Strip Pan Wrinkle

by David Fletcher

  They did very little to start with, other than sprawl and stretch on the edge of the lagoon. One of them did no more than lie on his back in a muddy depression – with his legs in the air (an obvious sign, thought Brian, of a highly contented critter). But then they began to socialise a bit, jumping on each other and rolling around in mock fights. And then they began to laugh! Yes, they really do, or at least they make a sound that can easily be mistaken for a laugh, and they seem to make it when they’re happy. So, as far as Brian was concerned, it was a laugh. Although he still doubted that hyenas had much of a sense of humour, and he suspected that alternative comedy would leave them cold; as it did many humans who did have a sense of humour.

  The hyenas left as it was becoming gloomy, and then Ban left. He drove his vehicle back to the lodge to arrive there in the dark and to deposit his quartet of guests into the traditional Vumbura Plains welcome, which involved a small party of greeters, a tray of refreshing wet flannels – and an escort to one’s chalet. For even though the walkways were more than six feet above the ground, they were still within reach of chaps such as leopards and, of course, elephants. In the dark, this might not always be apparent until it was too perilously late. And the lodge preferred its guests still to be alive for their dinner.

  So, after a series of escorted walks back from their chalets, all the guests of the lodge were assembled for their evening meal, which began only after they’d also been escorted from the bar. There were about a dozen in total, and Brian and Sandra ended up with Gertrude and Raymond and a young English guy called Oliver, who worked for a travel firm in Britain. He was racing around a whole string of lodges in Botswana, researching their facilities for his firm and clearly having the time of his life. How was it, thought Brian, that a similar career choice hadn’t been brought to his attention before he went off and invested three years of his life in a degree in chemistry? He was pretty sure that if he’d been able to master the meanings of entropy and enthalpy, he would have had no trouble whatsoever in sussing out the quality of lodge grub and the state of the loos. But that possibility had passed, and instead he could now look forward to an haute cuisine meal. (For the lodge had its own English chef – from Oxford (!) – and from what Brian had already heard, the food here would be rather better than good.)

  As it turned out, it was excellent. And the company proved not too bad either (at least from Brian’s perspective). Raymond was quite chatty – although not about banks – and Gertrude gave Brian a whole new insight into the running of railways. Things did get a little sticky on occasions, when, for example, Brian asked Gertrude whether she owned any lederhosen. But the moment soon passed and Brian appeared to survive it. She was very forgiving and, with her husband, very forbearing – as when, later on, Brian started to drivel on about the mystery of shaving…

  Shaving, he explained (as in shaving one’s chin), is a very strange thing to do. Just like the idea of placing between one’s lips, a tube of burning vegetation and sucking on it, the whole concept of, each morning, dragging across one’s face, a sharp slice of metal, just doesn’t make sense. It’s time consuming and it’s dangerous and, what’s more, its effects only last twenty-four hours and, for some men, even less than this. And if only modern society wasn’t quite so enthralled by the need to be hairless – and not just on the chin – then this fatuous daily routine could be abandoned forthwith. Or, even better, if only modern science could come up with a permanent beard-suppressing solution. Because, as Brian was forced to concede, the inevitable consequence of a more enlightened attitude to facial hair would be a world full of mullah and Gimli lookalikes. And even he didn’t want to look like one of those. So yes, scrap this stupid shaving nonsense, but replace it with an enduring hair-annihilation technique, something involving anti-matter maybe, like they were playing about with in that Hadron Collider thing at CERN. In fact, maybe this could be the next Swiss thing. Clockwork watches and secret banking were both on the slide. So, if the Swiss could create a beard-beating technology, based on something that was going on in their very own back yard, they’d be set up for years.

  Now, it has to be understood that when on holiday, Brian was less reserved in his drinking habits than he was at home. He also knew that he had a wife who was very diligent in her monitoring of his ramblings and was always there to pick up the pieces. Always ready with some soothing words for anyone who had been offended during the course of his discourse – and always ready to suggest that it was probably now time for bed.

