Strip Pan Wrinkle

by David Fletcher

  He sounded confident. And very soon his assertion would be tested. Because Brian and Sandra, having settled into their sumptuous accommodation by the river (their tent was modelled on Cleopatra’s bedroom, only it was slightly bigger), and having subsequently reported for afternoon tea, were now about to be taken out for their first drive – by the inscrutable Goodman. (This guy had the superficial demeanour of an employee of Leroo La Tau, but, as would soon become apparent, inside that austere shell there was something more austere still, as well as a daunting knowledge and a profound understanding of all the wildlife of Savuti.) Oh… and with them on this drive would be an American lady from South Carolina by the name of Iris.

  As Goodman pulled away from the lodge (in another safari Land Rover), Brian soon decided that Iris was a very brave woman. Because it was revealed almost immediately that this was her first time in Africa, she was travelling on her own in Africa, and… well, she had probably bought her first pair of proper stockings before Brian had even been born. She was not a young woman, and even the term “middle-aged” might be considered to be something of a “terminological in-exactitude”. But here she was – in the middle of a Botswanan wilderness – ready for anything and ready to learn all she could. And there was a lot to learn. Living in South Carolina had inevitably not equipped her for what she was about to see here.

  The first new sight she encountered – and a sight that Brian and Sandra had only once seen before – was the promised pack of wild dogs. Goodman had found them within minutes of leaving the lodge. And what can one say of these creatures? Well, how about that they look irredeemably scruffy, seriously menacing and a little devious and, as their name suggests, just plain wild, but that they are in reality, very handsome (in a scruffy sort of way), incredibly sociable within their packs, clever, fearless, completely fascinating – and inevitably endangered. This part of Botswana is one of their last strongholds on this planet (or should that be one of their last footholds?). And to see nearly thirty of them in one pack, all looking healthy and well-fed, was a privilege and a comfort. It was genuinely reassuring that for those few who remain there are still havens like this area of Savuti. Even if it might not be quite so reassuring for their prey.

  Some of these featured next. With Goodman’s nose for wildlife, his trio of guests were soon treated to views of impala, kudu and warthog, and a few further species that might well be beyond the ability of even a thirty-strong pack of dogs – such as elephant, buffalo and hippos. There were also, of course, more than enough new birds about to keep Brian and Sandra on their ornithological toes, even if, with specimens such as ashy flycatchers, they needed Goodman’s help with their balance. And on a par with all these new marvels of nature was the prospect of their first Savuti sundowner…

  This was taken shortly after a close encounter with a small herd of grazing elephants and what was probably Iris’ first encounter with close-quarters elephant flatulence, which is indisputably a very rare occurrence within the confines of South Carolina. So too, one might imagine, are stunning purple sunsets of the African variety, which have the ability to promote the practice of taking a sundowner to an almost psychedelic experience, albeit one without real hallucinations and one where the colours aren’t presented in swirling patterns but in a sky-wide wash towards the west. It was a fitting finale to a wonderful first drive – and the ideal preparation for some more of that Wilderness hospitality.

  This was dinner in the main lodge building, which meant dinner in a handsome open-sided construction on the river’s edge with a dozen or so other guests, most of whom were, like Iris, from the Land of the Free. Some of them, however, looked less than entirely liberated and more like prisoners of their own conscience – and, in particular, a foursome of two men and two women who were clearly trapped by a terrible secret. They were uncommunicative with their fellow guests to the point of rudeness, and they were just uncomfortable with other people and probably with themselves. Brian reckoned he knew what it was. The male members of this coy coterie were probably, he thought, New York investment bankers who, like many of their number, had confused “investment” with “divestment”, and had therefore now self-exiled themselves to Botswana in an attempt to save their skins. Which is more than their female partners could ever do. Too much time in the Florida sun and too much time in a Florida clinic had seen their skin reduced to plastic, and their ability to express their emotions with just their face muscles almost completely removed. Or maybe, thought Brian, bankers’ wives don’t have any emotions. That’s why they end up with bankers.

  Anyway, this dodgy lot ended up at the other end of what was a long, narrow dining table, and Brian and Sandra had the company for the evening not of New York divestment bankers but of two New York lawyers. And these lawyers were both married – to each other. They were called David and Bonnie and, despite their being lawyers, they were extremely personable and chatty and, at the inception of the meal, managed to express their utter loathing for Sarah Palin. So essentially they were very good guys, and Brian would have no difficulty whatsoever with their company, and, if he avoided a debate about lawyers, they might not have too much of a problem with his.

  He did. He kept his lip buttoned on both the law and lawyers and instead introduced topics of conversation such as the inefficiency of democracy. Here, he argued that if you regarded a government as essentially a business – which exists to provide a country with a product called “the administration of its affairs” – it is a fairly rum do that this business is run by one load of executives with another (theoretically) equally capable load of hotshots trying to frustrate their efforts at every turn. It is not a model of any business in the world that has been successful or that has lasted for more than a few weeks. But it is the model we use for our democratic governments across the western world, and the one we try to impose on the inevitably more efficient autocracies in the world, where, whatever other faults they might have, they don’t have this inbuilt internecine drain on their strength.

