiation because he is a new boy. These things are not uncommon, Mr, ah, Man.”

  “This is outrageous,” I slapped the table. “You have an anti-bullying policy and yet you shrug off these so-called initiations. And you appear to take the word of what seem to me illiterate thugs as gospel. I put it to you, sir, that you are shirking your responsibilities.”

  “Madam, your son’s account seems over-elaborate and florid. Obviously he has a vivid imagination but the bare fact remains: your uncle - or whoever it is - should not have come onto the school grounds and have taken matters into his own hands.”

  I sat back. He was correct about that.

  “Man have word. Mjomba stay away.”

  Mr Judge put his fingertips together and shook his head. There were still some beads of coffee clinging to his moustache.

  “I am afraid that won’t be sufficient,” he did his best to appear saddened. “The boys will be dealt with; you may rest assured of that, but I would suggest that perhaps mainstream schooling is not the best fit for your son.”

  “You would suggest it or are you in fact suggesting it?” Damn the man for not speaking plainly.

  “I am suggesting it. I can furnish you with a list of private tutors you may engage to supplement whatever you may be able to teach him yourself at home.”

  Man stood up and shook Mr Judge by the hand. He seemed overjoyed.

  “Darling?”

  “Son stay home. Son learn better. Result!”

  “Hooray!” said Baby, jumping up. “Thank you, Mr Judge.”

  The poor head teacher was taken aback. It was not the reaction he had anticipated. I get the impression he would have liked us to beg him to allow Baby to stay and increase his delight in turning us down.

  I got to my feet. “Thank you, Mr Judge. It has been an education.”

  We left that office with our heads held high.

  “Mother,” said Baby, as we crossed the playing field and headed for the fence. “May Rebecca be home-schooled as well? Well, in her case, next-door-schooled?”

  I ruffled his hair. “I shall put it to her mother,” I said. He was immediately downcast.

  “That’s a no, then.”

  The fence proved no obstacle and within minutes, we were back at the house, where in an act of contrition, Uncle Mjomba had prepared a slap-up feast.

  ***

  Jamie Peters called in on his way home from the office. He was by turns dismayed and thrilled by the tale of Baby’s first and only day at school and offered to help us make sure our home-schooling complied with all the regulations. We thanked him by offering him a mango platter, to which he tucked in with gusto.

  “Do you know,” he said, with juice glistening in his straggly beard, “I think a lot more people should be like you. Your approach to life is so - so - refreshing. I’ve half a mind to chuck my job in and go and climb a tree or something.”

  Man took this as a great compliment and clapped Jamie Peters on the back. Our mutual appreciation session was interrupted by the sudden and uninvited appearance of Mrs Lyons. She stormed into the kitchen, casting her eyes in all directions.

  “Where is she?” she bellowed, like a buffalo with a bellyache. “Where is she?”

  “Who?” I asked. It seemed to me a reasonable question but it elicited a snort from Mrs Lyons who said I should not play the innocent.

  “Lion Woman crazy,” said Man. There was no judgment in his tone.

  “My daughter!” she cried. She even looked under our only table. “What have you done with her?”

  “Which one?” I asked, and then added quickly, “We have done nothing with either of them.”

  “Alison!” she replied, although at such high volume she could have been summoning the girl from a great distance.

  “Door,” said Man, moving to the doorstep. “Lion Woman use it.”

  “Quite right, darling,” I said. “Mrs Lyons, we’ve had a busy day and I can’t take your barging in here, shouting the odds. Please come back when you can express yourself in a calmer fashion or, preferably, do not return at all. If we see your daughter, we shall inform her of your distress. Goodbye to you.”

  Mrs Lyons did an impressive imitation of a volcano about to blow its top before turning on her heels and, gnashing her teeth, stormed out of our house and back to her own. A moment later, we could hear her slamming doors and generally banging things about.

  “Poor Alison,” said Man.

  “Indeed,” said Jamie Peters. “There’s never a dull moment here, is there?”

  He was quite right. A few moments after that, Mr Lyons appeared, hovering at the doorstep to issue a tentative apology for his wife’s bad conduct. He looked worn out, the poor man. I assured him it was all quite all right, and we know what it is like to be worried about one’s offspring. I sketched out the occasion when Baby had wandered into a crocodile’s nest as a toddler and was happily playing bowls with the eggs when the mother made an unexpected return.

  We invited Mr Lyons to stay for tea. He looked torn but eventually decided against it. He attempted a spot of levity, saying he had better get home while he still had a home to go to, and off he went, taking our sympathy and best wishes with him.

