Journey IV – Stupid Girl

Nicky runs away on, I think the eleventh day. All the days are blurring together and it’s impossible to be sure. Earlier that day we’d crossed the river at a ford and begun the slow ascent of the far side of the valley. The trees there were tall and spiky – like some sort of monkey-puzzle and with a tangle of straggling creepers beneath.
We stopped for a break on the riverbank and Jeb said something about making it to a place he knew before it got too dark.
I don’t know how it started but we all heard Agnes shriek at Nicky that she was a stupid girl and the next thing we knew, Nicky let out a sad little cry and was bounding surprisingly nimbly over the arching stems of what looked and felt like brambles into the trees. We could hear her crashing about in the undergrowth long after we lost sight of her.
Jeb just looked exasperatedly at Agnes, who met his gaze defiantly. She never would tell us what happened.
Jeb, Muriel, Shamim and I all set off after her. The others stayed behind to keep an eye on things. It was hard going. I was getting cut and stung as I went – we all were and we could see no easy way through, especially in the shorts and sandals we had on. Here and there were little patches of grass – perhaps places where rabbits or something similar rested. (Shamim pointed out the network of runs under the briars). Evidently Nicky’s long legs had allowed her to use these little clearings as stepping-stones to get through as fast as she did. Either that or she didn’t care about the pain.
Presently Mike arrived in sturdy boots and long trousers with a machete, and proceeded to cut us a path.
In the shade of the trees the going was a lot easier but she had a considerable start on us. Now, unless Jeb had some special tracking skills, she could easily disappear if she really wanted to. Well he didn’t and we just had to hope she didn’t really want to. We gave up when it got dark and went back to the camp to find a fire going and the evening meal well under way. Agnes was in tears now, and Mike gallantly went to comfort her. Later I heard her say ‘Well she is a silly girl.’ I don’t think any of us would have disagreed with that but I’m sure Nicky didn’t need telling.

Next day we have to assume she wants to be found because otherwise there’s no point in looking. We wander the hillside calling her name with no result. Jeb said he thought there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d come back in her own good time but he had other worries. Part of the guide’s role is to discourage attack from predators, and hence, Nicky had no such protection. As if to drive the point home we found one of the grazing animals still alive but torn almost in half, lying under a bush near the river.
‘Stay close’ was all Jeb had to say.
We combed the area calling her name all day then went back to the camp for supper. As we gave up the hunt, Jeb, in an otherwise unnecessarily loud voice said ‘Well, if she doesn’t turn up by tomorrow morning we’ll have to go. We can’t stay here another day.’ I hoped she heard him.
‘I don’t get her’ said Mr Sadeghi once we had eaten. ‘I don’t understand how she is.’
Shamim looked at him, then at me and bit her lip.
‘I guess there aren’t girls like her back in... er... where’d you come from?’ says Mike.
‘Iran. No. She’d be in huge trouble looking like that – not that I would condone... I don’t judge her. I pity her. I don’t understand what’s happened to her to make her that way.’
‘I don’t like to judge’ says Agnes ‘but I think she’s been given a little too much head by her parents.’
I stifle a laugh at the double entendre and Shamim slaps my leg and smiles mischieviously over her shoulder. She is flirting with me. I try to concentrate on Nicky.
‘I saw it all the time’ Agnes adds. ‘I didn’t like to judge...’
‘Yes you do. You love to judge’ says Muriel, scolding her. ‘You know nothing about the girl and yet you wade in, heavy handed. The girl needs love. Can’t you see that?’
‘She needs a firm hand.’
‘She’s a twenty year old woman’ says Shamim angrily. ‘You can’t just...’
‘Well that’s all the more reason to...’
‘Please, ladies.’ says Jeb.
‘I’m just saying Jeb.’
‘Agnes. Please. Now then...’ He collects himself, clears his throat, but before he can begin I ask if I can say something. Jeb nods.
‘She spoke to me’ I begin, ‘back on the boat a couple of times. I can’t go into the details. She swore me to secrecy. All I want to say is...’
What do I want to say? Suddenly I feel terribly self-conscious. I don’t know how to put it. I don’t know if she’s listening. They’re all looking at me.
‘She’s had a hard time’ I begin. ‘I do think she needs love, as you said Muriel,  but I don’t know if she’ll be able to accept it. One thing she doesn’t need, Agnes, is yelling at. She acts silly, it’s true... but she’s not stupid and there’s a good reason for the way she is and I believe there’s a really lovely person there... if she’s given the chance.’
The last part was all mumbled. I felt almost faint with embarrassment. I didn’t know if I wanted her to hear me or not. Part of me imagined her dismissing my words with contempt and cynicism, the other part imagined her trusting me and accepting... what? My love? I did feel for her. Actually, now I think about it, I felt like I knew her rather well, poor kid.
After a brief lull the conversation begins again and Muriel starts to sing a slow, gentle melody. I don’t understand the words. It sounds Yiddish perhaps.
I lean back on my mat and Shamim lies down facing me.
‘Sorry’ I say, for what I’m not sure, but Shamim seems to understand.
‘It’s ok’ she says.
‘How do your parents feel about her?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Do they think she’s a slut? Will they think less of me for defending her?’
‘You want to know if they’ll prefer me not to spend so much time with you.’
I grin sheepishly. I hadn’t realised that was what was worrying me, but yes, she’s hit the nail on the head.
‘I’m here aren’t I?’ she says in a whisper. I look over at her mother and father and they are completely preoccupied with each other, paying us absolutely no attention at all.
‘Are you in love with her?’ she whispers unexpectedly.
‘I can relate to her. I feel for her. What she’s going through makes sense to me. And sometimes I want to have sex with her...’ And she rolls on her back and laughs.
Then we sit as before but a little closer and watch the fire. Shamim is the single most self-possessed woman I’ve ever met, but gentle and understanding. So many of the very independent western women I’ve met seem to have felt the need to rub men’s noses in it – Cat being the obvious example, but Shamim doesn’t. She just is.
‘I don’t think my parents have had the chance to be like this together for years. It’s very beautiful don’t you think?’
‘They’re lovely people, your mum and dad’ I say.
‘I’m glad you like them. They understand more than you think. Sometimes they understand more than I think.’
Later still, when the others have all more or less passed out she says quietly ‘Do you think you only want to have sex with her because you can’t imagine anything happening between you and I?’
‘Well...’ I look into her eyes. There’s a quiet, sultry smile there, a beautiful power. All I can do is grin and nod and look sheepish again.
‘I don’t know why you think that’ she says, and lies down in her sleeping bag and closes her eyes.
I look about. I’m not sure what just happened there but it sounded bloody good. I lie down too, with my hands behind my head. I think I’m in love.
Then I think of Sophie.
Then I think of Nicky, and I wonder what’s happening to her. She must at least be terribly cold.

