Homesickness (5 page)

‘We might have to leave you here,' Garry cracked, his way of cheering her up; but Sheila stared down at Cathcart's powerful hands gripping and shoving about her legs.

‘It's stuck all right,' Doug said red in the face. He stood up and kicked it. ‘Stupid!'

The natives stood back and watched.

‘This is terrible…holding everyone up,' Sheila began to say.

Mrs Cathcart looked around. ‘Here'—to Garry Atlas—‘wake that one up.'

Their guide still had his forehead pressed to the glass, studying the hand-made glove. Atlas was about to tap his shoulder when Dr North spoke thick jumpy words quite casually to the Masai, rare pidgin, dark enough for the Masai to immediately nod and shrug. They conversed for half a minute more. Evidently this trouble occurred frequently. A negro in a loose-fitting boiler suit appeared carrying several big spanners.

‘I am sorry,' Sheila mumbled to Mrs Cathcart.

‘It's not your fault, dear. It's this place. I wonder if these people can do anything right.'

They were hungry, Sasha most of all, but watched patiently as the mechanic wielding the big spanners dismantled the turnstiles. The pipes suddenly fell on the cement floor, Habsburgian hoops from Sheila's dress. No! That dumb mechanic: squatting in the dusty shoes without socks or laces, infuriating thick lips; he allowed grease to brush against Sheila's hem and her pale elbow, look, as she stepped out. But by then Sheila was too engrossed in being free, out with them, and looked around blinking with the confusion.

‘Well!' Whistles, sighs.

The sudden clarity of the square and hooded shops, with a litmus shadow encroaching from the end already along one vertical edge, folded, and the square's wide-openness and the hills beyond, made them adjust focus, squint, and reach for their sunglasses. They felt curiously dazed. It was similar yesterday stepping onto the wide white tarmac. The walls of the museum had reduced their field of vision to small portable objects all within arm's reach. Outside on the steps, air currents and perspective operated on a natural grand scale. The air was unexpectedly cool. Louisa Hofmann frowned with a headache. Borelli who didn't wear a watch asked for the time. The others smiled, surprised too, and looked at the sky.

Well, because the square had emptied. Vegetable leaves and other rubbish had been swept into green obelisks. An empty cart with wooden tyres stood to one side. A figure at the far end seemed to be going home. Sasha could eat a horse. ‘At least walk in the sun,' Violet said testily. As for Mrs Cathcart, her brown shoes hurt.

The Museum receded behind them like a grey distorted head watching, and they met herds of goats being whistled and tongue-clicked into the square from all arteries, all directions, over-running the footpaths, bumping into them and irritating them, even outside the hotel, which they reached with relief.

In her curtained room Sheila suspended the pen over the postcards and wondered if she was enjoying herself. Somehow not properly, no. Not yet. It takes a time. It depends on the group. And they—those in the group—were merely faces at the moment, or fragments of dress, mannerisms (mysteries), though already some were emerging sharper and steadier than others. In the beginning certain people try to be remote, deliberately distant, withholding themselves; whereas she showed interest, really, and enjoyed company. But she never quite knew what to say, never knew if they would suddenly turn and stare. Some get on your nerves somewhat, talking loudly and across, all the confidence in the world. James B—. Having a walking stick irritated her as soon as she saw it. How old could he be? He didn't seem to need it. Mrs Cathcart was a help but not enough to be a friend, not yet. It wasn't a bad group; no stinkers, yet. Gradually the group would become equal and then the less interesting ones would recede. Those at the far end of the table, the Doctor with the beard, kindly, and the big blind man (‘Fancy a —') and his wife, Mrs Kaddok, attracted her for some reason, perhaps because she hadn't spoken to them yet. She'd been busy watching them. She couldn't help wondering.

Ha! These additional foreign stamps she stuck on the cards for the noisy children of her friends made her nod. Distant pleasure! Sheila was given to pondering. Her magnified eyes seemed specially suited for it. She could imagine: the little ones arguing over her stamps from Africa.