  So Raymond and Gertrude had learnt no more about shaving and beard growth than they’d known when they’d first sat down, but they had probably learnt a great deal more about the English race and about the tolerance to alcohol of one of its members. But, as far as Brian could remember, they were still smiling when he left the table, so they may in some way have been entertained as well. And they must at least have discovered that Brian was pretty harmless – even if lacking in tact.

  Not that Brian was still thinking about them as he flopped into bed. No, now he was thinking about hyenas and lions – and also about staging a production of Tosca in the chalet. And he decided that he wouldn’t let this thought slip his grasp until the fat lady sings. Only, of course, he did – just as soon as he dropped off to sleep.

  23.

  It was five o’clock in the morning and Brian was thinking about Carmen instead of Tosca. After all, it had all the best tunes, and the sunken lounge would make a fine arena for the bull-fighting bits. But soon he was thinking about how awake he was and how infrequently he was awake at all at such a preposterously early hour. It must, he thought, be something to do with where he was and the fact that there was another drive in the offing – and that this drive was to commence at just after six.

  Breakfast concluded, it began. And again it was with Raymond and Gertrude – and with Ban. Yes, poor old Ban had pulled himself out of bed – as he pulled himself out of bed day after day – to take his latest crop of guests around an area which was heaven for them, but which, for him, must now have begun to lose its charm. Because there wasn’t only this literally matinée performance; there was an afternoon event as well, which ran right into the evening and then into entertaining the guests over dinner. And then it started all over again the next day, until sometime in the distant future, a furlough arrived, and Ban would be free to go home and see his family. It was a tough and demanding life, and Brian began to appreciate why Goodman never smiled much. Getting up at five in the morning in anticipation of a date with nature was one thing; doing this for the nth time with the prospect of a long day ahead and more driving and yet more driving was clearly something else.

  So when Ban was as chatty and cheery as ever, Brian felt not only grateful but also humble. And when Ban then found two giant eagle owls perching within the gloom of a tree, he felt not only grateful but now also amazed. The birds, although enormous, were extremely well concealed, and for Ban to have spotted them was quite incredible. And then even better. Because he was also able to bring his Land Rover to within observing distance without disturbing them, from which vantage point it was clear that giant eagle owls have taken to wearing pink eyeshadow on their eyelids… Well no. It is just their natural colouring. But it is a colouring that is so incongruous and so incompatible with their role as beefy predators that one immediately thinks that they’ve been watching too many episodes of The Only Way is Essex – even if one has had the very good sense not to have watched any oneself.

  However, there were no such make-up associations with the next crop of birds. Because all fifteen varieties of them, including spoonbills, pelicans and assorted storks, gathered around a crowded waterhole, were of the fresh-faced persuasion. There wasn’t so much as a touch of mascara or a dab of rouge between them – albeit some of the storks could have done with at least a bit of help around their fizzogs. They are not the most beautiful of birds. Nor for that matter are warthogs the most handsome of animals (although Brian and Sandra both loved them) and, whilst th
ere were a number of them around this morning, none of them looked very jolly – as if they’d all overheard that phrase about ‘well, I’m sure his mother loves him’. And one had to confess, they weren’t quite in the same league as lions. And there they were: the four lions Ban’s little group had seen the previous day – at rest. But now they were walking – and interacting.

  That may not sound that exciting. Walking isn’t in itself a particularly startling activity, even for a lion, and none of their interacting involved anything as demanding as combined trapeze work or as challenging as synchronised swimming. But it was engrossing all the same. Ban constantly edged the Land Rover ahead of their path, without upsetting their progress. And this allowed its occupants a perfect head-on view of these four extravagantly maned cats, constantly marching towards them whilst sometimes nudging each other or almost leaning on each other, and occasionally exchanging furtive glances (as if they knew that they were putting on some sort of performance). Then they stopped to drink at a pool. Then they stopped again, having sensed the presence of a baby reedbuck that was hiding itself in some long grass – and hiding itself successfully. And although they never found this potential meal, they did then find the side of a grassy mound, where they all flopped down together to consider the state of the world, until it was time to flop again, still all together, under the shade of a tree – and then to fall asleep. The whole “interactive” performance was something that Brian would never forget. And even if he did ever forget, he now had about a hundred photos of this feline transit through the scrub with which he could remind himself at any time. (And quite a few of them were rather good.)