Voyage IV – Parental choice

‘I don’t see how you can say that’ says Olly. I’ve only just arrived. I look around the little group and see immediately that something’s happened to upset the cosy equilibrium here. Maybe it’s that we’re all cooped up below decks. It being like the biblical deluge outside, even we philosophers must retreat to the relative comfort of the forward lounge. Olly and Keith are locked into a game of chess but there’s a tenseness in Olly’s shoulders and a set to his mouth I don’t recognise. Ned looks up at me and half smiles, cocking his head as if to say ‘boys will be boys...’ I pull up a chair and sit on it backwards, leaning on the back. ‘Hi’ I say. ‘Who’s winning?’
Keith looks warily at Olly as the latter moves his pawn. Lou looks up and smiles at me. He seems to be quietly enjoying himself anyway. I decide not to ask what they’ve been discussing but suddenly Keith says ‘Lets ask Gabriel’, looking squarely at me, somewhat challengingly.
Olly, who I’m sitting behind, half turns and attempts to smile at me ‘Oh’ he says. ‘Hallo Gabriel. Didn’t see you there.’ He reaches his arm around toward me but then takes it back, thinking better of it. I have no idea what the gesture meant but it is filled with sadness. I look at the others and wonder what they’ve done to him. Then I see their faces and they’re worried too. What on whatever planet we’re on has happened here? Olly looks at his game for a while but can’t concentrate any more. ‘I can’t do this’ he says, knocks his king over and gets up. ‘See you later’ he says and heads for the door.

Once he’s gone everybody relaxes visibly. Ned heads out to the bar and Lou follows him to give him a hand. Keith cradles his tumbler.
‘What was that all about?’ I say.
Keith thinks about it. ‘Families?’ he says eventually, as if he’s not even sure himself. I’m intrigued but don’t feel I can show too much enthusiasm under the circumstances. I like families. They’re a favourite topic of mine.
Ned and Lou come back from the bar with drinks and snacks for everyone, including a latte for me.
‘Any sign of Olly?’ says Keith, evidently quite concerned about him.
‘He’s ok’ says Lou. ‘Gone for a breather.’
‘Ah’ says Keith, nodding and topping up his glass from the new one they’ve brought him. Then he leans back and holds the glass on his knee and gives out a long ‘Phew.’
‘So what was all that about?’ I say again.
‘Hard to say really’ says Ned, looking around for confirmation. ‘We were actually talking about crime statistics and prison and so forth, but Olly...’
‘I think there’s something he’s not telling us’ says Lou. Ned looks like he knows but is not letting on, yet. No doubt he will, when he feels the time is right.
‘All I said’ says Keith ‘was you can’t just blame their upbringing for everything. The law has to assume free will, people’s freedom to choose, a life of crime or... or not, as the case may be.’
‘That’s not actually what you said, to be fair’ says Ned. ‘You actually said, correct me if I’m wrong, that the little shits have wet their beds and they should be made to lie in them.’
‘Well, I didn’t mean it quite like it sounded. But no, I think there’s a place for setting an example, don’t you Gabe?’
I sit forward and stir my cup. I really don’t think so but I’m not sure why. It just seems wrong. ‘I suppose it would depend why they did what they did’ I say tentatively. I see Ned nodding but Keith goes ‘Noooo’ sounding like a plane coming in too fast. ‘Bollocks it does. It makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. You break the law you know what happens. Boom boom boom. Easy. They should teach it in school so nobody's in any doubt.’
‘I don’t think children work like that’ I say, looking around hopefully at the others but neither of them seems inclined to intervene.
‘What we were talking about before’ he continues ‘I was agreeing that er... yes, that the families have a lot to do with it, and poverty and education and all the rest of it, certainly. Actually, what was he on about broken families? I didn’t get that at all.’
‘He was saying you can’t justify comparing the children of one-parent families with those of two-parent families because the former are likely to be the poorer’ says Lou.
‘So?’ says Keith.
‘Well, normally we assume that the inferior performance of children from single-parent families is because of the traumas associated with the split, when in fact it may be a simple matter of economics. Hence he advocates more generous handouts’
‘He was saying more than that though’ says Ned, leaning forward. ‘He was saying that since any unhappy families in modern Britain are free to split up, it follows that the remaining two-parent families are likely to be the happy ones. He was saying that by comparing single- and two-parent families all you’re doing is comparing unhappy with happy families and children from happy families are bound to perform better.’
‘So families should stay together. That’s what I was saying.’
‘No, he says the studies need to compare unhappy two-parent families with happy-two parent families. Do you get my drift?’
‘Not even slightly.’ He tuts impatiently.
‘I do’ I say. ‘I get it.’
‘Go on.’
‘Ok. A child might be doing badly because their family is poor or because the family is unhappy, but it’s not necessarily anything to do with them being a single-parent family. Yes?’
‘But single-parent families do tend to be poor and unhappy. That’s my point, exactly’ says Keith thumping the table.
‘Yes, but... But’ interjects Ned ‘you can’t solve the problem of the unhappy family by forcing them to stay together. They may be even more unhappy that way.’
‘Oh now, you see that’s where I disagree’ says Keith. ‘I think if a few of these so-called unhappy couples just stuck at it... I mean look at me and my Alice, all those years...’
‘Happily married...’
‘No. Bloody desperate...’ Everybody laughs. ‘But that’s not the point. We stuck at it, and the kids didn’t suffer. Didn’t know anything about it.’
‘I bet they did’ I say.
‘Excuse me?’ he says, turning on me, suddenly not funny any more. I go quiet. There is something scary about him. I don’t want to push it.
‘Anyway’ says Lou, rescuing me, ‘Olly was referring to the results of child abuse.’
‘Well everybody has to watch out where that’s concerned, keep an eye out for strangers.’
‘No, he meant within the family’ says Ned. ‘The vast majority of abuse occurs within the family. He implied that if we’re serious about combating child abuse we should look at the immediate family more.’ His voice trails off as he catches Keith’s expression, which is decidedly threatening.
‘What are you getting at?’ he says.
Everybody goes quiet.
‘I think it’s being inferred’ says Lou, ‘that the traditional family may not be the cure-all that is commonly assumed’ and for once I’m glad of his rather impersonal way of expressing himself.
Keith continues to brood however. ‘I still say...’
‘What? What do you have to say, me old porpentine?’ says Ned, trying to reassert some of the old levity, but failing miserably. Keith ignores him.
‘I still say we shouldn’t undermine the traditional family by casting aspersions... I still reserve the right to know what’s best for my kids, as a parent...’
‘This is where we came in...’ says Ned to me in a stage whisper.
‘And I won’t have no social worker or teacher or... or vicar come to that, come and tell me what’s best for my own kids. That’s all I’ve got to say.’ Keith shrugs and takes a sip as if he’s just finished giving evidence, not making eye contact with any of us. Right on cue, Olly appears with a huge mug of hot chocolate. ‘Perishing out there’ he says to no one in particular. His coat is heavy with water and he hangs it on another chair to drip. He looks around at us. ‘Sorry about that gents’ he says.
‘Think nothing of it’ says Keith, and on the face of it we’re back to normal.

