by Stan Arnold
‘Tallulah, may I call you Tallulah?’ said Mick, breathing deeply and wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘I’d just like to say how delighted I am to be alive. That was amazing, absolutely amazing!’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Hathaway, with a smile, ‘but if you hadn’t read the manual so quickly, we might never have got the engines started.’
It was all coming back to Jim.
“We were going along, then there those fighters and missiles, then flash, bang, we’re in that foggy tunnel with all that lightning then, flash, bang and we’re out, miles up and falling. What’s going on? And, where the hell are we?
With the effort of getting the plane back under control, Mrs Hathaway had not had time to look at the sat nav graphic screen.
She looked, gasped, tapped the screen, then gasped again.
‘It’s impossible!’ she cried. ‘Absolutely impossible!’
She turned to Mick.
‘Michael, what would you say if your saw the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in your life - staring you right in the face?’
‘What, honest?’
‘Yes, honest.’
‘I’d say, fuck me, gently.’
‘Thank you, Michael that’s a great help.’
She swivelled her seat, took a deep breath and looked Mick and Jim straight in the eye.
‘Fuck me gently,’ she said without a trace of embarrassment, ‘we’re fifteen miles off the mouth of the Amazon.’
Chapter 50
‘We’ve done 3,000 miles in 15 minutes!’
They were all struck dumb. It was impossible.
‘Look,’ said Mrs Hathaway, ‘we can think about this later. I’m going to bank to starboard and drop down to 200 feet, I don’t want to see MiG-15s in the mirrors again, thank you very much.’
As soon as the manoeuvre was done, and they were heading due west into the mouth of the mighty river, she began to think things over.
‘Michael? James? What do you think was happening back there?’
Jim tried to make amends for passing out during the final fall.
‘I think it was about a very daring lady, pulling two media has-beens out of a very dangerous situation. You saved our lives.’
Mick controlled the urge to vomit, and thought he’d add a bit of realism - although how ‘real’ it was, was definitely open to doubt.
‘Tuck your bibs in, ladies and gents, and try this. I can remember a TV special on the Bermuda Triangle, where this bloke was flying a light plane near Florida, and, on a nice clear day, he ran into a strange cloud formation and it turned into a tunnel. Same as us - no controls, no instruments, just cut off in a foggy tunnel. Afterwards, I think he called it an electronic vortex.’
‘You should get out more,’ said Jim, with a smirk.
This was not because he disagreed. It was because he’d seen the same programme and wished he’d said what Mick had said.
‘And,’ said Mick, there was a time warp - when he came out of the vortex, he’d lost around 30 minutes...’
‘And he was 100 miles further on than he should have been,’ said Jim trying to muscle in on Mick’s act.
Mrs Hathaway ignored the muscling.
‘But what happened with us was much stranger - our watches haven’t changed, but we’ve gone from the Caribbean to the Amazon, in a quarter of an hour!’
‘And what about those big bangs and white flashes,’ said Jim. ‘That one when we went in, I thought it was the missiles hitting us.’
‘But it wasn’t, my empty little toilet duck,’ said Mick, ‘because we got the same sound and light blast when we got fired out.’
As no one had anything more to add, they flew on in confused silence. Mick and Jim felt it was right for them to stay and keep Mrs Hathaway company. Jim might be a grovelling creep, but he’d been correct. They were two media has-beens. She was a daring lady. It was a very dangerous situation. And she had saved their lives.
*
Just like Mick and Jim’s geography textbooks had told them, the Amazon was huge and went on for miles, as did the lush green jungle on either bank. They followed the main river, then a variety of tributaries, each one, in turn, getting narrower, although compared with, say, the Thames opposite the Shard, they were still gigantic.
From 200 feet, they had a pretty good view of the banks.
‘Shout if you spot Sting,’ said Jim.
It wasn’t much of a joke, but it was the best of the trip. Which gives you an idea of how the time dragged.
They were flying directly into the sun, and Mrs Hathaway put on her Ray-Ban Aviators. She looked like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, only better.
Eventually, the light began to fade.
