by Miles Gibson
Oscar smiled. ‘He’s right. We’re tired. It’s time we went home.’ He stood up and yawned. ‘How much do we owe you for supper?’
Gilbert looked at Boris who looked away with a vague, distracted expression on his face.
‘You’re our first guests,’ said Gilbert. ‘Compliments of the Hotel Plenti.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Boris shouted for Happy.
‘Good luck,’ said Maurice. He grinned at Gilbert and belched.
‘We’ll see you in You-Kay,’ said Oscar.
When they had finished shaking hands Happy took them to the car and drove out into the darkness. The noise of the engine was swallowed by trees. The compound was silent. The lantern flickered and started to smoke.
‘We clean the tables,’ said Boris, offering Frank an empty bottle. ‘The patron must sleep.’
Gilbert staggered to his feet and let Veronica lead him away. He felt heavy and uncomfortable. The beer had muddled his head.
‘We’ll make it work,’ he said to no one in particular. Frank and Boris watched them retreat.
‘Hank,’ said Boris as he stared after Veronica.
‘Yes?’
‘Your hair is dark.’
‘Yes.’
‘Her hair is white.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you her brother?’
‘No.’
Boris nodded and studied the guttering lantern flame.
‘Boris.’
‘Yes?’
‘My name is Frank.’
14
Gilbert lost his hair. It happened in the first week at the Hotel Plenti. He found it on the pillow when he woke in the morning and clinging to collars when he undressed at night. When he washed he found it stuck to the soap like torn, grey fur. It rubbed from his scalp in untidy patches, revealing sections of shining skull. As the days passed he began to take on the appearance of a monstrous child. His head was a smooth, pink globe of flesh. His ears stuck stiff from the sides of his skull like a pair of germinating wings. It happened so quickly and appeared so shocking that no one spoke about it. Boris found him an old bush hat to stop him burning in the sun. Gilbert lumbered about the yard with the hat pulled down to his eyebrows but the heat and the sweat made him itch and he finally threw the hat away.
He spent his time sniffing under beds and measuring windows, tapping walls and squinting critically at the roof. He studied the rotting hulk of his jungle hotel until he knew every knot in its timbers. But how to transform it into a palace continued to escape him. Sometimes he went missing for hours. Then he could be found in Sam’s bedroom, sitting in a green cane chair, surrounded by books and piles of old clothes. Although Frank and Veronica never questioned him, they guessed he was searching for a message; a letter or diary that might give him reason and hope. But he found nothing to help him. The worn-out clothes, cracked spectacles and tattered carpet slippers were the remains of a strange old man that Gilbert had not known. The Sam Pilchard of his youth, brave, laughing, toast of the Coronation, hero of Frank’s nursery, had not lived in this room. This Sam Pilchard was a poor, mad crow who chewed cola nut and never changed his vest. Gilbert sat, with his big, bald head in his hands, and tried to make sense of it.
Frank spent his time in the kitchen. At first Happy was frightened. Frank made him fart. But he soon settled down and began to take a pride in his knowledge of soups and stews. He showed Frank how to make fufu from maize flour and pounded yam and the trick of eating with his fingers: pulling at a piece of fufu, rolling it into a sticky ball, dipping it into a bowl of gravy. He showed him how to scrub the sand from dried river fish and pull off the heads for a nourishing broth. He helped Frank make small chop from fried ripe plantain and introduced him to palm wine. He kept a bottle in a bucket beneath the table. He called it the white stuff. It tasted sour and strong.
At the crack of dawn, while it was dark and Frank was still asleep, Happy emerged from his barrel, swept the floor, counted the eggs, checked the shelves for snakes and fetched wood for the pot-bellied stove. He drew water from the tank, washed, gargled and boiled coffee. While he waited for the coffee he liked to sit on a stool and stare at the ceiling. He had papered the place with his favourite pictures. He loved the man who grinned and held out a bottle of bright, yellow beer. The man wore an embroidered shirt, gold cufflinks and a large, silver wristwatch. Happy was amazed by the size of this wrist-watch. It fascinated him. He thought the man was probably the president. Next to the man who grinned at the beer bottle he had pasted the picture of a beautiful woman holding a huge, pink, laughing baby. The woman was Chinese. Happy had heard that the Chinese eat babies. He wondered how to cook them. Life was full of mysteries.
