Strip Pan Wrinkle Page 5

  6.

  Well, if any snake had visited him during the night, Brian was unaware of it. Furthermore, even though he’d found some mosquitoes in the chalet before retiring – and another of the buggers had been buzzing around his head as he woke – none of them appeared to have left a visiting card. He was mosquito-bite free. Perhaps it was because he was such a wonderful human being…

  However, when Brian proposed this hypothesis to Sandra, she was reluctant to agree, and instead suggested that he just get on with his ablutions. They had a date with Socks at 8 o’clock, and before then there was a breakfast to deal with. Brian did have to concede that the early morning was probably not the best time for theorising, especially when the theories in question were undeniably crackpot. So he shut up, got into the shower and prepared himself for the day. And what a day!

  To start with, Socks took them out in a little tin boat, the idea being simply to drift around the adjacent waterways, soaking up their ambiance and enjoying their abundance of birdlife. The idea worked. The waterways were enchanting – and humbling. Brian and Sandra may have expended a little time and effort in getting to this place, but they had not lost sight of how privileged they were to be here – and to be here on their own. There was simply nobody else about. It was as though they were in their very own and very exclusive version of the Elysian Fields. And better still, they hadn’t been required to pass away before they were allowed to enjoy it (an observation that might just have a certain resonance this coming evening).

  Anyway, that’s what they were doing now: enjoying it, principally by engaging in some serious bird-observing. Because there were just so many about.

  There were darters, who were rubbish at taking off but deadly at diving. There were squacco herons, who tended to hunch and not to squack. There were fish eagles, who looked far too elegant and far too important ever to engage in fishing. There were skimmers, who looked far too delicate ever to exist. And there were white-faced ducks – who just looked confused. Whenever a flock of these gregarious charmers was encountered, all its members would simply be sitting – on a raft of vegetation – looking in the same direction, and doing nothing but looking. They never seemed to feed or to preen, or to have a clue as to what they were supposed to be doing. Brian found them fascinating. And their sheep-like mystification as to their purpose in life – and their complete inactivity – put him in mind of all those people who are housed in the MoD… But it was a passing distraction, and he was soon back to observing birds and to luxuriating in the beauty all around him. For indeed, it would have been terrible to let the nonsense of the outside world intrude on this nirvana for any longer than a few seconds.

  Ultimately, however, it was time to draw this voyage through paradise to a close, and to find some shade. It was now approaching the middle of the day – and the onset of sunstroke. Both Brian and Sandra were beginning to fry. So it was back to the lodge and a lunch with Bianca and then an extended period of barely-clothed bird-watching back on their deck. John was off providing his commentary to the film crew, the staff of the lodge had melted away for a siesta, and Brian and Sandra had Nxamaseri to themselves. So what better way to enjoy this perfect solitude than by engaging in some sedentary ornithology, punctuated as necessary by visits to the help-yourself bar for refreshment – and the interior of the chalet for whatever came to mind… It was a splendid afternoon that now deserved a splendid evening.

  This was delivered. John was back from his film work, looking very sun-burnt, Tiaan had returned from a longdistance shopping expedition, and the lodge had a crop of new guests. They were “dads and lads”, three fathers and their combined four sons who, with their own pilot, had flown up from Joburg for a weekend of barbel fishing. So there was a full house to provide both interest and entertainment.

  The Joburg crowd kicked this off by immediately defending their home city as a place to live – even though nobody had in any way impugned it. But it was clearly what they felt they needed to do. And it has to be admitted, doesn’t it? It will be a very long time before Johannesburg ever features on the list of the best-cities-in-the-world-to-live-in. Indeed, it may never. Nor is it likely that fishermen will not at some point in a conversation want to talk about fish. And this is what happened. The discussion soon became one that was centred on baits and barbs, with less than infrequent contributions from the professional ichthyologist within their midst, the sun-baked and now well-lubricated John.