Some things are hard. Why does that phrase of Vincent’s keep coming to mind?

Vincent III – The wilderness years

‘So, why did you not start earlier, this career of yours?’ He flicks through his notes, holding the upper ones daintily between index and middle finger. He’s very cool about everything. It’s impossible to work out what he’s thinking. It puts me on the defensive.
‘You began your degree, when? When you were about twenty-seven?’
I nod. ‘About then.’
‘What happened between school and college?’
I really don’t want to talk about this. It was a fairly crap time in my life – unemployment, living at my parents when everyone else had gone to university or went travelling. Most of them had careers by the time they were twenty-three.
‘Did you travel? Work? Come on. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me Gabriel.’
I decide to start with something positive ‘I did some courses – life drawing, art history, Spanish...’
‘For... er... nine years? All that time you “did courses”? What else were you doing? You had no ambitions hmm? No hopes, dreams?’
I look away. I can’t stand the way people can only think of ambition in terms of work and money. I had ambitions. I wanted more time to spend painting and reading and walking in the country. I wanted to be left alone to get on with it, not worrying about what the boss thought of me. Hope? What the hell does he know?
‘I was unemployed a lot’ I mumble eventually through my teeth, defiant and ashamed, glaring at the floor between my feet.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you’ he says, bending down, peering irritably up into my face.
‘I was unemployed’ I repeat, too loudly.
‘Ok’ he says smiling. ‘Ok. No need to shout. You were unemployed – so what? It was the eighties – everyone was unemployed or so I gather. It was your Maggie Thatcher. It’s nothing to be ashamed about is it? Actually I understand it was quite fashionable at the time...’
‘Not from where I was standing.’
‘All those punks and anarchists – the Sex Pistols and The Clash. It was quite cool – no?’
I smile and wonder where he was at the time.
‘No’ I say, but at least smiling ruefully now, not so disgusted with myself. It had been an interesting time. In some ways the music had kept me going, up in my room with my half-finished drawings and collages everywhere (although I was more into The Cure and New Model Army myself.) But it hadn’t been cool, not at the time. I’d lost contact with everyone I knew from school and somehow never made new friends afterwards. The worst thing was my parents coming in from work. They never said anything, or nothing much anyway, but I knew from the silence what they thought of me.
‘I wasn’t really part of the scene to be honest’ I say, feeling a bit sorry for myself, as usual. ‘I didn’t really know anybody...’
‘Did you try?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well’ he shrugs, ‘go out, meet people, make friends...’
‘Yes, sometimes...’
‘And?’
I think about those times I hung out at the Electric Grape or The Old Vic, sitting at a table or leaning on the bar. I’d lean in and ask someone what they thought of the band or whatever, but half the time I couldn’t really hear what they said and the conversation tailed off. I didn’t get the impression anyone was particularly keen to get to know me anyhow, and nobody else ever tried to start a conversation. So generally I ended up down the by the stage, dancing wildly, or drinking too much and being sick, then spending the rest of the night sat on the floor at the back. I could never really work out what was going wrong. Surely this was how people met up and made friends – bars and clubs and gigs? I shake my head. ‘Nothing’ I say. ‘Not really.’ He frowns at me, like there’s something I’m not telling him. Maybe another time.
‘But you must have been doing something?’
I tell him about all the time I spent in my room, drawing etcetera. ‘And I had a few shop jobs and so on.’ He looks encouraged by this. ‘I worked for a landscaper for a while – my dad knew him, put in a word for me. That was god-awful – lugging rocks and bags of cement around in the rain or strimming all day in the heat with a hard hat on and protective clothing, with the fumes and the noise and the dog turds flying around. Not my idea of “getting outdoors and doing something healthy”. And why do they insist on starting so f’king early? What is it with this bloody work ethic that says you must start before it’s light or you haven’t done a proper day’s work? I don’t get it.’
He looks at me doubtfully.
‘Look’ I say, ‘it’s just that whole stupid protestant working class thing where you have to “work all the hours God sends” even though you’ve got sod-all to show for it at the end. Like my parents were always making out that if I worked really hard and saved up I’d have the money for things I wanted, but it never worked for them – they always slogged and slogged on their crappy wages and it never made any difference – there was always something came along to soak up any extra they made, some unexpected repair or household expense and they’d be back at square one, but having wasted all that time at work on top of that, so they didn’t even have the time to do ordinary things – either that or they ran around at the weekends, frantically trying to fit everything in. I was fucking exhausted just watching them. Amelia was the same with her kids – always off to some class or club or other, and keeping up her career. I don’t know how often she actually spent time with them.’
I come to a halt and look at Vincent. I have no idea if he was listening or not, but I felt like having a good old rant anyway.
‘And your mother found you some work at a nursing home?’ I nod. ‘How did you find that?’
So he isn’t interested. Ok whatever...
‘It was ok, for a bit. Better. I didn’t mind. I mean it was fairly revolting now I come to think about it – putting old ladies on the commode and changing their wet pants and so on. It was ok though, but I just got so bored, you know, with the routine and the stupid pointless conversations. Mum said I was “work shy” but I don’t think that was true. I just always had other things I wanted to be getting on with. I suppose in the end I just thought I could do better. It sounds arrogant I know...’
‘Not at all, not at all...’ He nods with satisfaction and writes something down. What I haven’t told him is that I managed to make myself entirely dispensable everywhere I worked. They were ok at first, these jobs, but pretty soon I was just so totally bored out of my skull. I don’t think I was alone in this. Everybody was bored, but the others seemed to be happy to just look busy, and spent most of their time chatting to each other. For most of the staff it was more a part of their social life than a job. I would have actually preferred to get on and do something useful, but for them the actual work was frankly a bit of an inconvenience. I didn’t really fit in. The landscapers were all typical blokes, and the care workers were either middle-aged women or gay. I didn’t fit in anywhere. I just made them feel uncomfortable. Generally they’d find a reason to lay me off sooner rather than later and it was always a real relief when it came to that, even though it meant I’d have to face my family – again, and go and sign on again, and look at the situations vacant pages every Thursday again, and write all those sickly sucking letters about how much I wanted to work in their shop/office/factory. I look over at Vincent. He’s still writing. I take a sip of water.
‘So you became bored with the routine and long hours and wished to move on, follow your dream. I am not surprised. But what I don’t understand is what took you so long.’
I look at him. I like the way he tells it – makes it look as if what I did made some kind of sense. It didn’t feel that way at the time.
‘It wasn’t really planned’ I confess. ‘I’d pretty much given up on going to college when I left school. I didn’t have any ideas what to do next.’
‘But you knew you could do something, something better.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No?’ He clearly doesn’t believe me. ‘And yet you kept on with your art and you did do something with it... eventually.’
I think about this. I think about my frustration back then. Sometimes I used to get so furious. Sometimes I smashed things up – nothing important, mostly my things. I never hurt anyone (although I’d like to have done sometimes.) Sometimes I’d just break down in tears in the street on the way home, if I’d had a bit to drink. That’d be the worst times. Alcohol never agreed with me. I try to think back, unravel it.
‘It was like, it didn’t matter what I thought of what I was capable of, or what I wanted. It wasn’t up to me.’
He looks at me, as if straining to understand, and failing. ‘But it is always up to you’ he says, ‘to make choices. No one else can do that for you.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so, or at least, that’s not how it seemed. At the time, it felt like everyone else was in charge, and I couldn’t do anything unless they let me.’
‘And they would not?’
‘I gave up asking.’
‘But you thought you could do something better, nevertheless.’
‘Yes, but that was irrelevant.’
‘But you did believe in what you could do. You believed what you created was good – even before that – and you never really gave up. Am I correct?’
‘I suppose so...’
‘Look’ he says, ‘I’m not saying that anyone can simply do anything they choose. Clearly that is not true. Many things come in the way – your sex, your age, your nationality, the place you are born, how you are brought up and so on and so forth. Or simply bad luck. Some things you can overcome, some you cannot. I am not a naive existentialist but...’ and here he leans forward and looks intently into my eyes. It’s a bit uncomfortable. ‘...but we can all choose for ourselves what we wish to do, and we can all try. That is all. We may fail in our ambitions, but not to choose, and not to try – that is true failure. Surely you know this.’ I look at him. It’s a bit scary. I’m not sure I really tried very hard. Mostly I just felt overwhelmed. I feel like a fraud.
‘Anyway’ he says, leaning back and clapping his hands together. ‘Next time we will talk about why this happened – see if we can’t speed the process up next life and achieve even more. By the way – did you have a girlfriend all that time, I’m sorry, forgive me. You might be a homosexual.’ I shake my head. ‘So, you had girlfriends?’ I nod. He’s getting up, collecting his papers together. I notice as he does so they’re mostly covered in doodles. ‘Ok’ he says. ‘We will have to talk about that too. Next time.’ He opens the door for me. I don’t know what to think.

