Darkest England (13 page)

Beth, in return, delivered me to the bathroom. If I was ever to meet the Queen, then a good scrub was in order. The bath measured the width of three donkey carts, silver taps the size of rams' horns; soap as white as bread; and from the silver taps poured a geyser of boiling water that soon filled the room with thick, rich steam. She placed a tall screen between us, on which was painted a magnificent tableau depicting a wild boar lanced by pursuing red-coated horsemen, and she instructed me to hand my clothes to her, over this painted wall, and she would see that they too had a good wash.

I was very happy to rid myself of these cumbersome clothes and to return to a natural state. I undressed, passing each item over the head of the dying boar who gazed up at his pursuers with a look both wild and strange, as if he wished to say something important to those who killed him.

I retained only my hat. It contained my journals and money and my flag, and I had resolved while in England never to let it out of my sight. Once decently naked, I stretched and yawned, as one does when released from some tedious task, and climbed into the bath where I stood a moment, enjoying the plenitude of liquid lapping at my knees; reminding myself that I was about to immerse my body in enough water to serve a family for a month.

My peace was ruined by a loud cry from the other side of the screen and I heard Beth run from the bathroom as if pursued by lions. I sat down in the water and asked myself if perhaps she suffered from religious fits, as some of
our women do, when they believe a god has visited them. Even then, you see, I thought of Beth as one of us. And, as events were to show, I was not far wrong.

Beth's behaviour reminded me of the G/wi women, who live in the desert, and whose god G//amama sometimes shoots arrows at them. They scream and leap to avoid the sharp points because they wound more easily than men. Then they must be healed. So they dance by the fire and the medicine man, going into the sleep of Heaven, that healing dream, sucks the poison from their bodies, pulls the arrows of the god from their bodies and throws them away so that the women are cleansed. And we know all this good comes from that point in a man that points upwards.

The flying Bishop burst in on this reflection. He ripped from my hand my large tawny hat and, waving it like a flag to make the steam part much as the prophet Moses waved and the waters of the Red Sea parted, he opened the curtains of mist long enough to show a dark head rearing in that lovely room, in the inquiring way a mongoose will raise its head from its desert hidey-hole.

The Bishop seemed transfixed by that part of a man that keeps the world turning, that part of him which maidens anoint with
buchu
, that part that makes him a man on the night when the boy first first shoots milk at the heavens and informs his father, that part of him which is the power that can bring rain when he points it at the fire and rains a few drops on to the flames, that part of him which is a man's weapon so powerful that he believes he has an eland bull between his thighs and rides the great eland until it finds a mate. That part of a man without which the world would die of dryness.

Again he pointed. I felt a degree of amused perplexity. It is said in the outside world that the English male native
is immensely fond of his own sex. Was I to understand my saviour saw me as more than a passing friend? Perhaps even as a joking relative? The Boers are of the opinion that English male natives, above a certain level of refinement, are almost entirely captivated by their own kind. This led to a variety of afflictions, including the inability to shoot straight. For there is no Boer on earth who will admit that the English can hit a buck on the hoof at anything over a hundred metres. Or that, when mounted, they can hit anything at all.

It stood on end, the good ex-Bishop thundered. Did I not see how it stood out, stiff, pointed, proud?

Well, what of it? Would I deny my member stood on end? It was my
qhwai-xkhwe
.
⁵
Among the Red People the phallus never slackens. We are born upright, pass through life erect, and go to our graves still bravely standing. It is the last thing to die. It points always before us, a sign to the richest game. It is the arrow of a man. It is a fact as old as our people and we are older than all the tribes in the world. Indeed, when we were already ancient, the English tribes were first putting their noses outside their caves. And even then the
qhwai-xkhwe
, in the smallest infant or the oldest man, pointed to the medicine moon and to the milk of the sky from which the rains come when she showers her blessings on those she loves.

Again the ex-Bishop pointed the finger. Imagine the effect upon an unsuspecting girl! That dread head aimed at her through the steam of her own bathroom. What did a man grow an erect member for if not an assault?

Assault? Try as I might, I could not keep an entirely straight face. I reached for, and hid my face behind, my great hat. How wonderfully consistent they are. How foolish their consistency! Because their bodies bend to a certain line they imagine all other bodies will do likewise. Are all bowstrings bent to the same tension? Are all arrows cut to the same length?

When I had fought my features into some form of composure I asked ex-Bishop Farebrother why my stub of semi-erect tissue should cause such consternation.

Sitting on the edge of my bath, the defrocked aviator told me of a wave of hatred against women of all ages sweeping the country; of girl-children savaged in ditches; women murdered without compunction; old ladies raped on a regular basis, in flats and bedsitters across the land, robbed, battered, locked in their cupboards, and left to die.

But who would do such things? I asked. Barbarians?