  “Are they always this troublesome?” Jamie Peters asked. “Your neighbours.”

  “Lion Man all right,” said Man, meaning by implication that the Lion Woman wasn’t.

  “I’m sure they find us equally problematic,” I laughed. “I wonder what their Alison is up to, to get them so agitated. Do you know, the other day, I caught her sneaking home? She had been out all night.”

  Man was frownin
g. “Lady gossip.”

  “Anyway,” Jamie Peters got to his feet. “Time I was off. But I’ll take you shopping for phones and stuff tomorrow, if you like. I’ll take a long lunch.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “Thank you.” I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of my family joining the technological age - we had had none of these mobile phones and lapdog computers when I was a girl and had managed very well without them, thank you very much.

  Man shook Jamie Peters by the hand and clapped him on the shoulder. From the sink, Uncle Mjomba waved goodbye with a dish mop.

  “Nice fellow,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Man. “Helpful.”

  “Darling,” I slipped my arm around his waist. “You don’t think he’s, well, after something, do you?”

  “After?”

  “Oh, I don’t know... You are a handsome beast and he likes handsome beasts... ”

  Man laughed. “Lady jealous!”

  He proceeded to tickle me. Mjomba hooted in amusement. Man chased me around the kitchen, beating his chest.

  “Jamie Peters have good taste,” he laughed. He sprang towards me but I ducked into the hall. He pursued me upstairs, where we stayed for a while, giving the neighbours stiff competition in the banging noises department.

  It was silly of me, of course. There was no reason why Jamie Peters would not find my husband attractive, but I had nothing to worry about on that score. Man only had eyes - and everything else - for me. I felt like the luckiest woman in the world.

  Afterwards, while Man was dozing, I looked out of the window at Edgar Street. The lamp posts were lighting up - people here are afraid of darkness. I saw a figure moving in the shadows. My first, ungenerous thought was that it was Jamie Peters come back to run off with my husband, but then I saw it was a boy, a boy in a turban, looking up at our house.

  “Look, darling!” I called over my shoulder, but when I turned back to the window, Ranjit was gone.

  ***

  We joined Mjomba in the kitchen and picked at the remnants of his fruit feast. Man and I were thinking the same thing. All this fruit and veg was delicious, of course it was, but it would be nice to have something cooked for a change. In the jungle, it is the easiest thing to find the wood with which to make a fire, but in Dedley it was becoming increasingly difficult. There’s just not that much firewood lying around -plenty of other things, but not much firewood. We went out into the garden, where we had not lit a fire for days.

  As ever, Man was philosophical. “Make Lion Woman happy,” he nodded towards the partition wall. “Lion Woman want smoke-free zone. Lion Woman get flame-free fire.”

  “Yes, there is that, I suppose.”

  A squawk from Mjomba brought us running back into the house. He has taken to wearing a chef’s toque perched on the top of his mask. He was gibbering excitedly at one of the white boxes. He turned a knob and tiny blue flames sprouted in a ring on the top. Man and I stared at each other.

  “It’s a stove, darling! Of course!” You will remember that I had little truck with kitchens when I was a girl, sheltered as I was from domesticity. I was woefully unprepared for modern life long before I spent any time in the jungle.

  Mjomba made the flames grow taller and shrink again. Man and I applauded politely. Mjomba bowed. His hat caught fire. Screeching, he dashed it to the floor and stamped it out.

  “Knock, knock,” said a voice in the doorway. We turned to find the elusive Alison Lyons, as large as life, on our threshold.

  “Hello, dear!” I welcomed her, but Man, Mjomba and I all glanced warily at the partition wall. “Do come in.”

  “Ta,” she said, stepping inside. “Your ladyship, your, uh, manship. Trouble?”

  “No, thank you, dear; we have plenty already. Mjomba is giving us quite a display.”

  “Lion Girl use stove?” Man asked.

  “It’s a doddle,” said Alison. “Come here.” We approached but she stepped towards the stove. People often don’t mean what they say, it appears.

  She filled a saucepan with water and placed it on a circle. She pushed and twisted a knob and the blue flames appeared. They licked the base of the saucepan like fish feeding on carrion.

  “Just pop your carrots, your veggies in there. Chop them up small first, and boil them for a few minutes and wham bam, you’re cooking with gas.”

  “An expert, I see,” I touched her shoulder. “Clever girl!”

  Man nodded in agreement. “Lion Girl make good mate. Lion Father get good price.”

