Hi, Man

I don't keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once, and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slipped away, as though my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason, I don't travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost. Apart from that, photographs never seem to be very evocative. When I look through the albums of old travelling companions I'm always surprised by how little I'm reminded of the trip.

If only there were a camera that captured smell. Smells are far more vivid than images. I've often been walking in London on a hot day, caught the smell of hot refuse or melting tarmac and suddenly been transported to a Delhi side-street. Likewise, if I'm walking past a fishmonger's I think instantly of Unhygienix, and if I smell sweat and cut grass (the lawn kind) I think of Keaty. I doubt either of them would appreciate being remembered in such a way, especially Unhygienix, but that's how it is.

All that said, I wish there'd been someone with a camera when I sauntered out of the mist with a dead shark over my shoulder. I must have looked so cool.

That afternoon, I was the toast of the camp. The shark was grilled and cut into strips so everyone would get a proper taste, and Keaty made me stand up and repeat my story to the whole camp. When I got to the part about the shark's first lunge, everyone gasped as if they were watching fireworks, and when I told how I tensed my arms for the deathblow, everyone cheered.

For the remainder of that day and night I had people constantly coming up to me to give their congratulations. Jed was the nicest. He walked over to where I was smoking with Étienne, Françoise and Keaty, and said, 'Well done, Richard. That was really something. I think we ought to rename you Tarzan.' That made Keaty giggle like crazy, mainly because he was stoned, so Jed sat down with us and we all got wasted together.

It was doubly nice because Keaty and Jed got on so well. After the Rice Run I'd been trying to persuade Keaty that Jed was OK, and now I felt like I'd had some success. It also turned out they had something in common, one of those weird coincidences that could easily never have been realized. Six years ago they'd both stayed at the same guesthouse in Yogyakarta, on the very same night. They were able to work this out because on that night the guesthouse had mysteriously burned down—or not so mysteriously as it turned out. Keaty had been tripping, and the mosquitoes in his room were driving him mad. Knowing that mosquitoes were driven away by smoke he lit a small fire, and the next thing he knew the room was completely ablaze. Jed explained that he'd had to escape the guesthouse by jumping from a third-storey window and that all his money had been burned, and Keaty apologized, and everyone rolled around laughing.

If there was a sour note to the evening, it was Bugs, but ironically even that turned out OK. He came over while we were in the middle of another laughing fit, this one about the moment Étienne had realized we were standing in a dope field.

'Hi, man,' he said, flicking his head back to clear the hair from his eyes.

At first I didn't answer because I was out of breath, and then I said, 'What?' It wasn't a good choice of words. I'd honestly meant it in a friendly way, but it came out sounding like a con­frontation.

If Bugs was taken aback he didn't show it — then again, he wouldn't have done.

'I just came over to say congratulations. About the shark.'

'Oh, yeah. Thanks. I... uh... I'm glad I caught it...' Again, my stoned head seemed to be putting the most inappropriate words into my mouth.' ...I've never caught a shark before.'

'We 're all glad you caught it... Actually, I've caught a shark before.'

'Oh?' I said, now trying extremely hard to concentrate on what I was saying. 'Really? That's amazing... You should certainly... uh... certainly tell us about it.'

'Certainly,' Keaty echoed, then coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed giggle.

Bugs paused. 'It was in Australia.'

'Australia... Gosh.'

'Must be about five years ago now.'

'Five years? Was it as long ago as that? ...uh...'

'A tiger shark, twelve-footer.'

'How very... huge.'

Suddenly Keaty dissolved into hysterics, and he set off Jed, who set off the others.

Bugs smiled thinly. 'Maybe I'll save it for another time.'

'It sounds like a great story,' I managed to say before he turned to go. Then Keaty gasped, 'Certainly,' and I collapsed as well.

'My God, Richard,' said Françoise a couple of minutes later. Her face was shining from tears. 'What were you saying to Bugs? Everything you said...'

'Was wrong. I know. I couldn't help it.'

Étienne nudged me. 'You do not like Bugs, huh?'

'It isn't that. I'm just wasted. I'm not thinking straight.'

'That's bullshit, Rich,' said Keaty, grinning slyly.

Jed nodded. 'Admit it. I've seen the way you look at him.'

There was a silence while everyone looked at me, waiting for an answer. Eventually I shrugged. 'All right then, you've got me. I think he's a prat.'

This time we laughed so long and so helplessly that people started peering at us to find out what was going on.

Cab!

'Night John-Boy,' said a voice. Bugs' voice, loud and firm.

' 'Night Rich,' came the immediate reply - hard to recognize, but I guessed Moshe.

I grinned at the darkness. I knew Bugs had been pissed off by the way we'd laughed at him, and knew this was his way of regaining - what? Authority or respect. And now his cue had been chucked directly back to me, the person who caused the laughter. That must have grated.

My grin widened and I let the silence hang for a few seconds, then I said, 'Night Jesse.'

Jesse passed it to Ella, who passed it to an Aussie carpenter, who passed it to one of the Yugoslavian girls, and I tuned the rest of the game out.

There was a question that needed answering, I realized as I lay awake that night and listened to the laser beams hammering on the longhouse roof. Why did Bugs get on my nerves so much? Because he really did. I hadn't even realized how much until Jed told me to admit it.

I mean, it wasn't like he'd done anything bad to me or said anything rude. In fact I barely ever talked to him. Not talk talked. Our exchanges were all about work, arranging the carpentry detail to knock up some new spears, passing on a message from Gregorio or Unhygienix, stuff like that.

To answer the question I made a mental list of all the things he'd done to piss me off. There'd been his stupid stoicism when he hurt his leg, the thing with the soup, his almost wacky name. He also had an irritating competitive streak. If you'd watched the sun rise over Borobudur, he'd tell you that you should have seen the sun set, or if you knew of a good place to eat in Singapore, he'd know of one better. Or if you'd caught a shark with your bare hands...

I decided to deny him the chance to talk me through his tiger-shark experience.

But anyway, these weren't big enough reasons. There had to be something else.

'Just a hunch then,' I muttered, and rolled over to go to sleep, but it didn't satisfy me as an answer.

It would have been useful if Mister Duck had dropped by that night, because I could have asked him to fill me in more about Bugs' character. Unfortunately he didn't. He was a bit like taxis in that respect. Taxis and night buses.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 594