Frank usually arrived in time to drink the coffee and help Happy make breakfast. When breakfast was finished they began, at once, to prepare the supper. They soaked rice, scrubbed yams, peeled plantain, ground peanuts, gutted fish, plucked feathers and pulled entrails. They made a stew from whatever they found available, set it on the stove to simmer and, finally, unless Boris caught him, Happy crept away to sleep in some dark, secluded corner through the hottest part of the day.
Happy spoke pidgin and, since this was the language of the kitchen, coaxed Frank to talk by training him like a tame parrot.
‘You go mek?’ asked Happy.
‘You go mek?’ echoed Frank.
‘A nopa mek notin,’ said Happy.
‘A nopa mek notin,’ echoed Frank.
Happy would laugh and dance about the kitchen and stop for a swig of the white stuff.
Veronica did nothing. She was in the business of taking orders and, since there were no orders, there was no business. She sat in the sun and cooked her legs. They also serve who only stand and wait. After breakfast she would make a raft of blankets in a corner of the compound, pull off her frock and sit for the sun in her underwear. Frank made up a mixture of kitchen oils, for the sake of her skin, and scolded her for taking risks in the heat. She sat, smiling and shining, while he polished her shoulders with fat.
‘You’ll die in this heat,’ he grumbled, as his fingers slithered across her back. ‘It’s hot enough to melt marble.’
Veronica snorted. ‘It’s not done anything for me.’ She held out a pale and slender arm. ‘Look. I’m as white as bread.’
Frank leaned over her shoulder, pretending to study her arms and dared to look instead at her breasts. Her bra was loose, the cups had sagged and her nipples stood exposed.
‘You could at least wear something to make yourself decent,’ he complained, watching a nipple stiffen and grow.
‘I am decent,’ Veronica said impatiently, pulling the bra into place.
‘What happens if Boris finds you?’ argued Frank.
‘He’s in town.’
‘And what happens if he comes back and finds you sitting around half-naked?’
‘I expect the excitement will kill him,’ she said scornfully. She stretched out and lay on her stomach, bunching the blanket beneath her chin. ‘Now go away, Frank. I’m concentrating.’
It was while she soaked in the sun that Chester emerged one morning from a pile of logs. He was an old, mad-eyed chicken. A bundle of straw and broken feathers. He tiptoed forward, eyes rolling, head bobbing, and settled down beside her on the blanket.
Chester was the last of the chickens of Plenti. There had once been dozens of them, scratching a living from the dust. But, one by one, Boris had caught and butchered them, snapping their necks in his fist. Chester survived because he was cunning and even when Boris, frustrated beyond reason, had set down poisoned grain, the old bird would not be caught. He had retired at last to the log pile and lived there quietly with his loneliness and lice. No one could explain why he fell in love with Veronica. But once he found her he wouldn’t leave her alone. He became her most devoted admirer. He followed her around the compound and sometimes ventured inside the hotel.
‘That Chester a bad chicken,’ w
arned Boris one morning as he drove Frank and Veronica to town. ‘You wait. You find out. What a bastard. Peck out your eye for a cockroach.’
But Veronica only grinned and cradled Chester in her arms. ‘He’s like a kitten,’ she said, blowing the dust from his feathers. And Chester, hypnotised with pleasure, whistled softly through his beak.
It took nearly an hour to descend the slippery slope. Beyond the hotel the jungle sucked them into the twilight while Boris struggled for control of the wheel. The trees swallowed them. Frank hung his head from the window and looked for the road. He found himself staring down a wet, green throat. There was an overwhelming smell of growth and collapse, life wriggling from decay, the smell of the forest eating itself. There were cucumbers, heavy as human corpses, hanging from curious aerial vines. There were trees that looked like sticks of giant celery and others that might have been sprouting bones. There were gooseberries big as porcupines that burst and drowned in their own blood.
There were towering purple cauliflowers that filled the car with the stink of putrefying flesh.