Journey III – Spartan

The next few days pass largely without incident, chatting, eating, singing and generally getting to know each other better. Even Nicky seems a little more relaxed. Agnes has taken her under her wing and Nicky seems to have submitted to it. Agnes and Muriel, although superficially young and girlish were undoubtedly old ladies when they died, the thought of which amuses me immensely. They really seem to enjoy their refound ability to sing raucous camp-fire songs and climb trees and chase lizards. Agnes makes no secret of the fact that she died horribly in a hospice, demented, incontinent and alone and that there’s no way she’s ever going back and taking the risk of that happening again. She has a tendency to fuss and get tetchy if things don’t go the way she thinks they should but on the whole she seems ok. Muriel is good hearted and motherly, although she died childless she says.
That evening the campfire conversation turns to death and I tell of my ridiculous demise – to much hilarity.
‘Well, that is at least easily avoided next time’ says Mike. ‘I won’t be going back – I had MS and spent the last year or so on a ventilator. I mean, I don’t regret the life I had – my kids and friends were wonderful and I made the most of it while I could, but I don’t feel the need to go through it all over again.’
‘What line of work were you in?’ asks Mr Sadeghi.
‘I worked in a factory making electrical equipment – just ordinary shop floor dog’s body, you know.’
Mr Sadeghi nods.
Mike looks about thirty, but died a lot older I know. His body shows not a trace of disability and he’s clearly overjoyed about it. I know it’s a cliché, but it certainly makes me wonder what I was making such a fuss about in my life.
Next the Sadeghis give a brief account of their sudden demise, all three of them adding their own memories and we all exclaim and look shocked at how horrible it must have been for them.
‘I remember most clearly...’ begins Mr Sadeghi ‘...the smell of burning – burning rubber, burning plastic, oil and... other things... I was thinking it was burning my throat and my lungs out and I couldn’t breathe. And I thought of my darling wife and daughter but I couldn’t see... couldn’t find them.’ Mrs Sadeghi grips his hand as he tells it, as tears begin to well in his eyes. They’re here with him. He’s very lucky. I briefly consider a suicide pact with Sophie for next time but dismiss the thought. What if one of us survived, or just lived a little longer in a coma and missed the boat?
‘I remember the noise’ says Shamim, ‘not of the collision, but of the other vehicles going past. They seemed to be right there, beside my head.’
‘You were lying on the road, I remember that’ says her mother. ‘I remember a tin of ravioli, and those instant noodle things. I still can’t believe you bought that sort of trash...’
‘Mum...’
‘It was all across the motorway, all your shopping...’
‘I remember the road was wet’ says Shamim ‘and the tiny bits of yellow and red plastic from the lights, right there.’ She holds her fingers an inch or two away from her eye.
‘We don’t remember much of the detail of the final moments’ says Mrs Sadeghi, cutting it short. ‘For which we are all extremely grateful.’
It’s strange to be mourning the deaths of people who are sitting right there beside us but it seems right somehow.
Then we come to Muriel and at first she declines modestly but we tell her we’ll only assume the worst so she tells us about the stupid accident with the toaster that brought her here. ‘I just remember the smell of grilled meat’ she says and I see Mr Sadeghi flinch. That must have been the other smell he remembers, but he didn’t want to say.
It’s at that moment I realise Nicky must be next to tell her story and I look across at her. She’s sitting cross-legged, hunched down, picking her cuticle again. Nobody says anything or even looks her way overtly. I don’t know if she wants to say anything or not. I don’t want to ask. After a brief pause Jeb mercifully takes over and tells us about his unusual experience with nitrogen narcosis whilst wreck diving. I’d never heard of it, but Shamim of course has and gets quite excited about hearing the details.
‘I just went deeper and deeper’ he says, ‘and I remember becoming certain that it ought to be possible to live down there. After all, the water is full of dissolved oxygen, and the fish manage perfectly well, and I think I had this idea that if I just breathed the water in, in a calm and relaxed fashion, instead of thrashing around as you would if you were drowning, and if I kept my exertions to a minimum, that my lungs would adapt. And do you know, it actually seemed to work for a while there? I even felt I could see clearly, as if my eyes adjusted to the changed optical qualities of the water. And I didn’t feel cold any more. I swear I could feel my body changing, becoming aquatic.’
We all look at him, amazed and excited at this new prospect.
‘Of course, I’m sure this astounding new insight must have lasted only a couple of minutes before I finally blacked out and drowned, but I remember it all very clearly. I’d recommend it, as a way to go, if you had to make a choice.’
Agnes looks horrified and shudders conspicuously, but Shamim looks on, fascinated.
‘Have you been diving since you’ve been here?’ she says.
‘Hell no’ he says. ‘You won’t catch me anywhere near the darn stuff now.’
We all laugh.
‘I drowned’ says Nicky unexpectedly, from under her hair. Her head is bowed almost to her legs so it’s hard to make out what she says. She looks up and says, quite conversationally ‘I drowned myself. In the Thames it was.’ We all look at her and don’t know what to say and she looks down again and goes on picking her fingers. Agnes goes to put her arm around her but is shrugged off. Suddenly it feels very chilly – like time to sleep.

