Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (12 page)

 
          
Which was when Jambi turned up at long last.

 
          
So
we sought out Lalo's home in the new town. We followed her directions
scrupulously; but, as directions have a way of being, these ones were perfect
so long as you had already been there once.

 
          
As
we walked, the stone of the old town transmuted itself into the timber of the
new. Homes were nuzzling against living trees, or were arranged around them in
conical skirts so that the tree itself seemed like a huge, out-of-proportion
chimney. Other houses climbed the largest giants in cantilevered or buttressed
tiers—stepping around the great trunks like flights of steps by which some
wood spirit could descend at night from the leafy crowns. Sometimes a walkway
ran from one tree to the next, along a branch.

 
          
As
yet, this was all jungle which had been thinned out and tamed. In the old town
the sun was aggressively hot and glary; further inland the unbroken umbrella of
foliage would surely blank it off except for vagrant shafts like spears of
molten metal. Here then, in the new town, was the ideal compromise: the
sunlight dappled down. Unfamiliar flower bushes hugged the roadways and paths,
but there was no riot of undergrowth as such. Vegetable gardens were planted
here and there, plump with tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, sweetgourds,
meatmelons, pumpkins. Familiar fruits mostly, though their size was something
else.

 
          
And
of course we got lost. Or more exactly, we arrived just where we wanted to be
not that day, but a couple of days later: at the festival site. I suppose this
was because quite a number of people involved in the preparations were heading
that way too. Like two stray fish caught up in a school of busier fish, unconsciously
we went with them.

 
          
We
came to a very large clearing, on one side of which workers were hammering,
fixing and strengthening the terraces of a grandstand.

 
          
And
at once I felt at home, for the area before the grandstand was like the deck of
an enormous boat. Sparred masts soared up to the sky from the flat, stripped
ground. Rope ladders ran up some of these; single knotted ropes up others. I
spied trapezes, aerial platforms and crow's nests—with more ropes stretched
taut from each to the other; while behind this array stood a dead, though still
mighty tree. All the minor and lower branches had been lopped, but the
surviving high arms were hung with more acrobatic gear. A few junglejacks
dressed in tough baggy trousers, scarlet jerkins and flexible fork-toed boots
hung from harnesses, checking belays and loops, wood-pitons and snaplinks; one
man was abseiling down a rope.

 
          
After
watching all this activity for a while, we made enquiries and were on our way
again—this time in the right direction. My hangover had died away nicely by
now.

 
          
As
promised, the Lalo family home was a tree-house—one of those which
"stepped up" around a jungle giant. We reached it by way of a covered
stairway bolted to the trunk which mounted the roofs of the houses below.

 
          
Yet
scarcely had we arrived at the door, let alone met any parents, than Lalo
declared that a picnic was in order "out in the
real
jungle". Kish popped out in her wake, bearing a hamper,
and within what seemed like seconds we were descending the stairs again.

 
          
Perhaps
Lalo's parents had hinted strongly that it wasn't good form to invite a friend
from Spanglestream so very soon after Kish had left the place. Next thing, all
his female relatives and friends might be descending on Jangali, to snap the house
right off its moorings!

 
          
Or
maybe it was Lalo, restored to her home and habits after her long wander-weeks,
who had decided of her own accord that she had committed a
faux pas
by casually inviting two boating acquaintances. Kish
himself seemed perfectly happy and at ease.

 
          
Whatever the reason, off we went into the jungle along a trail of
perhaps half a league, which grew increasingly wild and noisy with hidden
wildlife.

 
          
A
jungle seen from afar, from the deck of a boat, can be utterly monotonous. At
close quarters the same jungle becomes magical. There seemed to be a hundred
shades of green: a whole spectrum composed entirely of that colour, as though
the sun shed green light, not a bluish white. And in competition with this
first, green spectrum was a second one consisting of flowers and flutterbyes
radiating reds and oranges and azures, shocking pink and sapphire, like
coloured lamps, the better to be noticed. Wings and petals seemed crystalline,
glassy,
iridescent
, with an inner light of their own.

 
          
"Why,
the flowers are shining!" I exclaimed. "Aren't they?
And that flutterbye there!"

 
          
"They
are—and you should see them after dusk," said Lalo.

           
Apparently when all the green leaves
grew dim there lingered for an hour or two a parade of floral and insect
firelight.

 
          
Lalo
pointed out the occasional dangerous spinetree, and a squat "boiler"
out of which a burning liquid could gush, and oozing gum- sponges. She flushed
out a whistle-snake which would shriek to scare you if you trod on it; but it
wasn't dangerous except perhaps to your ear-drums. She sent a couple of
land-crabs scuttling. These could take your finger off, though only if you
stuck it in the wrong place.

 
          
She
named for us the mammoths of the jungle: the jacktrees, hogannies and teakwoods.
She showed us where honeygourds and blue-pears hung up high almost out of
sight. We passed a miniature forest of white antlered fungi crowding on a
fallen, rotten trunk. These, she said, were edible; whereas the tiny crimson
buttons sprouting beneath were instant poison. They looked it. I'm glad I paid
attention. I little knew it at the time, but this guided tour was a lesson in
survival which I would be very glad of during the early weeks of the next year
. . .