As they reached the edge of town, sunlight broke through the forest canopy, the trees dwindled and lost some of their strength. The road turned to dust between clumps of thorn and yellow grasses, overgrown ditches and mud-block houses. Here and there small plots had been planted with ground nuts and raffia palms. A woman sat by the road holding a small and hairy pig. Boris hammered the horn and shouted at her through the window. An old man ran out and threw stones.
‘Crazy bastard!’ laughed Boris. He followed the road to market and stopped the car in the shade of a wall.
The market was a patch of waste ground where women came to sit beside baskets of vegetables, fish and fruit. They sat in silence, a circle of black buddhas in batik frocks. One of the circle, a young buddha with a blind eye, was guarding a cage stuffed with dead chickens. When she saw Veronica she looked angry and tried to wave her away.
‘She thinks you’ve come to sell Chester,’ grinned Frank.
‘Best thing,’ muttered Boris. He bought bananas and a dried mud fish. When he was finished he took them to the general store. They walked through the town with an escort of children and flea-bitten dogs. One of the children, a fat boy in torn pants and a Superman vest, kept the dogs at bay by smacking at them, now and then, with a stone tied to a short stick. Whenever he threatened to use the stick the dogs cringed, ran in circles and came back snapping at his heels.
The store was an evil-smelling shed with a hot, zinc roof. The shelves, lit by a single paraffin lamp, looked empty. There were a few blocks of Palmolive soap in sun-faded wrappers, a box of large size Vaseline and a carton of coloured plastic combs.
‘These look good,’ said Frank optimistically, picking up a tin of mixed fruit salad. He wiped the dust from the lid with his thumb.
Boris took the tin and gave it a shake. Then he grunted and pushed the tin away. ‘All gone bad,’ he said in disgust.
‘Ask him if he has any biscuits,’ said Veronica, nodding at the storekeeper who was asleep in a chair behind the counter. Pages from an old calendar had been pinned to the wall above his head. Miss January 1964 was a very pink girl in a swimsuit, smiling through a fall of fake snow.
‘Chocolate biscuits,’ said Veronica.
But Boris only scowled and would not wake him. ‘He don’t have nothing,’ he said. ‘We wait for the food agent.’
They had been living at the hotel for more than a fortnight when the food agent called on them. It was an afternoon of heavy, suffocating heat. Nothing moved. The air burned like acid. The shadows were caked with flies. Gilbert and Frank were sitting sweating on the veranda when a truck struggled up the forest road.
At first it was nothing but a glint of light, dancing through the dark trees. Then it became a roll of thunder followed by smoke. Finally a long, red truck roared into view and shuddered to a halt in front of the hotel. As they watched, a driver swung himself down from the cab and stamped his feet in the dust. He was a young Moroccan dressed in a fancy leather waistcoat, blue jeans and cowboy boots.
When Gilbert introduced himself as the new patron the Moroccan smiled and shook his hand. He said his name was Alley. He stepped back and invited Gilbert to inspect the cargo. But before Gilbert could make a move, Boris had appeared from nowhere, coiled his arm around the agent’s neck and led him a safe distance from the hotel. They talked urgently together for several minutes. Boris spat, Alley laughed and money was exchanged. Then they walked back to the truck and unloaded a pile of cardboard cartons.
Frank and Gilbert sat on the veranda and watched them carry the supplies up the steps and into the hotel.
‘Where does he get the money?’ whispered Frank as Boris staggered past with a carton under his arm.
‘Don’t look at me,’ shrugged Gilbert. He cocked his head and tried to read the legend on the side of the carton.
‘Do you suppose Sam had money hidden somewhere?’
‘Tinned grapefruit!’ exploded Gilbert. ‘The daft bugger has bought tinned grapefruit!’
Frank frowned and stared at Gilbert. ‘How much money do we have left?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Nothing,’ said Gilbert.
‘Nothing?’
‘Well, we spent our savings on the tickets.’
‘But what about the money from the Hercules Cafe?’
‘Yes, we’ve got that coming. But it takes time, Frank. You don’t just sell everything and wake up next morning with a suitcase full of dirty bank notes at the end of your bed. There’s a lot of paperwork.’
‘But it is coming?’ insisted Frank.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Gilbert confidently. ‘It’s coming.’
‘So how long will it take to get here?’