The settlement we saw from the ridge has a spooky peace to it. It’s not that no one is home – at the entrance we are greeted by a softly spoken woman in a white robe, who bows and takes us in through a wide courtyard with citrus trees and pineapple plants in pots and a formal fountain at the centre, and then out through a gateway at the far end to a much less formal, grassy space with more fruit trees. Even the insects buzz less stridently in here. The walls are whitewashed and have terracotta tiled roofs. It all looks as I’d expect a Roman villa to look, or a Mexican hacienda.
We’re shown to our rooms through shady loggias and pergolas. The rooms are Spartan – almost literally, with stone floors, stiff white sheets and unglazed green painted window frames set high in the walls. I sit down on the bed and try to bounce but there’s very little give in the mattress.
The bathrooms too are pretty uncompromising – ice-cold water gushes continuously out of holes in the wall in a room at the back, presumably from a spring. A man shows us where it is after we’ve dropped our bags off, hands out towels and then leaves us to it. We decide the ladies can go first and we men head back to the first courtyard to see what else there is to do.
Very little, seems to be the answer. The locals go quietly about their business, some bringing produce in from wherever they must be growing it, others bustling in and out of what turns out to be kitchens. We find a vast echoing empty dining room adjoining. It’s all very clean.
We go and sit out in the shade in the orchard where our rooms are and find the women coming back already.
‘That didn’t take you long’ says Mike.
‘You don’t want to stay in there long’ says Muriel, shivering. ‘It’s bloody frigid. Have you seen anywhere we can get a hot drink here?’
Mr Sadeghi indicates the kitchen but suggests they don’t get their hopes up too much for anything very interesting.
‘We’ve still got the coffee’ suggests Mrs Sadeghi.
‘That’s if you can locate Jeb and the wagon’ says Mike. ‘I don’t know where he’s disappeared off to.’
I look at the women, still wet from their ablutions and it occurs to me what a fine-looking bunch they are, all in their white robes, looking tanned and healthy and in their prime. Mrs Sadeghi has her hair out and is a stunningly handsome woman, a taller, more powerful version of her daughter. Even Nicky seems more content now and throws her head back to let the sun warm her face. Shamim is watching me look at them and smiles knowingly.
‘Ok, lets go’ says Mike.
‘Keep the coffee hot for us’ says Mr Sadeghi, and kisses his wife on the cheek. We head into the shower room.

Jeb didn’t come back until the third morning, giving us some time to get to know the place a little, help out with the chores, and relax. The locals were not unfriendly, the food was plain but wholesome and the place had a wonderful serenity about it but there was a strong feeling they weren’t looking for new faces and would feel better when we’d moved on. The only really worrying thing about that first settlement was that if they were all going to be like that no one was going to want to stop anywhere for all eternity. Certainly none of us were at all tempted. Frankly it was all just a bit dull. We headed out that third day and began the long weary trek across the floor of the valley in the still, dry heat.

The canopy is up from mid morning to late afternoon. I lie sprawled on my belly on the luggage, peering out at the passing scenery – a mixture of twisted and shaggy trees and towering termite mounds all set in a haze of dry grass seed heads. Some peculiar looking, what appear to be llamas, each with a single horn on the nose stand by and watch us pass. We ride in the wagon, too enervated to speak, each dozing or lost in our own thoughts. I can’t imagine doing anything much here and yet when I glance at Shamim sleeping beside me I feel I could lean over and kiss her, and what’s more, I think she’d like me to. If it wasn’t for the others, and her parents especially being here maybe I would.

Voyage III – Boredom

I’ve had a good look over the boat. It seems to be some kind of old pleasure steamer – the kind you see in those Hollywood films from the thirties with Cagney or Bogart. I don’t know quite what to do with myself to be honest. There’s some sort of library here with what appear to be some very rare books, and I’ve found a storeroom with some art materials but I just can’t seem to settle down to anything. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Well, I do. I’m dead – supposedly, but I don’t see much evidence of it. At least the food’s good. It all just seems so, I don’t know, claustrophobic. I’ve not seen more than a hundred metres out beyond the railings at any time so far, and apart from the fact that I can see the bow-wave and the wake, you wouldn’t guess we were moving. I wonder if the word ‘wake’ is connected to the funeral wake? It’s an interesting thought... The funeral gathering as a trail left after the life has passed. And what about ‘wake up’? Interesting. Sophie would have known. I wonder if there’s an etymological dictionary in the library.

I look at the wall of fog and around at the strange gloomy light and it’s like being in a box. I know where I’ve seen it before – in my degree show installation. I created the outdoors – a scene by the sea, enclosed in a room. I tried to get the light right, but it just felt gloomy and claustrophobic. I had this dream about people living in a city where it never really gets light and the cloud is like a lid on their world. They have moving picture windows instead of real windows – video links to other, sunnier places, or places long extinct but still stored on digital media. And then of course there’d be a technical problem, or they’d forget to pay their bill and there it would be – just a concrete wall. It would have been a really interesting idea for my degree project but the trouble was I didn’t really want to do gloomy futuristic dystopia. I wanted to do current, vibrant life. I wanted to make people care about the future, not give them an excuse to give up on it. Anyway I hope there is a view out there somewhere, because if not I’m joining the fishes. Assuming there are any fishes down there. Oh god, or whoever is out there – get me out of here. Please.

I’ve had a look at the other inmates. I was one of the last to wake up properly (typical) and they all seemed to have formed their little cliques already. I don’t really feel I can intrude now. Ned and the others are a good laugh, but I do feel very young compared to them. It also bothers me that there’s no women in their group. I always think a mixed group is more interesting – the women stop the men getting too pompous and the men stop the women getting too personal. It’s obviously a very sweeping generalisation, but there it is. I’ve had a good look at the women of course. A few seem interesting but I’ve had no indication that any of them want anything to do with me so that’s that. Sue is very sweet – she’s one of the guides. I’ve chatted to her a few times but I don’t think we’re supposed to fraternise. Ho hum. I suppose I should be hanging out with blokes nearer my own age. I look a lot younger than I did at the end, which is nice. I guess death agrees with me. There’s a group of cool-looking surf dudes that tend to congregate by the bar, but they’re not really my type – a bit too young if truth be told.
It wouldn’t be like this if I’d been on a Spanish boat. They wouldn’t have let me mope alone. If only they’d let me die in Spain instead of flying me home to England. I’ll never forgive them for that. What was the point?
I still keep looking around for other people to bother, but no one looks approachable. In Spanish, the word for ‘to bother’ is molestar. It seems appropriate. Nobody really wants to be molested.
Whenever I see a little word slip like that I think of Sophie. She was really into things like that. Anyway, I do another circuit of the deck. The boards are slick and the hull runs with rust and oil and everything drips with salt water. Up above there’s the usual sea-going paraphernalia of masts and ropes and funnels and vents, and, up in the bridge, shadowy figures we never see face to face. Davey Jones et al I shouldn’t wonder. Behind me, there’s the misted-up portholes of the bar, the forward lounge, the library and the games-cum-music room. Down below, the cabins. I can’t complain about my quarters, although they’re small they’re not cramped, and they’re nicely designed in marine ply and William Morris prints. Maybe that’s where I’ll go. I’ll get my dinner and a book and head down to my cabin and then maybe after that I’ll settle down and have a damn good mope.