The afternoon light angled in. Violet sat on the edge of the bed naked, filing her nails: calcium powder drifted onto her moist Tasmania, to the carpet floor. How many men had shoved themselves into her? Small slack breasts seemed like scars. But across her creased belly the filtered sunlight laid a small pavonine triangle, and with her bowed head, engrossed, a beautiful sight. Sasha who was generous and given to shouts (suddenly here: ‘Don't move') told her so. Placing her hand on the coloured strip she pointed like a child. After washing underclothes Sasha's hands were soft, pleasantly wrinkled.

In another room with the curtains drawn, Room 411, Phillip North dozed. This was his holiday. He was almost relieved at his weariness.

Doug Cathcart worked a special nylon string between his back molars, working it like a rifle cord, and succeeded in removing particles of the soggy lunch. His wife had kicked her shoes off. ‘Is there anything you want to say to Reg and Kath?' She too wrote postcards; usually the same sentence to one and all, just to let them know. Doug shook his head.

Borelli and his walking stick had gone out somewhere.

Gerald Whitehead squatted with a type of dysentery. Perspiring, trembling, he cursed at the bathroom mirror facing him: he couldn't avoid his glaring red head. Poking his glasses back on his nose he returned with distaste to the empty yet claustrophobic
MUSEU OF HANDICRAFTS
and the broken fences and the craters in the roads, the overcrowded buses, smells of rotting vegetables, grunting beggars, and all those mindless goats, their bulging eyes, Africa! He could think of nothing worse.

The group moved within a certain loosely defined shape, elastic yet definite protoplasm formed by the individuals themselves. One might suddenly branch off—Borelli!—and make a narrow inroad, stretching the group's perimeter before returning. It was at its most stable and rectangular seated at the table for meals; at its most ideal yet unnatural compressed in the hotel lift, transported vertically, themselves vertical with one always cracking a joke.

Room-service woke Dr North by mistake. The African beer was for Mr Atlas—he's across the hall.

The boy waited in the doorway as Garry drank from the bottle and pulled a face. Pressing his stomach with his hand he read the label. ‘Chr-rist Almighty.' Then he called out: ‘Hang on a sec. Send us up two more.' He held up his fingers like Churchill. ‘OK?'

The Kaddoks were preparing to go out. Leon checked the Pentax on the table the way a priest absently blesses a child.

With the pen still in her hand Sheila went and stood near the bathroom. She could hear Louisa Hofmann brushing her teeth. Then the running water stopped.

‘What are you doing?'

Hofmann's muffled reply.

‘Stop it.'

Hofmann murmured something.

I've told you. Get away.'

‘Bitch!'

‘I don't want to. Stop, you're making me sick. Stop it, please.'

A scuffle through the wall, and Sheila squatted on the floor, listening. She stared at the spot. They were on the floor. He was on top; her gown had opened past her thighs. There was kicking, rhythmic hissing through teeth, and increasing. Sheila's mouth and eyes remained wide open. She was about to cry out. A foot kept scraping against the wall.

Finished?

Louisa Hofmann was crying.

Outside, clusters of bell-ringing cyclists leaned into the yellow afternoon shadows. The spokeless wheels were elongated to a point several lengths behind each machine, like the stretch in an hourglass or anamorphotic ink portraits, and indeed some shadows tangled and bled into others. On the edge of town smoke from cooking fires: shacks and warmth must be beckoning them, the workers. They pedalled in a westerly direction.

‘Lagophthalmus,' Dr North muttered, as if he was a general practitioner. ‘At least I know that.' Rubbing his eyes he pulled the curtains back and looked out a while. On his knee lay Harry Ricardo's
The High-Speed Internal Combustion Engine
where the benefits of hemispherical heads are exhaustively discussed. He sighed.

At seven he washed and went down to the dining room and took a seat, without thinking, near Atlas and his two girls. Sheila sat in her usual position, hands clasped on her lap. Although her head made constant sparrow movements she kept it bowed like Gerald's, three along, but for different reasons. Giving her neck a tap, Doug said: ‘We've said grace.' It was a joke, meant to spark Sheila up. She hurriedly smiled but then stopped. Directly opposite sat the Hofmanns, side by side.