‘Only a few minutes to go,’ she announced. ‘We’ll land upstream and anchor there for the night. After all that’s gone on, I need a good night’s sleep. Then, tomorrow morning, we can float a couple of miles downstream to our rendezvous with Daring Dooz Challenge Three.’
After all that had gone on, Mick really needed a rendezvous with a couple of dancers from the Golden Legover. But if that wasn’t available, and it wasn’t, a night up poo-poo creek would have to suffice.
She banked the Catalina in a graceful, wide arc and brought the plane into a perfect landing, dead centre on a dark, slow-moving river that must have been about 200 yards across.
Jim looked out of the cockpit window with a mixture of relief and wonderment.
The sun was backlighting the early evening mist, and the lush green vegetation had a beautiful, golden tinge.
‘Look, look,’ said Jim, ‘fabulous colours. You know, like that green-goldy effect they used in...’
‘Amélie.’ said Mick cleaning his camera lens.
‘Right! With...’
‘Audrey Tautou,’ he yawned.
‘Cheers,’ said Jim.
‘You know, Mrs Hathaway,’ said Jim. ‘You may think I’m an ignoramus, but I love beautiful environments like this. It brings out the poet in me - that, and beautiful French women. In fact, one of the first poems I ever wrote was about Joan of Arc.
‘Yeah,’ said Mick, it started, “There was a young girl called St Joan...”’
‘Gentlemen please!’ she said, ‘here’s the manual, learn how to drop the anchor - I have to phone Aubrey.’
She left them to their task, and moved to the blister area where she made herself comfortable in one of the seats. There was a good signal. She dialled Aubrey’s number. Roberto answered.
‘Look, Gisele, you have to stop phoning. Billie-Jo was just one of those things...’
‘It’s Mrs Hathaway.’
Realising he had just torpedoed his chances of any romantic liaison with the lovely Tallulah, Roberto turned his attention to giving his bass-playing buddy, Aubrey, some advanced warning.
‘Oh, Mrs Hathaway, hi, good evening.’
Aubrey, who was reading Tonal inversions in reggae bass lines - why make it easy? shook his head, violently.
‘I’m afraid Aubrey is out.’
‘Out? I thought you’d arrested him.’
‘He got parole.’
‘How?’
‘Well, as Chief of Police, I set the rules round here,’ he said limply.
‘How is he?’
‘Fine. Fine.’
It was awkward. Roberto realised this was getting nobody, anywhere. Time to shuffle the deck.
‘And how are you? Mrs Hathaway?’
‘Fine.’
Silence.
Roberto looked daggers at Aubrey, who made an exaggerated, pleading face, before returning to his book.
‘And how’s the trip going?’
‘We’re here.’
‘What!’ cried Roberto, ‘you can’t be! How?’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Hathaway, ‘we did what you said, you know, nice and level at 200 feet, and then...’
‘What?’
‘We were attacked by MiG-15s, firing rockets, then we were sucked into an electronic time-warp vortex, bombarded with
high-voltage discharges for 15 minutes, got spat out at 20,000 feet and fell about 15,000 feet without controls, before we eventually got the engines started and then realised we’d covered 3,000 miles in a quarter of an hour.’
‘Eventful, then.’
‘Somewhat. But before I go, will you do one thing for me?
‘Anything.’
There was a pause.
‘Tell Aubrey, he would really have enjoyed it - such a pity he chickened out.’
Chapter 51
Mrs Hathaway awoke to a strange sound. It was the sound of her own breathing.
She sat up in her seat and looked out of the blister. It was 6am and still dark. The Catalina was swaying very gently. She decided to rest for a little while longer.
An hour later, the noises started. Deep, strangulated, guttural reverberations followed by bubbling, spitting sounds. She pressed her nose to the Plexiglass and squinted into the semi-darkness to see what was going on. Probably she was only half-awake, because it took her about a minute to realise she’d been woken by Mick and Jim snoring in the cockpit.
She dozed for another half an hour until the jungle came to life. There were squeals, whoops, howls, monkey calls and some noises which defied description, echoing from bank to bank. There was mist on the river, and a weak sun from the east. She washed, then selected some clothes from the flight cases provided by Giles. A sleeveless, grey t-shirt, ultra-brief leather shorts and calf-length jungle boots. There were also some rather strange leather thigh straps containing some not very pleasant looking knives.