Vincent II – Installation

‘So, what exactly was this project of yours about? You’ve not told me.’
He still looks bored. I don’t really want to go into it. He’ll only trash it. He knows I was at Art College, but I haven’t told him anything else.
But then I think – I should be proud of what I did. I shouldn’t allow myself to be put down by this wanker.
‘It was a video project’ I tell him.
‘Ah’ he says, nodding, as if he might have known. I look at him. I know what he’s thinking – all those pretentious ‘installations’ – a never ending loop of ‘The Artist’ tying his shoe laces titled “Pedestrian Bondage” or some such. I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve done equally silly things, but I’m a bit of a traditionalist. I actually caught myself once in the refectory very earnestly saying “but is it art?” I passed the comment off as ironic – post modern, but really, I meant it. I mean, Conceptual Art – it’s fun – you wake up one morning and say “Ooh wouldn’t that be an interesting thing to do?” Fun ideas, clever ideas, scary ideas, ideas that make you go “That’s bloody weird”. It’s creative, it’s interesting, but I’m not sure it’s art. I believe in craftsmanship. I guess it’s my proletarian roots showing through.
At that time I was working mostly in silk-screen – doing some gritty social realist things - lots of red and black, stars and hammers. I don’t know. It wasn’t really me. I was into nature – Piper, Craxton, Sutherland, but at the time you couldn’t get away with being that ‘literal’, or “parochial”, or “romantic”, so gritty realism it was. I took the time to mess about with ‘mixed media’ and ‘found objects’, and go out a lot and do student stuff. I remember one of the pieces I got especially good responses for was particularly ludicrous, and it was literally gritty. We had this idea late one night at a friend’s place that we wouldn’t need to vacuum the lounge if we just got an enormous roll of sticky tape, covered the entire carpet in it, and pulled all the crap off in one go. Then we got onto talking about what that would look like – a record of everything we’d done in that room over the last two years, impregnated into the carpet, then sealed forever in polythene.
To cut a long story short, I went out and bought industrial quantities of clear sticky-back plastic, and spent a weekend when everyone was away, moving the furniture around, getting a cast of their entire living room floor. (I would have done my place but I wasn’t really messy enough.) It was amazing what I found, although I cheated a bit - the condom hadn’t been there, and I replaced the spliff butts with cigarette ends, but the soiled knickers and the Smiths LP were authentic. It was enormous. I took it out in the back yard, turned it over, and had to buy another job lot of sticky-back plastic to seal the other side. It was pretty disgusting actually so I bought carpet tape to seal the edges – otherwise I think it would have been a serious health hazard. I called it ‘Floor – Laminated’ and I got a first for it. Well it’s not something I want to boast about, but it was quite impressive in its way. The carpet was quite clean too afterwards.