  Alison was shocked. “He’s kidding,” she appealed to me. “Isn’t he? Is he?”

  But I was more intent on the rest of the stove. “What’s that little room for, with the door?”

  “That’s the oven part. That’s for baking and roasting rather than boiling.”

  Mjomba had removed something from the interior, a broad flat pan with a wire grid. He grunted and held it out to Alison.

  “And what is this?” I asked on his behalf.

  “That’s your griller,” said Alison. Uncle Mjomba looked affronted by this remark. Man and I laughed. “What did I say?” the poor girl looked so confused we laughed all the more.

  To her relief, Uncle Mjomba joined in. He handed her his singed chef’s hat, saluted and went up to the bathroom.

  “I believe you’ve been delegated,” I pulled some carrots and onions from a cupboard. “If you don’t mind giving us a hand?”

  The girl was happy to assist. It seemed to me she would do anything at that point rather than go home. Much as I would have liked to, I didn’t probe into her private business. If she wanted to talk about whatever was going on, she would soon enough. Softly, softly, catchy monkey and all of that - which, in practice is a load of nonsense. More like pretty-damn-quickly have-your-wits-about-you catchy monkey, in my experience.

  We stood side by side at a counter, chopping and slicing vegetables. Man left us to it - not because he is above what some perceive as ‘female’ chores, but because he knew the girl might be more likely to open up to me if we were alone. He is incredibly sensitive, that Man of mine. No, really.

  “I’m ever so sorry - I said it without thinking,” she began, apologising yet again for her slight against Mjomba.

  “No need, dear,” I assured her. “Mjomba’s thick-skinned. Underneath all that hair.”

  We chopped on in silence. I felt something was coming. I did not have to wait more than a couple of minutes.

  “Er - your ladyship...” she cleared her throat and began.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Could I - could I ask you a big favour?”

  “Hm?” I crunched a piece of carrot.

  “Well...” she shifted uncomfortably, “it’s like this... ”

  I squealed in delight. “You’re in love! I knew it!”

  She gaped in amazement. “Well - no! Er - well, um, there is somebody - Just a friend!” she added, a little too quickly. “He’s just a friend - but I really like him and... ”

  “I think it’s marvellous,” I interjected, barely able to contain myself. I hadn’t had a girly chat like this since those nights in the dorm.

  “He’s just a friend...” she repeated.

  “Fancy!” I bit my lower lip. “Coming to me for advice!”

  “And the thing is... ”

  I pulled myself together for her sake. “Go on. I am listening. I’m just so excited.”

  “Well, you see, I’ve sort of invited him around, you know, for tea - by which I mean dinner - and that, and... ”

  “Splendid! Such a big step. Inviting someone to dinner. So, what is it?”

  “What’s what?”

  “Your big favour.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ve invited him round -”

  “’Him’!” I couldn
’t help interrupting. I was giggling like the schoolgirl I used to be.

  “- and the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a bad idea.”

  “Why? Are you going off him already?”

  “No! It’s my parents. Well, my mom. My dad’s all right; he might hum and hah but he’ll come around, but my mom... ”

  “Ah.” I understood at once. “Your mother... ”

  “You know what she’s like.”

  “I do, indeed. She won’t approve.”

  “She doesn’t know the meaning of the word. My dad says she would moan if her hair was on fire. I don’t know what he means by that. I just know she won’t like Dan-Joe.”

  “Who?”

  “‘Him’”.

  “Oh.” I giggled again. I forced myself to chop an onion in the hope that it would calm me down.

  “So...” the girl stopped chopping and looked me in the eye, “and this is my big, big favour: could-I-bring-him-here-instead?” She spoke so quickly I had to ask her to repeat her request.

  “Oh- oh, well... ”

  “Please!”

  “Er -“

  “I’ll do all the cooking - and give you a lesson at the same time!”

  “Well,” I conceded, unable to resist those large, entreating eyes, “I would like to know how to use the stove thing... All right, then.”

  Alison squealed. She jumped up and down and then threw her arms around me. I was quite overwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong: my Baby is wonderful, but I began to imagine for the first time, how lovely it would be to have a daughter. Mrs Lyons had two and clearly did not know how fortunate she was.

  We arranged that she should bring her ‘friend’ around for dinner the next evening but, I gave her fair warning, she needed to go home and watch out for her mother.

  “On the war-path, is she?”

  “A one-woman stampede, it sounds like.”

  Steeling herself, Alison declared she had better face the music. She laughed to see Man’s puzzled expression when he heard this puzzling expression.