Gilbert shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. Three or four months. Five. No more than six.’
‘We can’t wait six months.’
‘It’s not so easy,’ said Gilbert. ‘They don’t know we’re here. We’ve got to find a way to smuggle the money into the country without anyone asking a lot of damn silly questions.’
‘Because we don’t have work permits,’ said Frank. ‘We’re illegal immigrants. Isn’t that the truth? If they catch up with us they’ll throw us out.’
Gilbert nodded gloomily. ‘I thought Sam could make the arrangements,’ he said.
Then Veronica appeared, half-dressed, bare-foot, wrapped in a blanket. ‘What’s happening?’ she demanded. She had been disturbed trying to sunbathe behind the store room. At the sight of Boris and Alley she had taken fright and made a dash for cover with Chester flapping at her heels.
‘Boris is trying to corner the grapefruit market,’ said Gilbert sourly.
‘Have you seen where that stuff comes from?’ said Veronica.
Gilbert shook his head.
‘The Eurovision Famine Appeal. It’s international famine relief. They’re hoarding charity food.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ scoffed Frank.
‘It’s true!’ she shouted.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it has Eurovision Food for Africa printed on every box, noodle-brain!’ Her feet hurt. She wiped them, one against the other, as she talked.
‘Well what can I do about it?’ complained Gilbert.
‘Stop them,’ demanded Veronica. ‘Go out and stop them.’
‘I’ll have a word with Boris when they’ve finished,’ he growled. He rubbed at his skull. A pearl of sweat flew from his nose.
‘It must be a mistake,’ said Frank.
Veronica looked at him. She wasn’t impressed. She gathered up her blanket and marched away with Chester scrambling in her wake.
‘What do you make of it?’ grunted Gilbert, as another load of grapefruit came stumbling up the steps.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ said Frank, shaking his head.
Once the supplies had been safely landed and locked away, Boris led Alley back to the veranda and sat him down with Gilbert and Frank. He looked immense
ly pleased with himself.
He produced a bottle of Johnnie Walker and a tray of greasy glasses.
‘Where did you pick up your supplies?’ demanded Gilbert, pointing a thumb at the truck.
‘No problem, patron,’ smiled Alley. He fetched a pair of mirrored sunglasses from his waistcoat pocket and made a little performance of polishing them against his sleeve.
‘It looks like charity food,’ ventured Gilbert. He glanced unhappily at Boris.
‘First class,’ smiled Alley. ‘You wanna take a look? Check it out?’
‘But you’re selling supplies that were shipped out here by famine relief organisations,’ protested Frank. ‘It was meant to feed the starving and the homeless.’
‘No one starving here,’ said Boris.
‘So how did he get his hands on it?’ said Gilbert.
‘Good and legal,’ laughed Alley. ‘It comes through on the black market. I pay cash for everything. I got anything you want. American hamburger. English biscuits. French sausage. Ask me. I got anything.’ He stroked his forehead with a slender hand. He had a delicate face and an easy smile. His skin was the colour of hard, polished wood.
‘I don’t know. It’s not decent,’ said Gilbert. ‘And, anyway, we don’t need it.’
‘We got to think of tomorrow,’ said Boris. He opened his shirt and scratched himself savagely. ‘We got to plan. Something goes wrong. Maybe. Something happens. We got to be prepared.’
‘Feed the hungry. That’s my business,’ said Alley peacefully, sipping his Scotch. A silver bracelet swung on his wrist.
‘Did Sam know about this business?’ demanded Gilbert.
‘Sam? Yes. He understood a thing or two,’ sulked Boris. He gulped at his drink and glared out at the glittering trees.
‘What happened to Sam?’ inquired Alley.
‘Fever,’ said Boris.
‘Bad?’
‘Dead.’
Alley nodded and smiled at Gilbert.
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ complained Gilbert, wagging his head. What’s wrong? Mountains of food in Europe. An embarrassment of riches. Move mountains and feed the world. Fat chance. What happens? They send potato powder to people with no water. Wheat to people starving for rice. Sometimes they send food but no trucks. Other times they send trucks and no food. Tinned grapefruit! No man alive ever went hungry for a tin of grapefruit.’