  David countered this proposition with the rather obvious argument that, whereas in a normal business it is the brightest and the best who run things, in most democracies in the west it is a bunch of plonkers. Although he didn’t use this term. Brian seemed to recall that instead he referred to them as a group of self-seeking bastards whose selection for a jury he would challenge every time – on the grounds of both their intellectual incapacity and their moral turpitude. Therefore, the more that they could be frustrated in their delusional ambitions by another load of inadequates, the better, while normal people just got on with their lives. Brian didn’t have a response to that one, but he did point out that autocratic regimes had problems of their own. North Korea, for example, had to make do with a series of jerks who had all been subjected to a vasectomy of the brain. So that whatever was still going on up there never made it into cogent behaviour, and the only proficiency they displayed was in the arena of terrible haircuts and vacant expressions – while their subjugated subjects continued to suffer and starve.

  At this point in the proceedings, Sandra tried to lighten the mood at the table by suggesting that wild dog dynamics might provide a better basis for the conduct of human affairs. After all, she reasoned, the dogs all worked for the common good, none of the pack was ever neglected in its needs, efficiency was paramount in everything they did, and none of the dogs ever bored the pants off all the other dogs by engaging in an interminable round of primaries, which, as often as not, saw a top dog emerge whose only talent was a talent to disappoint and to underperform in about equal measure.

  Well this, thought Brian, was an interesting idea, but he was concerned by the fact that she’d pinned the inadequacies of democracy so firmly onto the side of American politics, given the fact that she was in the company of two Americans. After all, she could have pointed not to the primaries system but instead to the ghastly electioneering of her own politicians, and all the PC nonsense that surrounds the selection of candidates (where now ethnicity a
nd gender far too often trump ability or plain common sense). But David and Bonnie both took it well, and Bonnie even made the point that, as a lawyer, she was already well disposed to the habits of wild dogs – and especially their ruthlessness and their tendency to strip their victims to the bone…

  It was something of a shame that David and Bonnie were moving on in the morning. Like their fellow countrymen in Muchenje, Rick and Cindy, they were oppressed by that American work ethic that frowned upon extensive vacations (or even turning off your BlackBerry for more than just a few hours) and were therefore in Africa for only nine days! Shit, that wasn’t even long enough to shake off the effects of jet-lag, let alone immerse oneself in what Africa was all about. Or indeed, to learn how to avoid opinionated Brits and their opinionated wives. Or to learn how to go about the reform of democracy in the United States – starting with those friggin’ primaries.

  21.

  When one particular blueberry muffin was placed on a plate with nine similar muffins, it had no idea that it would be stolen. If it had any idea of anything at all, it would have been when it was taken out on that plate to the outside dining deck of the lodge lapa, and the idea would have been that it was about to be consumed by one of the lodge’s guests. For here, on this deck, was where early-morning breakfast was served, and it and its fellow muffins were one of the food items on offer. Even now these guests were appearing, and soon the muffin might be plucked from its plate. Well, in due course, it was. But not by a guest, but by a very cheeky vervet monkey who had swung down from a tree above the deck and before you could say ‘Iowa State Caucus’ had made off with his prize.

  Brian just caught the action as he spooned some muesli into his mouth. He’d been standing at the edge of the deck watching the fish below him in the river, and just as he turned from the river he saw the simian villain make his play for the food. And, of course, he was delighted. Not just in catching the action, but in the knowledge that he was sharing his first meal of the day with a creature of the wild (even if the creature in question was probably more a lodge resident than a truly wild beast). It just emphasised where he and his wife were. Slap bang in the middle of an untrammelled natural world, the sort of natural world where during the night you were kept awake by the sounds of frogs, hippos and other assorted unidentified animals, but were not bothered that you were. Even if you had to rise at five in the morning to eat an indecently early breakfast – with a monkey.

  But now it was late. It was five forty-five, and it was time for a drive. Time to join Iris and Goodman for another ride through the bush.

  Their first encounter (just as Goodman had predicted) was with a group of sixteen lions – of the female persuasion. They were sprawled under two bushes near a hippo-filled lagoon – eight lionesses to each bush – and they were fairly inactive. A bit of half-hearted stretching and yawning was all they could manage; otherwise they were essentially inert, sleeping off what must have been a more than ample meal from the previous day. Indeed, they were so chilled out that Goodman was able to drive his open Land Rover between the two halves of the group and thereby bring his passengers to within a lion’s length of their dozing forms. Any closer and, as their last act on this Earth, his passengers could have reached out of their vehicle and stroked them.