‘I started doing videos after I finished my degree’ I tell him.
‘What grade did you receive for your degree?’
‘A 2.1’ (Who bloody cares what grade I got?) ‘Anyway, my elder sister, Justine, used to take me to Brighton Aquarium sometimes when I was a kid...’ I can see he’s bored already. I press on anyway. ‘I really liked the way they made these underwater scenes, in these huge tanks, big as a room, and really murky and mysterious with these huge grey and green fish looming out of the gloom at you – claustrophobic too – because you could tell the scenery was all fibreglass and stuff, and you could see pipes and so on, and there were the fish just moving about aimlessly.’
‘Fascinating’ he says, almost supine in his chair. I pause. I want to go over and smack him.
‘So, basically’ I go on, ‘you’re in this dark, damp tunnel, smelling of the sea, with light just from these chambers filled with sea water, full of these mindless, dead eyed...’ My imagery gives out. I decide to give up trying to interest him in 1970s public aquaria and move on.
‘So I started making these fish tanks – basically boxes, made of card or wood originally, but later I used old cupboards, TVs, fridges...’
‘Rooms?’
‘Once a whole room, for my degree show.’ He nods, satisfied that he is, of course, way ahead. ‘I used a whole load of found stuff to make the exhibits. They started off quite literal, trying to get the gloomy underwater effect of the real thing...’
‘But then?’
‘Then it got more surreal – I started using other stuff that reminded me of the sea. Weird stuff, trying to make it look claustrophobic and strangely lit inside.’
‘But it did not really go according to plan?’
‘Well, no. I mean, people liked them – I even sold a few small ones but they ended up being a bit too tasteful really. I wanted them to be spookier. A bit disturbing, but they weren’t. I couldn’t get the light right. I tried using real fish tanks, with real fish for a while.’
‘Really?’ He seems troubled by this. Is he an animal rights nut?
‘Well, it’s like, most people’s fish tanks you see in their living rooms are really tacky, you know, all brightly lit with those pink grow lights, and plants and fish all colourful, when, for me, the thing about being underwater is the light, that wobbly effect you get on the river bed from the ripples on the surface, and the algae on the stones, and the community of fish and other things moving about down there, usually just a few kinds, but maybe lots of them – do you have any idea what I mean?’ I’m beginning to lose patience. He’s sitting there inert, looking at me quizzically.
‘I do’ he says. ‘You wanted people to understand what it means to be under water, instead of just looking at a glass box with a collection of fish in it. I know exactly what you mean. Please continue, it is very interesting for me.’
I’m not at all sure now whether he’s taking the piss or not. ‘Ok, well, it didn’t really work.’ He nods – he saw that coming. ‘Keeping fish properly is quite complicated – you can’t just bung it all in a tank and expect it to do what you want. The system takes time to mature, and you have to get the mix right or they fight, or eat each other and it’s expensive, plus I was renting a room... It needed to be done properly to work, so... I gave that up, but I did have this idea, about using video.’ I pause for effect. I want him to get this. This is The Big Idea. ‘Video technology was really getting going about then. I had this idea about setting up a TV camera on the seabed, sending a constant stream of live images to projectors or screens in a gallery, so it would be like a living aquarium.’
‘Ok...’ he says. Finally, he looks interested.
‘Then I thought, what if you have four cameras, facing four ways, and four screens? A whole room could become a giant aquarium, you could walk into, or maybe six cameras, one up, one down as well, like in a watertight ball, suspended under a buoy? Or, why not feed the images to screens in place of windows in a room, so it looks like the room is under water? Affordable flat screens and digital video technology was on the horizon about then, and I got quite excited about it. I saw it as a way ordinary people could really get to grips with what was going on in the environment without having to cage actual marine animals.’
He nods ‘Why not?’
‘Then I thought, why just underwater? What about rain forests? Antarctica? What about a village in Africa, or Papua New Guinea, or New York? People could see it all. Plus the technology would be easier to install on land, so a lot cheaper – assuming you could stop the locals nicking it. So we got some sponsorship money and did a pilot project on Brighton Station. We made...’
‘We?’
‘I got some guys from Friends of the Earth to help out. We made a sort of marquee in there using old parachute silk and projected live images from a patch of ancient woodland that was threatened by road building.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Well, the rail people weren’t too chuffed about Friends of the Earth being involved, but we got good publicity.’
‘But it worked?’
‘The silk was hard to get flat enough, and there were problems with the amount of light it needed to be really convincing, but yes, you went inside, and, it felt quite convincing. We had live sound feed too of course, which helped. I mean, not much happens in an English woodland a lot of the time, but we had people spending the night in there, chilling out, watching – there were badgers, a deer once.’
‘And that led on to other things’
‘I actually had commercial interest, but I went for a post-grad scheme, supervised by someone who was already working in digital video.’
‘Quite impressive’ he says, and he does look impressed, finally. ‘See? I did have something’ I want to say, sneering and possibly poking my tongue out.
‘I think it finally hit me – all those years, up in my room, every day, thinking I was just doing my own thing and suddenly, whump! Some recognition, maybe even a career. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘You couldn’t believe that what you had always been striving for all those years might actually be recognised as important.’
‘Absolutely unbelievable.’
‘How did your family react?’
‘Oh, well... I don’t think they really understood to be honest, well, my sisters came to my show. They thought it was wonderful, but mum and dad I think found it all a bit scary – you know, some of the other’s stuff was a bit, you know, “challenging” if you know what I mean.’
‘So they never went.’
‘It was ok. I understood.’
He looks at his papers but doesn’t appear to be reading. He looks distracted and irritated actually.
‘So you began this post-graduate project. What did that involve?’
‘Oh, well, loads of stuff – actually getting the thing to work properly for one thing, finding sites and doing some trial runs in the UK, approaching various NGOs to see if they’d be interested in funding it...’
‘And you worked well with your supervisor?’
‘I thought so at first. It was a woman for a start, so I thought she wouldn’t be as hard-headed as a man, more receptive, less egotistical ...’
‘Nurturing...’
‘Something like that. Anyhow, she just took over. It just ended up being her project and I was just doing the stuff she didn’t have time for, plus, she wanted me to do all the IT and electrical stuff, which I wasn’t interested in, or at least, I knew there’d be some, inevitably, but I wanted to be in on the creative side too. The first installation we were aiming for was to do a market place in Sierra Leone, because she had contacts, and get publicity for one of the aid charities out there, by showing what it was really like to live there, day to day. I was all set to go out there and work with them, which I must confess, was a major bonus for me. It would have been a fantastic thing to be involved in...’
‘But it never happened.’
‘No, she went instead. She was pissed off that I wasn’t doing as I was told. I was bogged down in electronics and writing up. I was just a technician in the end.’
‘So you gave up.’
‘I did. I took her down with me though.’ I stop and think about that for a moment. It feels like such a defeat  but I still can’t imagine how I could have gone on with it, with her. ‘I screwed her project when she lost my funding, but she deserved it. God she was horrible. She had this thing that she was sassy and ambitious and everyone else was just jealous, but actually she was just stroppy and obnoxious and everyone loathed her.’
He looks at me with that ironic gallic expression of his – the one that tells me he thinks he has a more informed opinion on the matter, probably, than I do, but that he’s going to keep it to himself because he can’t be bothered to get into an argument with me. I know what he wants to say anyway. He wants to point out, as almost everyone I tried to explain this to did, that as a woman she would have had a very hard time getting to where she did and perhaps that explains her attitude and I should have had more sympathy.
To which I reply ‘Well boo hoo. My heart bleeds. I wasn’t the one who gave you a hard time. Don’t take it out on me. Bitch’ or words to that effect.
‘She just thought if she pushed hard enough eventually I’d just buckle under...’ I take a deep breath and look across at him.
‘But you were already half way through?’
‘Oh it had been wrong for months. I held on as long as I could but it just got worse. Then, when she said she was going to Sierra Leone without me I flipped.’
‘Flipped?’
‘Did a bit of yelling at her, lodged a formal complaint with the college and the funding body and walked out.’
We sit in silence for a while. I can see blue sky outside, and hear music from the lounge.
‘I just felt so tired of it all.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘Went to Spain, taught English for a bit...’
‘Forgot about it?’
‘No. Oh look I know, it was partly my own fault. I’ve never been any good at doing as I’m told. I just knew I could do it my way and make it work, and she just wouldn’t let me. Had to have it her way. Had to take over, interfere...’ I sit and brood on the memory for a while. He sits and nods. It occurs to me now that he knows exactly what I’m talking about.
‘It could have been fantastic’ I say.
‘I don’t doubt it’ he says. It occurs to me that he doesn’t look bored at all. He just looks very weary.
‘Some things are hard’ he says quietly. ‘Things take time.’
So I should just shut up and get on with it like everyone else – is that what he’s saying? Just stop making such a fuss and grow up?
No that’s not what he means. I leave, confused.

Journey II – Green eyes

When it gets light the first thing I do is glance over to see if Nicky is still there. She is, and still asleep too. Mr and Mrs Sadeghi are prodding and feeding the fire because it’s still perishing cold out here. Mike is taking a little stroll. Everyone else is sound asleep. I look down at the little mats we’ve been equipped with to sleep on. They’re surprisingly comfortable, even on this rocky ground. Mrs Sadeghi notices I’m awake and quietly beckons me over.
‘Here’ she says. ‘We made coffee. I know you like your coffee.’
‘Damn straight’ I say with some enthusiasm and they shush me vigorously and point at Jeb who is dead to the world, so to speak.
‘He didn’t get much sleep – keeping an eye on...’ and they nod at Nicky, foetal in her sleeping bag across the way.
‘I tried too but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.’
‘Did you hear her crying?’
We all nod.