Jim appeared about ten minutes later. He looked a bit rough, but was multi-tasking, scratching his stubble with one hand and his belly with the other. He straightened up rapidly when he saw Mrs Hathaway.
‘Bloody hell! Lara Croft’s up the jungle again!’ he said with genuine appreciation in his voice.
‘Good morning, James. As usual, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Mick popped his equally unshaven features round the corner.
He made a flamboyant gesture with his hand. It wasn’t very impressive. Imagine the Sherriff of Nottingham after a heavy night out on the mead, scratching wax out of his ear, then with a spiralling hand, trying unsuccessfully to locate his codpiece.
‘Good, morrow, Mithreth Croft, and how be-eth thee this fair God-given morn.’
‘Your clothes are in your trunk. Michael. I’ll go and check the cockpit, while you two get yourselves ready.’
‘Please thy self-eth,’ said Mick, ‘Juth tryin’ to injectuth a little humour.’
‘That wasn’t very funny,’ said Jim, as Mrs Hathaway left.
‘Pith off, varlet,’ said Mick.
Morning pleasantries over, they washed shaved and dressed themselves in what turned out to be matching, designer, khaki tropical wear.
‘We look like we just failed an Indiana Jones look-a-like competition,’ said Jim.
‘More like Tweedledum and Tweedledee meet King Fucking Kong’s trainer.’
‘So we’re happy with the sartorials?’
‘Absolutely. Let’s get the rubber dinghy out, and whack the gear in.’
‘Gear?’ said Jim, ‘at this time in the morning?’
‘Professionalism, my little sachet of rancid moggie grub, professionalism. That’s what we’re here for.’
‘Professionalism!’ hissed Jim. ‘You call this professional?’
‘No,’ said Mick, ‘I call this £200,000. I call this no sleeping in newspapers on the beach. I call this no saving up for frozen sausages. I call this no idea where Uncle-bleedin-Jocelyn scarpered to.’
‘Where’s the dinghy?’ said Jim.
‘It’s not dinghy time,’ shouted a voice from the cockpit. ‘It’s get the anchor up time.’
So they pulled up the anchor. Mrs Hathaway engaged the rudder and slowly turned the Catalina to head down stream.
Mick and Jim joined her in the cockpit. The animals had got over the excitement of a new day dawning, and it was weird, slipping silently through the mist. After a couple of minutes, they could make out a wooden pier, jutting into the river. At the end of the pier, they could just make out the rotting remains of a small boat.
‘Here we are,’ she said, checking her sat nav screen.
‘We’ll overshoot slightly, drop the anchor and take the dinghy.
So that’s what they did.
‘Use the oars,’ she said. ‘This is the back of beyond, and we don't know who or what might be waiting for us.’
Mick and Jim both thought this was a good idea, but wished she hadn't phrased it in quite that way.
As Jim rowed round the Catalina, they could see exactly what was waiting for them. Mick switched the camera on. Mrs Hathaway breathed deeply. Through the mist, they could just make out the lone figure of a man, standing on the end of the pier. He was motionless and looking straight towards them. It was a little brighter now, and they could make out some details.
He was, obviously, a local. He was slim and naked, apart from a-loincloth and several necklaces. He had jet-black hair in a ‘pudding basin’ haircut, and eyes that caught the rays of the morning sun. He carried a long wooden stick and an air of authority.
Despite all her preparation, Mrs Hathaway, had not given a thought to what she should say, if she got into this sort of situation. For all she knew, she could have been set up to meet the head of some international logging company with a hard hat, check shirt, Chinos and Cat boots.
She stood up in front of the dinghy.
‘Er, we come in peace,’ she called.
Mick and Jim instinctively kept their heads down, in case there was an attack from the riverbank vegetation.
The man was silent. There was still no movement.
‘We - come - in - peace,’ she repeated, slowly.
He stared down at them. The mist continued to swirl. The dinghy nudged the pier.
‘My name is Miss-is Hath-a-way.’
