May was making inroads into a shallow tin dish, swooping and slicing with great panache. As she lifted the servings, long, pale yellow strings stretched back to base. She was talking as she served to the table at large.
‘... whole point about cataracts of course that the medical profession just will not see is that they are purely psychosomatic. The elderly cannot cope with modern life. Computers, street violence, large supermarkets, nuclear waste ... They can’t bear to look at it. Ergo - the eye films over. I mean - it’s so simple. Guy?’
‘Thank you.’ His plate arrived heaped with mysterious matter. A mosaic of red and brown and khaki, plus some black loops of rubbery-looking ribbon. Guy picked up his irons, noted a measure of surprise in the gathering and put them down again. Waiting for the others to be served, he began to sort people out.
Gnomish man with bright red shovel-shaped beard; woman with coarse bushy hair and a morose expression. That poor fool of a boy who sat on the far side of Sylvie. Guy noticed with deep revulsion how gently she spoke to the wretched creature, once going as far as to lay her hand on his arm. People like that, flawed with disease, should be put away, not let loose to make their grotesque demands on the innocent and tender-hearted. Of his afternoon playmate there was no sign. Guy didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. Strangely, for him, a flicker of unease had appeared soon after Trixie’s departure. He still didn’t understand her problem: she’d made herself available, he’d taken up the offer and paid on the nail. And for all the wails of wounded pride, the fifty quid had disappeared when she did. No - Guy’s worry was that she might tell Sylvie and, in doing so, misrepresent the truth. Perhaps even make out she wasn’t willing. So he decided, when he saw the girl again, to go out of his way to be friendly. Maybe even go as far as to apologise, although for what he still had no idea.
Once the serving was over a brief silence ensued during which everyone looked down at their plates. Guy looked down at his cow pats which looked faecetiously back. His neighbour sprang into speech. He had removed his smock and was now also sporting a T-shirt which instructed the reader: ‘Respect My Space’.
‘Hey ... how about a getting-to-know-you people hunt? I’m Ken “Zedekial” Beavers. And that’s my divine complement, Heather,’ said the grey-haired man. ‘Or Tethys, in astral terms.’
‘Guy Gamelin.’ They all shook hands, then Guy agitated his dinner somewhat with a fork. ‘What actually is all this?’
‘Well, that’s lasagne obviously. Goes without saying. This little heap is chick-pea purée and that,’ indicating the black coils, ‘is arame.’ Ken pronounced the word in a very odd way, raising his soft palate and honking like a goose. ‘Where would we all be without the ocean?’
‘What?’
‘Arame’s a seaweed. From Japan.’ He pronounced, ‘Harpahn’.
‘Eat enough - you’ll never have shingles again.’
Guy, who had never had shingles in the first place, nodded vaguely and put down his fork. Beneath the hum of conversation he noticed music. Or rather a saccharine reconstruction of nature going about her business. Birds tweeting, trees whispering and a persistent ripple of water. Listening to it was like having your ears syringed.
No doubt it was regarded as conducive to tranquillity. It seemed to work. The whole atmosphere was abnormally serene. All the voices were gentle. No one grabbed for what they wanted. Just gestured tenderly and murmured low. Guy wondered what they did with all their anger. Everyone had some after all. Part of the kit, along with liver and lights, teeth and nails. Did they meditate it away? Sublimate it under a blanket of kind deeds? Or - with a single babbling incantation - send it winging off for ever into the cosmos. What a load of jelly-bellied wimps. Huddling together, running away from the dark and from themselves. He became aware that he was scowling and, hurriedly adjusting his expression to one of polite interest, turned to his neighbour.
‘And what do you all do here at the Windhorse?’
Heather gave her long hair an abandoned fling. ‘We laugh ... we cry ...’ She cupped her hands then opened them with a bestowing fling as if releasing a racing pigeon. ‘We live.’
‘Everyone does that.’
‘Not in the deepest chalice of their being.’ She passed a dish of green stuff. ‘Some carracol?’ Guy hesitated. ‘A fine mincing of comfrey, marjoram and just a little hempnettle.’
Guy shook his head, concealing his disappointment well. ‘The one thing I’m not allowed. Hempnettle.’
‘Condensed sunshine,’ assured Ken, nodding at the fine mincing.
‘In what way?’
‘Impregnated with solar light.’ His crystal winked and twinkled, backing him up. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the five Platonic solids.’
‘Heard of them?’ said Guy. ‘I’m eating them.’ He smiled to show it was a joke then, sotto voce and with malice definitely aforethought, asked if there would be any meat.
This led to a long lecture full of warm sentimental invective from Heather, concluding with the information that ‘at any given moment the colon of any given carnivore would have at least five pounds of animal protein fermenting in it.’
‘Five pounds.’
‘Minimum.’
Guy whistled and Ken, perhaps to underline the sweet workability of his own gut reactions, let forth a whiffy crepitation. Guy wrinkled his nose. Heather changed the subject, offering Guy some more of the ersatz poteen that he had privately labelled ‘Château Scumbag’.
Having failed to persuade him, she asked: ‘And what do you do all day?’
‘I’m a financier.’ As if you didn’t know.
‘Heav ... e.e.’
‘Not if you’ve got the balls,’ said Guy pleasantly. There was a sticky hiatus. ‘Oh dear - have I offended? I thought you were all terribly close to nature down here.’
‘Certainly we favour the visceral over the cerebral.’
‘The dark night of the intellect,’ interrupted Heather, ‘is drawing to a close.’
It certainly seems to be in your case, thought Guy. ‘I enjoy a spot of cerebral cut-and-thrust myself,’ he said.
‘We are all millionaires of the spirit here,’ said Ken. ‘And think the rat race is for rats.’ This repartee was delivered through a mouthful of multi-coloured gubbins.
‘I’m surprised to hear myself referred to in such terms. Especially as a guest in your community.’ Ken turned scarlet. Guy was suddenly sick of them both. He leaned forward, contriving to speak with quiet confidentiality, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t be overheard by the rest of the table.
‘Listen thunderbum, people do not abandon the rat race. It abandons them. The ones without fire in their bellies. And they crawl away leaving someone else to man the ship.’
Ken smiled and reached out forgivingly. ‘It makes me sad to hear -’
‘It doesn’t make you sad to hear. It makes you bloody livid but you haven’t the courage to say so. And take your hand off my arm.’ The hand leapt away like a startled salmon.
‘Where would we be,’ Guy pushed his luck, ‘if everyone decided to slink off and contemplate their navels. No doctors - no nurses - no teachers ...’
‘But that would never happen,’ protested Heather. ‘The number of people wishing to lead reclusive lives of a moral and philosophical nature - a spiritual élite if you will - must by the very nature of things be small. It is an intensely disciplined regime.’
‘I notice you take advantage of modern technology.’ No one, thought Guy, who had an arse like an elephant had any call to bandy the word ‘discipline’ about. He knew the time had come to shut up. ‘Has it never occurred to you that while you’re up there on your pillar of virtue, some poor sod’s on his knees down a mine so you’ll have coal to burn?’