Which means: when you do go to live with your new flock, please make sure you’ve got (1) some way of calling for help if you’re in trouble, (2) an emergency supply of food and water, (3) DIARRHOEA MEDICATION, (4) the compass co-ordinates of the USIC base and the Oasan settlement, (5) a compass, obviously.
Peter glanced up at Grainger, just in case she was reading over his shoulder. But she was still gazing out the window, feigning deep interest in the landscape. Her hands were loosely clasped in the lap of her gown. Small hands, well formed, with pale, stubby-nailed fingers.
He was embarrassed that, apart from a bottle of green water filled from the tap, he’d taken none of the precautions Bea was urging him to. Not even the diarrhoea pills she’d bought for him specially. They would hardly have weighed down his rucksack, those pills, and yet he’d removed them. Why had he removed them? Was he being as foolish as the crazy Swede? Maybe he was indulging a stubborn pride in his minimal baggage, his statement of single-minded intent: two Bibles (King James and New Living Translation, 4th edition), half a dozen indelible marker pens, notebook, towel, scissors, roll of adhesive tape, comb, flashlight, plastic wallet of photographs, T-shirt, underpants. He closed his eyes and prayed: Am I drunk on my own mission?
The answer came, as it so often did, in the form of a sensation of well-being, as if a benign substance in his bloodstream was suddenly taking effect.
‘Have you fallen asleep?’ asked Grainger.
‘No, no, I was just… thinking,’ he said.
‘Uh-huh,’ she said.
He returned to Bea’s message, and Grainger returned to her study of the empty scrubland.
Joshua is helping me type, as usuaclass="underline" lying between the keyboard and the monitor, his back legs and tail obscuring the top row of keys. People think I’m being pedantic when I write numbers out as words, or type ‘pounds’ instead of ‘£’, but the fact is that I have to lift up a comatose cat every time I want to use those symbol keys. I did it just now and Joshua made that ‘njurp’ sound that he makes. Last night, he slept right through, didn’t utter a peep (purred a bit). Maybe he’s adjusting to your absence at last. I wish I could! But don’t worry, I’m getting on with things.
The Maldives tragedy has dropped out of the media. There are still small articles on the inner pages of some newspapers, and a few ads placed by charities for donations, but the front pages and the prime-time coverage (as far as I can tell from the clips on my phone) have moved on to other things. An American congressman has just been arrested for shooting his wife. Point-blank range, with a shotgun, in the head, while she was swimming in their private pool with her lover. The newspaper journalists must be so relieved — with the Maldives thing they had to evoke gruesomeness without appearing prurient, whereas with this they can be as gross as they like. The woman’s head was blown off from the jaw up, and her brains (juicy detail!) were floating around in the water. The lover was shot too, in the abdomen (‘possibly aiming for the groin’). Lots of supplementary articles about the congressman, his life history, achievements, college graduation photo, etc. The wife looked (when she still had a head) exactly as you’d expect: glamorous, not quite real.
Mirah and her husband are getting along much better. I met her at the bus stop and she was giggly, almost flirtatious. She didn’t raise the issue of converting to Christianity again, just talked about the weather (it’s been bucketing down again). She only got serious when she talked about the Maldives. Most of the islanders were Sunni Muslims; Mirah’s theory is that they must have displeased Allah by ‘doing bad things with tourists’. A very confused young lady, but I’m glad she’s no longer in crisis and I’ll continue to pray for her. (I’ll pray for your Coretta too.)
Speaking of Muslims, I know they consider it a terrible sin to throw away old or damaged copies of the Qur’an. Well, I’m about to commit a similar sin. You know the big cardboard box of New Testaments we had sitting in the front room? It looks like they’ll have to be dumped. I can imagine this might upset you to hear, given your news about the Oasans being so hungry for the Gospel. But we’ve had some flooding. The rain was ridiculous, it didn’t let up for five hours, full pelt. There were torrents flowing along the footpaths; the drains just aren’t designed to take that kind of volume. It’s all right now, in fact the weather is lovely, but half the houses in our street have suffered damage. In our case, it’s just some patches of sopping-wet carpet, but unfortunately the books were right on one of those patches and it was a while before I realised they’d been soaking up the water. I tried drying them out in front of the heater. Big mistake! Yesterday they were New Testaments, today they’re blocks of wood pulp.
Anyway, not your problem. Hope this reaches you before you set off!
Bea
Peter drew a deep breath, past the lump in his throat. ‘Do I have time to write her a reply?’ he asked.
Grainger smiled. ‘Maybe I should’ve brought a book.’
‘I’ll be quick,’ he promised.
Dear Bea, he wrote, then got stuck. His heart was beating hard, Grainger was waiting, the engine was running. It was impossible.
No time for a proper ‘epistle’ — think of this as a postcard. I’m on my way!
Love,
Peter
‘OK, that’s it,’ he said, after he pressed the button. His words hung on the screen more briefly than usual; the transmission was almost instant. Maybe the open air was conducive to the Shoot’s function, or maybe it had something to do with the small amount of text.
‘Really?’ said Grainger. ‘You’re done?’
‘Yes, I’m done.’
She leaned across him and replaced the Shoot in its slot. He could smell the fresh sweat inside her clothing.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s hit the road.’
They spoke little on the remainder of the drive. They’d discussed the essentials — or agreed not to discuss them further — and neither of them wanted to part on bad terms.
The Oasan settlement was visible a long time before they reached it. In full daylight, it glowed amber in the light of the sun. Not exactly magnificent, but not without beauty either. A church spire would make all the difference.
‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’ said Grainger, when they had a mile or so to go.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘You might get sick.’
‘Yes, I might. But I’d be surprised if I died.’
‘What if you really need to come back?’
‘Then the Lord will make it possible for me to come back somehow.’
She chewed on that for a few seconds, as if it were a dry mouthful of bread.
‘The next official USIC visit — our regular trading exchange — is in five days,’ she said, in an efficient, professionally neutral voice. ‘That’s five real days, not days according to your watch. Five cycles of sunrise and sunset. Three hundred… ’ (she consulted the clock on the dashboard) ‘… three hundred and sixty-odd hours from now.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. It seemed impolite not to make a note of it, if only on his palm, but he knew perfectly well that he was unable to calculate three hundred and sixty hours into the future, when he’d be sleeping and waking up at various points along the way. He would have to take everything as it came.
At the final approach, C-2 appeared deserted. Their vehicle pulled up at the outermost of the settlement’s buildings, the same place as before, marked with the white star. Except that the building was now marked with something else as welclass="underline" a large message, freshly painted in white letters three feet tall.