  Brian studied them closely – and marvelled at the state of their teeth. It was remarkably good, and given that they didn’t own a toothbrush between them and had no access to a dentist, incredibly good. This got him thinking about what else they had to cope with on their own, without devices or outside assistance and without even human hands and fingers. So, for example, how on Earth did they cope with an itch in an ear, and how did they get a bit of grit out of an eye? They could hardly resort to a cotton bud or the corner of a folded hankie. And then he thought some more and thought about the choices they had or, more accurately, about the choices they didn’t have.

  Because what could one of these lionesses here do, if she woke up one morning and decided that she was pretty pissed off with the way she was living? Every day, a new hunt to conduct, a new animal to catch and dispatch, and even if you were successful in this endeavour (after expending a great deal of time and effort), all you got to eat for your troubles was meat! And meat every day… Well, it was so sameish, so stupefyingly boring, and often so terribly gristly. If only occasionally there was something else on offer and something that didn’t take quite so much effort, something like a blueberry muffin for example. And all this hunting, eating and sleeping left you hardly any time to do anything else. How nice it would be to have just a little time to play with a big ball of knitting yarn, or to jump through a hoop, or maybe to learn how to count or even to divide. And yes, how often must you wish you could divide by sixteen every time you and your gang set about the carcass of a kudu, even if you found its flesh somewhat chewy? Or, there again, Brian reminded himself, this was a pride of lions he was in the middle of, and lions were highly unlikely to indulge in such senseless musings. That sort of stuff could be left safely to him.

  Yes, he finally abandoned his ridiculous cogitations on lion life choices and returned to savouring their intimate presence for what it was: a privileged insight into their form and their nature at very close quarters – just before Goodman announced that he was moving off. It appeared he had an appointment with a leopard.

  She was sitting in a patch of grass as if in a trance. But leopards are never in a trance; they are just in a constant state of readiness. What may look like a pair of glazed-over eyes are, in fact, the eyes of a creature in intense concentration, the steady stare of a superb hunting machine as it works out what’s around it – and whether what’s around it includes a meal. And, of course, this hunting machine comes in such a stunning package that Brian’s first thought, when he saw this lady leopard, was not how focused she was on her environment, but how ugly he, Brian, was. And not especially ugly, but just human-ugly – as when compared with a leopard. For how can the angular, lumpy, indisciplined, knobbly-kneed shape of a naked ape possibly compare, other than very badly, with the smooth, sleek, streamlined and supple form of an exquisitely patterned cat? It was like comparing a Ford Anglia with an Aston Martin. And right now Brian felt like a Ford Anglia, looking on with envy at the ultimate in organic engineering; and not only with envy but also with admiration. This leopard was just such an incredibly beautiful animal.

  She even moved beautifully. For now she had decided to stand and then to stroll – right past the Land Rover and without taking the slightest interest in its occupants. She moved as though she were in another dimension, a dimension that didn’t require any effort to bring about movement, even when the movement entailed a twelve-foot leap into a tree. Yes, the cat had now decided that her life would be better conducted for the moment from the vantage point of a wide bough in a large tree, and she had effortlessly conveyed herself to that place as though gravity just didn’t exist. She now lay along this bough just staring straight ahead and appearing almost to be ignoring the Land Rover and its occupants on purpose, as though she knew she was an Aston and that down there below were just some cheap and cheerful cars that weren’t worth a second look – or even a first, come to that. And in a way she was right. Brian wouldn’t go far to look at himself or any of his fellow humans. After all, apart from anything else, they were just so bloody common. They were everywhere. You simply couldn’t avoid them.

  It was just at this point, as Brian was dispensing with the human race as being of any real interest, that one of its representatives (the one with the steering wheel in his hands) announced that it was time to move on. He had, it appeared, a further appointment, this time with a lion (and not with another lioness). Within minutes, his passengers had seen this lion – and were able to continue to see him, again at close quarters, as he lay in the shade. As Goodman made clear, he was the “owner” of the sixteen lionesses they’d observed earlier, and was obviously having a bit of “me time” before he resumed his ownership duties. And they were o
wnership duties. Because in the first place, one cannot pretend that any creature who has sole rights in the carnal department to sixteen other creatures, and also requires these same creatures to feed him, isn’t their owner. And in the second place, one cannot dispute that fulfilling the obligations that come with those rights-to-passage don’t at least sometimes feel more like a duty than they do a joy. No less than one can pretend that lions like this chap aren’t the ultimate in full-on, undiluted, no-doubts-about-it masculinity. Brian looked at him and saw that he was not only enormous but also that he had a wonderful male-lion face, muscles aplenty, a most impressive shaggy mane – and a pair of testicles under his tail, which, if he’d been rendered in bronze by a talented sculptor, would have together weighed more than a shot-put. Maybe with sixteen wives, all this was no more than inevitable, but it did get Brian thinking again, not this time about the Ford Anglia nature of the human race, but about its male members and their ambivalent status…