He gave me an odd look. And this explanation. For centuries it had been the custom for Englishmen – being very often overseas – to take their rougher pleasures abroad. Rougher, only because foreign females failed to understand the civilities of gentle contact. Very often they did not even understand English. As a result, they very often said ‘no' when they clearly meant ‘yes'. What normal bloke wished to embark on a lengthy semantic discussion when in haste to answer an urgent call of nature? So chaps simply proceeded, in pragmatic fashion, without further argy-bargy. For centuries this had been perfectly satisfactory. However, when the empire dissolved, young males found themselves deprived of their traditional right of inspecting their foreign holdings. More and more they were thrown back on their own domestic resources. They approached women, meaning well. Alas, their inner moral core had been corrupted
by exposure to foreign females. The sort of animal high spirits, all very well ‘across the water', proved disastrous at home. Getting drunk and attacking some passing woman was all very well in the Countries of the Sun – but it did not look good in England. English women were not foreign females. Many otherwise decent Englishmen now quite openly hated women. Was it surprising, then, that women increasingly mistook men for thugs? Or that, in this season of rapine, poor Beth should mistake my honest, upright
qhwai-xkhwe
for something worse?

Given his stumbling pronunciation, these simple words, usually so full of the music of hoof and horn, emerged in hard little parcels from his lips, like the stubborn droppings of a costive goat. Once more my trusty hat provided welcome cover, behind which I composed my face.

I said I understood completely. But just as Beth could not hold back her fear of assault, no more could I undermine the natural rigidity of my member. Among the Red People it lasted from boyhood to old age, whether standing, sitting or sleeping. However, I promised I would do what I could to avoid frightening her in future.

And Beth, I realized, had been spying on me. I felt a twinge of sadness. Yet another who saw me as a specimen – one to be observed. Despite her wonderful outline, she was not of my people. More importantly, this episode taught me to put aside the understandable but futile desire, while in England, to find someone of my own sort. I decided then that the success of my expedition required that I become more like them.

Lying back in my bath, I considered my position. Once, when the springbuck were plentiful in our world, in the First Times, when we were alone and lords of all, when Kaggen made the eland out of a shoe and fed it on honey,
and the gemsbok and the hippo and all animals were still people and lived happily beside us, in those great good times before the visitors came, a hunter would put on his becreeping hat, a house of springbuck skin still with its horns and nose and eyes and ears intact, and, hidden beneath it, he would set off after the game, knowing that the gods would be kind to his hunting because he heard in his heart the steady beat of the springbuck's heart, heard it crossing the veld, felt itches in his scalp where its horns grew; he was the springbuck he hunted.

Well, now, I would go hunting amongst the English. And if I was to succeed, I would have to hide my Bushman parts beneath my becreeping hat, for I saw they are more sensitive to an alien presence than is the rock-rabbit among the cliffs to the rank body fume of the stalking lynx.

And if I suspected I was being watched, I would take precautions. I did so now lest Beth felt tempted to repeat her frightening experience. I lay back in the bath, casting my eyes politely at the roof, where the light bulb hung in the steam like a weeping moon. And I did so henceforth whenever I took a bath in that house. As the placid body of the duck disguises its webbed feet in the water below, propelling it forward with invisible digital dexterity, I ensured that my great round hat at all times floated in the water, directly above my
qhwai-xkhwe
.

Chapter Five

Gratitude speckled by suspicion; mystery dotted by disbelief; temptation sharpened by nostalgia; these emotions struck me successively in showers, like stinging arrows, after I took up residence in the village of Little Musing.

Edward Farebrother's welcome alarmed me. It was so firm, so lengthy, so decided. He may have hung up his flying gloves, yes, but he flew freelance now. Third World cases were of very special concern to him. The rich North was building a living bridge between the developed world and the impoverished South. I was his very own aid programme. But between ourselves, given the extreme sensitivity of people to sexual harassment – and especially with the fears of disease coming out of Africa – it would be advisable to keep myself tucked away.

I could not respond with the gratitude politeness demanded, for I sensed that, far from wishing me well on my way, my friends foresaw a lengthy visit; and I dimly perceived that my saviour, in rescuing me from those about
to expel me, only achieved this act of redemption by agreeing to become my keeper.

I suspected that my captivity was important to him, for it mirrored his own – and that relieved him. He warned constantly that should I venture out alone, or set off unguided, or, worse, if I ‘ran off', I must surely come to a terrible end: ‘Chop, bloody chop!' were the words he used to warn me against straying amongst the natives.

If anything, Beth's welcome alarmed me even more. She insisted on accompanying me wherever I went; a burly, watchful woman in her fathers shoes. Yet her shapeless clothes could not disguise the naturally lovely lines of her astonishing body. She told me that a little corner of Africa had come to an English village and she had always loved Africa.

Beth said I would be happy if I settled with them. Which I took to mean that she would be happy if I settled with them. She explained that I was classified as a seeker by the authorities.

I seized joyfully on this. Yes, a seeker! What could be a better description? I was on a voyage of discovery. I was prepared for danger. My people who had sent me on my travels were very curious about the island of which they knew little beyond legends and myths. Its culture, dietary habits, and history were the source of so many childish stories. Therefore I had been given the responsibility of preparing a true and accurate portrait of this near-mythical island race.