  In fact, his knowledge of fish in this gathering of fishy people gave him an authority at the dining table, and he was soon using this authority to take the conversation away from fish. He seemed even keener to talk about his past life than he did about the piscatorial present. So, before long he was recounting stories about his time at Rhodes University in South Africa where he’d trained as a naturalist, and one story about this place stuck in Brian’s mind. It concerned one of his professors there who was a notable academic and a very well respected one, but who, at the same time, was just a tiny tad eccentric. And the most overt aspect of his eccentricity was the belief that one always needed to keep in contact with the Earth’s electricity, and the way to do this was to conduct every aspect of one’s life in bare feet, even if one was otherwise normally attired in a suit and an academic gown and one was delivering lectures.

  The university authorities were not impressed by such unconventional behaviour and made it clear to the professor that he had no alternative but to adopt shoes as part of his wardrobe, and limit his bare-feet behaviour to his off-campus life. He reluctantly acceded to their demands, but he was still not prepared to insulate himself from all that vital Earth’s electricity with an “unmodified” pair of shoes. No, his would need a special feature. And this special feature was a sandwich of copper. Yes, inside each shoe, he fitted a plate of this metal on its lower surface, and this plate, on which his foot would rest, was wired to a similar copper plate on the shoe’s outer sole. And in this way he was still connected to his Earth.

  This arrangement apparently worked very well – for all concerned – but came to an abrupt end when the professor killed himself by drinking a glass of prussic acid. It appeared that he held very strong views on the subject of getting old and becoming in any way a burden and a barrier to those who were younger. And in his opinion, seventy was quite old enough for anybody, even if, like himself, they were entirely fit and well. So, when he reached this age, he removed himself from mankind, and one cannot dispute the fact that he never became a burden – on his relatives or the state – and he blocked none of those behind him. One might also conclude that, however eccentric he might have been, he was still a man of supreme resolve, extraordinary courage and, above all, profound insight.

  Now this tale – and the manner of its ending – spawned a new debate at the table, and this concerned how many ways one could divide mankind. That is to say that one could probably divide all the people on this planet between those who would see the professor’s final deed as the most thoughtful and considerate act that anyone could undertake (albeit they might question the choice of the cut-off point of seventy!), and those who would see it as any combination of cowardly, sinful, selfish and criminal. The diners around the table were reluctant to identify into which group they fell, possibly because of the minors in attendance. But they did then rise to the challenge of how else to divide up mankind.

  So, for example, it was suggested that one could do this on the basis of those who believed that during their life they should do only that which they could afford (whether this was having offspring or engaging the services of a high-class hooker on alternate weekends) and those who did not believe this. This latter group was made up of people who believe that they can do exactly what they like and others will pick up the bill. Although, of course, they rarely refer to these others as “others”. They much prefer the term “the government”, a strange autonomous entity that exists outside the human realm and that is funded not by money taken off other humans but by money showered on
it by goblins and fairies, and in such quantities that it always has plenty to spare. And by regarding “the government” (or “the council”) as a bottomless pit of resources, completely unconnected with other people, these do-as-they-wanters never consider what they can afford before they do it but only how they can get recompensed for it after they’ve done it. (And, more commonly, this get-on-and-do-it stuff concerns having offspring and not hiring hookers. Although probably not exclusively.)

  Then, moving from morality to mirth, there is that great division between those people in this world who have a sense of humour and those who don’t. And it was soon agreed that whilst those with a sense of humour can be drawn from virtually all walks of life and even from virtually all nationalities, those deficient in this essential quality can be more narrowly defined. So the humourless include serious left-wingers, Iranian clerics, most football managers, Chinese politicians, super models, evangelists, public-sector union officials and, of course, all Prime Ministers born in Scotland.

  And one final divide: those who give credence to the theories espoused by economists and those who regard the whole “science” of economics as an off-shoot of astrology.