 
          
Vines
dangled down as if to loop and strangle you. Indeed there was one variety known
as stranglevine; but you had to allow it a good half-hour to tie itself round
you. Moss-mats hung in greenly dripping masses, as though secreting some
slime-venom—yet these could staunch blood and disinfect wounds. And webvines
wove what looked suspiciously like enormous webs where surely something fat
and hairy with lots of legs and eyes lurked; but didn't.

 
          
We
finally came to Lalo's chosen picnic spot. Deep rock erupted upwards here in
the form of a ziggurat rising a hundred spans above the jungle floor. As we
neared this stone mass, it took on the appearance of an abandoned, overgrown
temple. Briefly I imagined that Lalo was about to reveal an ancient secret to
us: the work of some long-dead race, dating from before human beings ever came
to this world, from somewhere else.

 
          
But
no; it was a natural formation. Crude steps, now mossed over, had been cut up
one side of it; though perhaps the steps were natural too, due to fracturing
and crumbling. We climbed up these to the top, which was flat and almost bald
of vegetation except for a cushion of moss. Lalo uprooted a few plants and a
shrub which had established themselves, and tossed them over the side—just as
hill climbers elsewhere add an extra stone to a cairn. So, high above the
jungle floor in this gap squeezed open by the ziggurat, we sat down.
Kish
unpacked a bottle of wine wrapped in wet
leaves to keep it cool; and blue-pears, spiced rolls, smoked snake and a jar of
pickled purple fungi.

 
          
We
chatted idly, and ate and drank and admired the view, mainly of aerial webs and
mats of moss—the brighter aspects of the jungle were below these middle levels,
mostly. After a while I picked up the half-empty pickle jar and peered at the
remaining contents.

 
          
"I
was meaning to ask you, Lalo. You were saying that people at Port Barbra use
some fungus or other as a drug to mix their minds up."

 
          
Lalo
laughed. "And here in Jangali we always poison visitors with purple
mushrooms.
To keep them in our thrall for a hundred
years."

 
          
"No, seriously."

 
          
"Why?"

 
          
"No
special reason. It just seems weird. Interesting, you know?"

 
          
"And
poor Jangali has nothing half as interesting on offer, alas."

 
          
"Oh,
I didn't mean to imply . . . ! Why, this is fabulous." I swept my hand around.
"I feel like a real junglejack perched up here."

 
          
Kish
grinned. "I don't think junglejacks enjoy quite as much support as
this."

 
          
"Anyhow,"
I persisted, "what
is
the
story?"

 
          
Lalo
considered, while she bit into a blue-pear.

 
          
"I
don't know all that much about it. We hear bits of gossip now and then.
About orgies in the interior.
They use this fungus powder to
make sex last a long time. To spin out the, um, sensations, so that they seem
to last for hours and hours."

 
          
"So
it's a drug which slows time down?"

 
          
"The
trouble is
,
time gets its own back. So I've heard. You
speed up afterwards. You run all over the place like a loony. You talk too fast
for anyone to understand you. You gobble down heaps of food because you're
burning it all up. If you go on using the stuff, you age before your time.
You're old at thirty. Worn out, I suppose."

 
          
This
business about rushing around and chattering nineteen to the dozen didn't quite
seem to square with what I'd heard of the "furtive" conduct of people
in Port Barbra and environs. But maybe the members of the drug cult kept
themselves apart in secret places while they were liable to race about and
gabble on. In any case this might just be a tall tale which the drug users
fostered, to frighten people off.

 
          
"So
it's mainly a sex thing with them? It's all just to make sex more
thrilling?"

 
          
"I
don't know that it makes it any more thrilling
_/
^,,
said Lalo. "It certainly makes it last longer."

 
          
In
her emphatic voice, this sounded like some ultimate statement. Kish blinked
several times and shook his head as though he hadn't heard correctly. Jambi
convulsed with silent laughter.

 
          
Lalo
pulled a doleful face.
"Oh dear!
I think I said
the wrong thing." And we all began to laugh; after which I couldn't
reasonably get back to the topic without seeming obsessed. As if I wanted some
of the fungus drug for myself.

 
          
Two
days later Jambi and I were part of a huge crowd out at the festival ground.
Lalo and Kish had promised to see us there, but of course we didn't meet up.
There must have been ten thousand people. The grandstand was packed to
bursting and the sides of the clearing were thronged. Certainly there were more
people than I had ever seen in one place before. It struck me immediately that
anything could happen in such a crowd while the acrobatic displays were in
progress, and nobody would be any the wiser. Alas, despite the presence of at
least a score of jungle-guild marshals patrolling and supposedly keeping an eye
on things, I was right.

 
          
The
clearing had been transformed with banners and bunting, with bright little
tents and stalls beneath awnings selling snacks and drinks. There were side
shows for the children; giant flutterbyes in twig cages to be won; wrestlers,
clowns, conjurors, even a fortune teller.

 
          
A fortune teller.
I had never had my fortune told. The tent
was decorated with golden stars and comets; and when we came upon it there was
no one waiting outside.