The second day is a little livelier than the first. Mostly we still loll about among the luggage and watch the countryside go by, but when we get bored we take turns sitting up next to Jeb, or walk alongside.
The landscape is truly breathtaking. As the gradient gets steeper the road snakes increasingly tightly, making a ladder of tight loops up the side of what I’ve come to realise is a mountain, not a hill. The vegetation becomes less dense as we go but more interesting. It occurs to me that in my next life I really must visit the tropics at least once, but then I think – well here I am. This is the tropics. Why do I still think this is somehow less real?
On the verge of the road I stop and peer down among the shoots and stems and fronds. Every millimetre of soil I expose has things scuttling for cover – worms, scorpions, beetles, lizards and a whole lot of other things I have no names for. I really wish Lou was travelling with us. He’d have a better idea. Then I remember that Shamim was interested in the environment and maybe I should ask her. It also occurs to me that we haven’t seen any of the other wagons since we left the beach. I stand and look down where we’ve come from but there’s no sign of them. I look over at our wagon, labouring up a steep incline and see that nobody is sitting with Jeb at the moment. I ask him if I can come up. ‘Sure’ he says but doesn’t look like stopping to let me on. I look at the side of the wagon and find a leather handle and a step and swing myself up. He winks at me in a fatherly way (an idealised father. Not my actual father) and I suddenly feel very at home with things.
‘You seem very at home with all this’ he says.
‘I used to love going camping and trekking. I never went anywhere like this though.’
‘Isn’t it magnificent? This is my fifth trip. I never get tired of it.’
We sit for a while and look at the view.
‘Hey’ he says, then looks surreptitiously over his shoulder and lowers his voice. ‘Do you know anything about this young girl...er...’
‘Nicky’ I whisper and look around for her. She’s in the same place as yesterday, at the back, and apparently sleeping.
‘Nicky, that’s it.’
‘She told me some things. She didn’t want me to tell anyone else.’
‘She troubles me. Is she really as young as she appears to be?’
‘She’s about twenty I think.’
He nods and looks around again.
‘We all need to keep an eye on her.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Will you try and talk to her some more, when she wakes up?’
‘I have been trying. She just brushes me off.’
‘Well, they say nobody ever committed suicide because people tried too hard to help. I suspect that’s true here too.’
‘You think she might go?’
‘I’m sure she will, at some point. The question is, will she do it because she wants to be chased or will she genuinely want to disappear? I can’t tell yet.’
‘You’ve seen this before.’
‘That I have.’
We sit and look a bit longer. We pass through a grove of palms whose grey pleated fan-shaped leaves are at least ten feet across. They stand by the road like sentinels, unreal, serene.
After a few more miles we cross a ridge and look down into a broad valley, almost entirely filled with trees.
‘See that?’ He points. Way below us a small area of what look like fields can be seen.
‘That’s where we’re headed. Not tonight, the next night, they’ll put us up.’
I nod and wonder how long this journey will be. Beyond the settlement below I scan forward and see another range at least as high as this and higher mountains beyond that in the far distance. My head spins with the scale of it. I feel a tap on my back. It’s Shamim.
‘Do you want to walk a little more?’ she says.
I jump down as we’re still moving and almost fall on my face but he halts to let her off. What a gentleman. She thanks him.
We walk slowly at first to let the wagon get ahead a little.
‘Are you avoiding me?’ she says, smiling her little challenging smile.
‘You know I’m not.’
‘What then? Oh look! Look at this.’ She crouches by the side of the road and lets a mantis crawl onto her hand. It’s about six inches long and boldly banded in yellow and black. Amazing. I never saw it among the plants, but here it is, on her arm, like some sort of miniature motorway maintenance machinery.
‘Do you know much about all this, you know, nature and stuff?’ I say.
‘A little. I know more about the mountains at home - the Elburz.’
She shows me some other things, explains a little about the flowers and the insects. I’m impressed. Then she tries to get me to talk about what I used to do, but I say I’ll tell her another time. She sees her father stand up and stretch and she waves at him. Nicky sits up too and sees us but makes no visible reaction.
‘Is it because of her?’ says Shamim
‘What?’
‘You know very well what.’
‘Ok. I don’t know. She worries me.’
‘Is that all?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh Gabriel! You know exactly what I mean. Stop pretending you don’t.’
‘I don’t want her if that’s what you mean, well, in a way... But she’s so young. And she’s so fragile. To be honest my main feeling is protective. I mean, yes, there’s lust too, but no. It’s just too weird.’
‘Have you spoken to her much?’
‘Yes, quite a lot actually, back on the boat. She’s really messed up. I don’t know if she’s talked to anyone else much.’
‘Have you had sex with her?’
‘God no. She kissed me once, that last night.’
‘I saw you together. You looked very uncomfortable.’
I turn and look at her. There’s a wicked smile barely disguised on her lips.
‘You’re enjoying this aren’t you’ I say but she just grins at me.
We walk along in silence a bit further.
‘The thing is’ I begin, ‘I think I might be the only person she’s really talked to. I know that sounds very self important, but... I feel like she’s my problem, in a way.’
‘You could be her knight in shining armour.’
‘Don’t take the piss.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Yes you were. Anyway, I feel I should be trying to help. Jeb asked me to. She started talking to me back on the boat and I just think maybe...’
‘I don’t like to disillusion you but you do know she “talked” to a lot of men on the boat, don’t you.’
‘I know, or rather I don’t know exactly. I think she maybe slept with a few of them, and she was always flirting and playing about I know, but I have no idea if she actually talked to anyone else – not properly. I don’t know. Anyway she doesn’t look like she’s going to make any new friends here, so...’
Shamim sighs and nods. I think finally she sees the problem.
‘Honestly I really don’t want this responsibility. I just want to do this journey, look at the scenery... spend some time with you perhaps...’
She sees the shy expression on my face. I’ve never dared flirt with her at all before. She smiles and looks away.
‘Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?’
‘I’m just afraid she’ll be jealous...’
‘Really? She has something to be jealous of now?’
‘Ok, ok. I just think she might not open up if she thinks...’
We walk along a bit more. I don’t know what more to say – I’m covered with awkwardness. At least Shamim seems to think it’s funny.
‘I think she will have to get used to it’ she says after a while. ‘Anyway, I spoke to her a little last night. Maybe we can be friends too.’
‘That would be better.’
‘Ok. Oh, by the way, did you know she wasn’t supposed to be with us?’
‘No?’
‘No. Jeb told me. She ran and jumped on before they could stop her.’
Now I’m worried, and Shamim knows it. We walk along for another couple of miles. She points out all manner of bugs and flowers but I’m too preoccupied to really take it in. As far as I know I’m the only person on this wagon she already knew. She must be expecting something from me. I see her sitting there among the baggage at the back. She looks at me sometimes but then quickly looks away when I look back. She looks down at her fingers and plays with the cuticle.
Soon it starts to get really hot and it’s time to put the canopy up again – Shamim and I arrange it this time, then we climb inside and get comfortable. Shamim’s mother offers us lemonade and pastries.
Nicky conspicuously avoids looking in our direction. I feel like somehow this is my fault, and if anything happens to her I’ll be to blame. I don’t know what to do.