  This topic of conversation could have gone on all night, but the fishermen (and boys) at the table planned an early start to their fishing in the morning and John was clearly exhausted by his film work and by the effects of the sun and Windhoek Lager. So the evening drew to a close and Brian and Sandra joined their co-lodgers in retiring to bed. They too were drained by the pleasures of their day and they too had to rise early in the morning. Tomorrow would see them leaving Nxameseri and making their way to another lodge. And with only a few years left before they reached seventy, they wanted to make quite sure they made it…

  7.

  When Brian awoke in the morning, he remembered a dream. It was a dream in which the European Commission was throwing a party for all the MEPs and all the leaders of Europe to celebrate their solving of the debt crisis. The Eurozone was now locked together, the citizens of all its member states were firmly resolved to work together (and to work as hard as all those Germans), their economies were already rebounding and the outlook was for a new golden age for them and for all the people of the European Union. There was even the likelihood that every European, within just a matter of months, would become a multi-millionaire and therefore deliriously happy.

  Of course, it was just a dream. After all, who in their right mind would believe that becoming a multi-millionaire would inevitably make everyone happy? There were bound to be a few amongst all those fortunate Europeans who would view the prospect of unlimited wealth as really quite onerous.

  Meanwhile, however, Brian and Sandra had a boat to catch and, when they’d been delivered back to that landing stage, a Land Cruiser to navigate back to the road – without it getting stuck. With the help of Socks – and a permanently engaged diff-lock – they managed both these tasks, and were soon back on the main road with their vehicle pointing north. For now it was time to drive back into Namibia and on to a lodge on the Kwando River. And the Kwando River was about two hundred and fifty kilometres away, further east along the Caprivi Strip – and on the other side of that international border.

  Coming through it had been a doddle. Despite the tiresome paperwork, the Namibian side had been very straightforward, and the Botswanan side had been positively pleasant (the immigration staff had been actually jolly). Going back, however, wasn’t such a “positive experience”. The Botswanan side was again OK, even though it included a vehicle inspection by the Botswanan police. But the Namibian side was a trial. Essentially, there was only one immigration officer on duty (along with a dozen or so other officials who had yet to decide on their roles), and this one immigration guy was dealing both with those leaving his country and those entering it. As three busloads of emigrants had just arrived and were waiting to be processed, any immigrants who happened to be in his border post at this time were just going to have to wait. And so they did – perspiring gently – with Brian wondering whether he dare actually use that suggestion box on the counter…

  Sandra advised against it. They had four more Namibian border-post visits to come, and she had no desire to ruffle any feathers at this stage. Brian could see her point, and just stood and suffered in silence, until eventually they were registered and stamped and they were free to go. So it was back up through the Mahango National Park, past the lair of Miss Disagreeable (who, because she was recovering from a bout of work-related stress, was not on her chair today) and then past Nunda to arrive again at Divundu. Then it was a sharp right turn and more of that B8 along the very thinnest section of the Caprivi Strip, with both Angola and Botswana almost within touching distance. Well… if not within touching distance, then certainly close enough to make Brian feel as though he was driving on some sort of causeway with, to either side of it, not water but a sea of endless sand and endless scrub. This was a fairly out-of-the-way part of the world, with even the road-side huts petering out, and all Brian and Sandra had for company on their causeway passage were the ubiquitous elephant-warning signs – and dust devils…

  These chaps are fascinating: towering whirlwinds of rushing air defined by their cargo of dust – and seeming to be almost animate, as though they’re nothing less than strange spinning life-forms, haring across the landscape and threatening at any moment to turn in your direction. Of course, their genesis and their maintenance as a phenomenon are rather more prosaic. Apparently, they are formed when hot air near the surface of the land rises quickly through a pocket of cooler, low-pressure air above it and, if conditions are right, this rising air may then begin to rotate (along with all that dust). Then, as the air rises, the column of hot air is stretched and this causes the spinning to intensify. This then leads to more hot air being sucked in at the bottom of the vortex, more intensification of the spinning, and the dust devil becomes self-sustaining. It has become a chimney, a chimney for spinning hot air. And now it can spin off to wherever it wants – and not fail to impress all those who see it.