Changing the subject Mrs Cathcart asked aloud, ‘Is it one we're waiting for again?'

What's his name, Borelli: in the army jacket. And they moved their tongues around in their mouths which were filling with saliva.

The Hofmanns sat neatly ironed, as smooth as before. Again he had his arms folded and gazed at a spot on the facing wall. They barely spoke. But then they hadn't much before. At least Louisa glanced about, more animated, as if she was anxious to join in. Perhaps that was the only sign: when she found Sheila staring she smiled. Sheila reddened and looked down at the handkerchief ball in her hands.

At last: Borelli came in. Doug had started drumming the table.

‘I am sorry; no excuses; terribly late again.'

He sat beside Sheila: ‘Hello!'

‘You're looking pale,' Louisa Hofmann observed unexpectedly.

‘Oh I've been out.'

And the wind was still in his jacket and hair. Before Sheila could begin to say something or even smile Garry Atlas shouted from the other end, ‘You missed out on a little party. Didn't he?'

Violet Hopper shrugged a shoulder.

‘A few beers, and we had the pool to ourselves. Very nice.'

Before knocking he'd looked through the hole and seen Violet's little tits. And then what happened: the friend had entered starkers too. He wouldn't mind getting his hands on either pair. He couldn't stay bent down, and with the tray of glasses in one hand, had suddenly knocked and entered.

‘Bazaars and alleyways, open sewers, gangs on street corners, wild tribesmen wearing lion skins—I'm not kidding; you should have seen them—and terrible lepers, naked babies, huge women—really beautiful women—in bright costumes,' Borelli told Louisa; and even Sheila began smiling as Borelli stretched his arms, exaggerating. ‘All this is true. You don't believe me? That's why I'm late. I got completely lost.'

‘Why were they beautiful?' Louisa smiled.

‘You mean, the women I saw?'

‘I photographed some goats,' Kaddok was telling North. ‘Have you seen their goats? It's the staple diet here. All colours. Interesting patterns.'

‘Say; that looks very nice,' North leaned towards Kaddok's wife. ‘Where did you get that? Today?'

The long native dress had drawn glances and only polite comment from the other women: swirling bandanna browns with magenta; swollen as if she sat over an updraught. It didn't suit her. Had others noticed the waiters had been rude—bumping against her and talking loudly in their language?

Placing a finger on North's arm Sasha made herself small, ‘What are you a doctor of, doctor?'

‘Ah, zoology et cetera.'

Violet laughed. ‘Et cetera?' But Sasha remained looking at North.

‘Is that why you came here? For the wild animals?'

‘I'm afraid not,' North coughed, but glanced kindly enough. Sasha seemed interested.

Clapping his hands Garry had the waiters running around him.

‘This is on me. Try the beer.'

‘Count me out,' said Doug firmly.

‘And me,' spluttered Whitehead. For the moment he was aptly named. He shouldn't have been at the table. In Africa glycerine is added to the beer to preserve it.

‘My wife died last month, as a matter of fact,' North nodded. He kept nodding. ‘Ah, she was in zoology too. Along with me. We researched together and so forth. We travelled. For the time being, I've lost much of my appetite for zoology.'

‘Ohh.'

‘I am sorry,' Gwen put in, listening.

As James Borelli observed with approval they were at last making as much racket as the French crew, the Latins toasting at the next table.

It was true. Largely it was the beer, but it was also their growing familiarity. Garry burst out laughing for no reason at all, and slapped the table. Sheila kept glancing from one speaker to the next. And later, near midnight, when the last-to-leave eventually all squeezed into the mirrored lift and it took off but shuddered and slowly settled between floors 3 and 4, it produced laughter and endless wisecracks, and Sasha squashed between Hofmann and Garry Atlas got the silly hiccups. It was North who'd remarked, ‘This should have been in the Museum we saw today.'