  Back at the lodge, brunch featured beer. (Why hadn’t it before?) And then the afternoon featured a lot of indolence, as Brian and Sandra had chosen to decline the second drive of the day in favour of an extended session of very little of anything back at their chalet. The reasoning was that the chalet was surrounded by birds, it had a view of animals across the lagoon (and of a number of epauletted fruit bats under its eves), a supply of fortified refreshment in the fridge and a plunge pool, and it was generally far too wonderful to be abandoned for the seat of a Land Rover for any more than just once a day. And furthermore, Brian had, nestling in his head, a very important issue that desperately needed discussing with his wife. It concerned the supremacy of cupidity or stupidity – in the defining of man…

  So, in between the application of binoculars to passing black-collared barbets, paradise flycatchers and scarlet-chested sunbirds, Brian regaled his wife with his latest thinking on his fellow brethren and, in particular, how he had not been able to resolve in his mind whether what defined them as a species was their cupidity, in terms of their instinctive desire to acquire wealth and possessions, or their stupidity, in terms of their blindness to the impact of their avaricious nature. And to start with he veered towards cupidity. For how could one ignore, he argued, the fact that our modern societies were not only built on an unending rapacious desire to “have more stuff ”, but that’s how these modern societies had come about in the first place? Man had soon become fed up with living in a cave with no iPhone and no broadband, and he was never going to be satisfied with just a bigger cave. So he invented societies based on agriculture, which would enable the development of societies based on industry and then science and technology – with the explicit purpose of, one day, being able to acquire a fridge and a microwave – and then anything else he could get his hands on. The sky would be the limit. He would be able to build up enormous wealth (or credit card debt) and in the process fulfil all his cupiditous ambitions and fill up his cave – which would by now be a very nice house – with all manner of very nice stuff.

  And we are all at it, claimed Brian. It’s what our lives are all about. Getting stuff and getting more stuff. And for many of us that stuff can include power as one of our possessions. Indeed, for some, power beats even a Porsche 911 and a flat screen, HD, internet-enabled TV taken together! Just look at all those so-called leaders strutting around Brussels and Strasbourg, every one of them a victim of unrestrained cupidity, where, in their mind, the ultimate possession is the wielding of power. And they’ll do anything to acquire it, retain it and, if possible, even add to it. After all, cupidity doesn’t have a cut off. And in the same way that an oligarch with one ocean-going yacht will want a second ocean-going yacht, so a power-wielding megalomaniac (even if he’s just the EU commissioner for cheese straws and yogurt) will want further and ultimately unlimited power. And, of course, suggested Brian, it is this out-of-control desire to have more of everything, this cupidity gone wild – which either defines mankind or is the pointer to what really defines him – which is the unthinking, reckless stupidity that his cupidity involves.

  For who could argue that mankind, in making that long journey from an empty cave to a chattel-crammed edifice in London or Lisbon, hasn’t made a bit of a mess of things. He’s been so stupid that he’s come very close to cocking up everything: the climate, the land, the seas, every other species on the planet – and even his ability to continue his resilient habit of acquiring more and more stuff. And boy, this habit really is resilient – even in the face of growing evidence that it can’t be continued; that we can’t have more and more of our species acquiring more and more stuff. Heck, only a fool wouldn’t see that. From which one must conclude that we are all fools, and cannot grasp our predicament or indeed the predicament into which we’ve plunged the whole of our world. Which must mean, concluded Brian, that what defines us as a species is our stupidity. Unless, of course, it is our cupidity. Because, as Brian readily conceded, there were holes in his argument. For example, cupidity can clearly be placed before stupidity, as it is the cupidity that causes the stupidity. Unless, of course, it is our inherent stupidity that is at the root of our cupidity… At which point Sandra told him to put a sock in it. Had he lost sight again of where he was – and of what he should be savouring – rather than pointlessly ruminating all the time? Was he really that stupid?