  One had once attacked Brian’s car – near the Etosha Park – and thrown a fairly substantial branch against its windscreen. Another had attacked his wife when she was inside a little wooden loo – in the same park. And whilst both these assaults had been memorable, each in its own way, neither Brian nor Sandra had experienced one unshielded by either metal or wood. Brian wondered what such a direct assault would feel like. He imagined it might be a little uplifting – in the literal sense of the word – and more than a little uncomfortable. It might even put one in mind of The Wizard of Oz or possibly Gone with the Wind. But he would probably never know. Just as he would never know why, just like Nxameseri Lodge, Susuwe Lodge hadn’t put a signpost on the road.

  He had now driven into Kongola (another tiny, litter-strewn settlement) and had turned south along a gravel road to find their next lodge. It wasn’t there. No sign and not even a promising unmarked sand-track. So Sandra, having discovered that she had a signal on her phone(!), used it to enquire of the lodge why it had moved from its promised location and to find out to where it had moved. Well, it appeared that it hadn’t moved, but one could discover it only if one knew that it was approached via a sand-track signposted to another lodge on the other side of Kongola. Brian didn’t quite understand the logic or indeed the sense of this, but he dutifully turned his vehicle around and retraced his tracks – to find the track they required. And so, after only a short delay, they were on this track, being led in by one of the lodge’s vehicles, driven by a guy called Stephen, their guide for their stay.

  After a tortuous fifteen-kilometre drive, Stephen stopped and indicated to Brian that he should park his vehicle under an awning, for they were now at that Kwando river, and there was now a boat ride to take. Yes, as with Nxameseri Lodge, Susuwe Lodge is built on an island. Although, unlike Nxameseri, this island is no more than a few breast-strokes from the landing stage on the shore, and therefore the boat ride took all of fifty secon
ds. This was not a bad thing. It was still early and, even after settling into their chalet, there would easily be time for a game drive before dinner.

  The lodge was stunning. The main building was like a circular courtyard, framed by huge thatched constructions on one side, a stand of huge river-side trees on the other and a huge open-sided “tree-house” between the two. And as for Brian and Sandra’s chalet… well, in addition to it being spacious in the extreme, it came with a generous outside deck – and a plunge pool. This they could manage, just as they could manage the news that they were the only guests in the lodge. Hardship indeed.

  Anyway, it was now time for that game drive. Stephen invited them back onto his boat, and they were soon ensconced on his safari Land Rover and ready to roll, just as the sky appeared ready to provide some “weather”. For it was no longer the standard-issue blue, but instead a very dark grey, and the grey was getting darker by the second. So, just after Brian had taken a photo of two hadada ibises sitting in a tree, it was no great surprise that a strong wind blew up out of nowhere and, as it continued to strengthen, it was accompanied by rain. And this rain was not normal rain that, however heavy, always has a degree of verticality in its path to the ground, but instead rain that was so horizontal that it risked missing the ground entirely. It didn’t, however, miss the occupants of the open Land Rover. And despite Stephen’s best efforts in rapidly distributing capes to his hapless passengers, Brian and Sandra (and Stephen himself) got remarkably wet within seconds. The wind was so strong now that cape deployment had become an exercise in the absurd and Brian was still struggling with his when the hailstones arrived!

  Then it all disappeared – in an instant – and the only evidence of the storm’s passing was the moistened vegetation, a crust of melting hailstones on the ground, and a white man in a Land Rover with, around his body, a dripping hooded cape – with the rear of the hood across his face. Sandra shook her head in disbelief. But Brian didn’t see her. Nevertheless, when he’d unwrapped himself from the now redundant cape, he did see a few other things.