Suddenly, he moved forward, crouched down and, with a big grin, held out a bottle, and returned the greeting.
‘Nae borra, hen! Fancy a wee dram o’ Glenfiddich?’
Chapter 52
Mrs Hathaway turned round to Mick and Jim with a ‘don’t say anything’ look. Actually, it was more a ‘don’t say anything, or you could be up for an Enfield Bin’ look.
They understood.
‘That’s very generous offer, but I’m afraid eight in the morning is a little early for us.’
Mick and Jim glanced at one another. A bit of 8am brain damage was just what they needed.
‘Ma name’s Hamish,’ said the man in the loincloth.
‘Tallulah,’ said Mrs Hathaway, as he helped her up onto the pier.
‘And this is Michael and James.’
Nods were exchanged.
As they walked back along the pier, Hamish apologised.
‘Sorry abut the Glenfiddich, byraway. I’m still a wee bladdered from last neet. Everyone got mutted. Naebody left standin’. Fertility rites. Pure dead brilliant! And tell ye the truth, it’s really Glenfiddich home-brew. We call it Glenfiddich Urban Alternative. Tastes like a sample from a non-runner at Kelso, but does the business.’
Neither Mrs Hathaway, Mick nor Jim were experts on Scottish dialects, but as Hamish rambled on, they started to realise that, in a remote tributary, 2000 miles from anywhere, they’d stumbled across the Amazonian version of a Celtic supporter.
They reached the end of the pier. As they stepped on land, a floating log grew legs and a huge mouth and scuttled up to Hamish, presumably intent on biting off his leg. Almost casually, he whacked the caiman right between the eyes with his rod. It hissed, turned and slid back into the water to join the other floating logs.
‘Just a wee bairn, tryin’ its luck,’ said Hamish.
‘Jesus,’ said Jim, ‘that was a …’
‘We know,’ said Mrs Hathaway, ‘keep filming, keep recording, keep taking stills, this is Daring Dooz Three!’
Before a row coul
d start, Hamish turned and pointed to the solid wall of jungle that lay ahead.
‘Yon track’s to oor bit.’
He led. They followed.
The walk to ‘oor bit’ passed without incident, apart from a brief stop where Hamish speared a long snake with brown and beige markings.
‘Meet the bushmaster,’ he said holding the dead reptile high in the air, ‘or as we say surucucu.’ If you spots one doon the karzy, ma advice is dump yer turkish someweer else.’
‘Is it poisonous?’ asked Jim, who for some reason was hiding behind Mick.
‘Aye and no. Say you get bushmastered. And say yon Greenpeace helicopter is aroond tae pick you up. They tak you to the hospital in Manaus, plug you intae machines and pump yous full o’anti-venom. Then you die. Or you gae tae oor medicine man. He’ll mak you a herby soup in a wee bowl. Bit o’ kip. Two days on, your scants’ll be throbbin’.’
They got the general gist.
Suddenly the jungle fell away and they were faced with a large, single-storied building on stilts. I was made from tree trunks, bamboo and palm leaves, held together with vines. There were some window spaces with palm flaps, but generally it had the air of something designed to keep things out.
A bamboo ramp ran up to the main door.
‘Haem sweet haem,’ announced Hamish with a sweep of his hand. Best be quiet, they’re all coming roond after last neet’s damage. Best gae inta ma office.’
The office was a separate room on the left. Hamish opened the door and they followed him inside.
There were four rattan-type chairs and a low table made from bamboo.
Hamish sat down and pressed a switch on the wall behind him. About a dozen halogen low-voltage downlighters glowed into life.
‘Not bad, eh!’ said Hamish, obviously enjoying the shock on his guests’ faces.
‘Dimmers too!’
He twiddled the switch to prove his point.
‘Coffee?’
An old Cona coffee machine was bubbling away in the corner.
‘I suppose that’s home grown?’ said Jim, moving into well-brought-up mode.
‘Nae,’ said Hamish, ‘the coffee growers are all up the Andes, flogging to the Fair Traders. We get bugger all down here.’
‘Still, it tastes very nice,’ said Mrs Hathaway.