  And this remonstration by Sandra did it. Not only did it shut him up, but it also allowed him to come to a conclusion; it was stupidity and not cupidity that defined him and therefore, by extrapolation, the whole of mankind. He was finally satisfied, and now happily resigned to some genuine indolence – without rumination – but with the real possibility of seeing the occasional passing bird. Like that wattled crane in the distance, a bird that was not only rare but one that, unlike virtually all un-wattled humans, was noted for its non-avaricious nature and its plain common sense. A little like Helen was…

  Brian and Sandra had now relocated to the bar for a pre-dinner drink, and had discovered there a new guest at the lodge who answered to the name of Helen. She was tall, attractive, clearly of unsullied English ancestry, and she was engaged in an Oliver-like exercise. That is to say, she was researching lodges in Botswana (and Namibia) for her travel company back in Britain, albeit at a more relaxed pace than that of the now departed Oliver and therefore rather more thoroughly. She was at Vumbura Plains for a whole two-night stay. A conversation ensued, in which, early on, Helen admitted that her travel company was not a well known one, and employed only a handful of people – and was tucked away in Totnes. At which point Brian asked her whether its name was “Reef and Rainforest Tours”.

  Amazement erupted. First from Helen and then, when she’d confirmed that it was this company, from Brian and Sandra as well. For this was the travel business that had, over the past fifteen or more years, arranged eight holidays for Brian and Sandra, involving expeditions to places such as Papua New Guinea, Guyana, Borneo and Costa Rica. It was what it did: organise tailor-made itineraries to places with… well, with reefs and rainforests. But what it didn’t do was meet its clients. Its business was conducted over the phone and with emails, not by requiring its clientele to make trips to Totnes. So Helen, like all her colleagues, never met her customers, and clearly never expected to meet them in the Okavango Delta, just as Brian and Sandra never expect
ed to meet a Reef and Rainforest person here. Not least because Botswana wasn’t one of its offered destinations. However, according to Helen, it soon would be – along with Namibia and South Africa. It seemed that many of its clients who had chosen to visit Madagascar were now expressing a desire to complete their holidays in one of these mainland African countries. And Brian could well understand why. He and Sandra had been to that remarkable island nation, which, for all its magic and wonder, could still leave one desperate for a period of recuperation – in somewhere as idyllic and undemanding as Botswana or Namibia. Hence Helen’s excursion to southern Africa and her residing at Vumbura Plains. Brian was sure that her mission would be successful, but wondered how, by extending its offerings to countries so deficient in reefs and rainforests, her company could retain its name. Maybe they could rename it “Desert and Rainforest Tours”, and have a reef subsidiary. Or maybe it might be simpler to go with something like “Tropical Trips”, “Faraway Forays” or “Thomas Cook”. Although, come to think of it, that last one might already be taken…

  Indeed, Helen confirmed this at the dining table. For now Brian and Sandra had retired there with all the other guests (which, incidentally, is a word that some time ago Brian had recognised as being an anagram of “gusset”). Anyway, there were now only ten gussets… erhh ten guests left in the lodge, and these were all accommodated around a single table. Next to Brian and Sandra was Helen, and across the table were Tim and Ingrid, the South African pair with whom they’d arrived at the lodge. And so the conversation this evening was within this faction of five and, through Sandra’s “guidance”, more upbeat than usual. For she had insisted that Brian, just for once, abandon his doomsday prophecies and his misanthropic musings and instead only make contributions to any debate which were incontestably “uplifting”. This worked (but only after Sandra had remembered to remind Brian what the word “uplifting” meant) and it saw her husband initiating a discussion on the greatest achievements of man! Yes, he invited his fellow guests to suggest what were the top attainments of the human race – and made not even a passing reference to their cupidity or their stupidity…