Boating for Beginners (5 page)

She hurried home and collected her axe. 'Nasty pokey place,' she muttered. 'It's not hygienic to be confined, especially in the warm weather. I'll soon have it down,' and she started to chop at the bamboo walls.

Once upon a time her friends would have come to help her, but people had changed - or rather fridges had changed them. Mrs Munde felt that being able to store food for longer periods had broken down the community spirit. There was no need to share now, no need to meet every day, gathering your veg or killing a few rabbits. The day-to-dayness had gone out of life. Everyone lived apart in their own little house with their own little fridges. Noah was doing his best, but greed and iniquity were catching up again. There had been a boom in freezer food over the last couple of years. That was probably why Noah had decided to launch his all-singing, all-dancing stage-and-screen epic in a last attempt to thaw out the world's hard and sinful heart.

Mrs Munde was so carried away with her thoughts and her demolition that she didn't hear Gloria come home. Gloria had decided not to move to Noah's, although the stabling for Trebor was much better there. Taking one look at her mother's handiwork, she swung up the ladder into her bedroom and started to root through the trunk that contained their vast collection of Bunny Mix ephemera. She found the one she wanted and squatted in an corner, trying not to get too excited. It was called Moonlight Over The Desert, and had won the Purple Heart Award for best romantic fiction. She read the blurb half-aloud to better appreciate the sensuous prose...

'»When slim brunette Naomi travels across the desert with her uncle's caravan she doesn't expect to find true love. A mysterious thunderstorm forces the party to take shelter in a nomadic village, a place of sultry tradition where she meets Roy, the most fearless camel tamer of them all.»'

The first chapter was called 'Into the desert' and, as she read, Gloria began to sink into that semi-hypnotic state she always experienced with Bunny Mix and her magic...

'I do think, Naomi,' scolded her Aunt Ruth, 'that you might be a bit more enthusiastic about this trip. Your uncle has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange it for you.'

Naomi looked up from her toast, her pretty face spoiled by a scowl. She was a slightly built girl with a weak heart, beautiful hair and piercing green eyes. Her skin glowed with the bloom of youth. Her aunt, watching her, felt a sudden twinge of envy. She remembered her own youth and her excitement at falling in love. She had told the story to her niece many times: how she had met Reuben at a cattle fair, how he had stood a head taller than any of the others, what a way he had with the heifers and what a gentleman he had been when she had fallen into the cesspit. They had walked out together for a year, then one night when the air was thick with bird song and warm rain he had asked her to marry him. She had accepted, and on their wedding night, after he had gently pulled back the sheets, she had felt a thunderclap melting her and a thick tenderness deep inside. It was like a fairy tale, and of course love is like a fairy tale, as she always told her niece.

Naomi knew what her aunt was thinking and she didn't care. She wanted to feel her own pulse beat, her own heart race. Why did they have to pack her off on a sight-seeing tour in the desert when she really wanted to go to Monte Carlo and meet a man who owned racehorses. That was the trouble with relatives; they thought they knew best. She was a headstrong young woman who liked to go fishing and make her own clothes, and although she had no idea what love could really mean she felt certain that she wasn't going to find it in the middle of the desert with her uncle.

Naomi's aunt sighed and started to clear the breakfast things. She had enough to do without worrying about her niece. There was the laundry and the dishes, and the packed lunches for her sons, and Reuben's clothes to put out, and oh, the hundred and one little things that come with marriage. She liked it, it gave her a sense of purpose.

When she had gone out of the room her niece gazed into the mirror, trying to decide whether or not she was beautiful. She had a good figure, and was thought to be unusually intelligent, but was she beautiful? This was what she ached to know.

Soon it was time to join the caravan. She watched the servant boys swing up bales of straw and provisions. One of them caught her eye and grinned. She blushed. He had warm brown skin and a furry neck, but she would not lower herself from her class. She heard her uncle's voice: 'Naomi, are you ready? We need to be well away before dark.'

'Ready, Uncle,' she shouted, skipping towards him.

'Really,' he thought, feeling his age, 'she is lovely.'

Then they were off, rolling across the dunes as the sun spread into the glory that is the desert at dusk. Naomi sniffed the air: it was fresh and exciting. She would sleep that night dreaming of princes on well-muscled steeds.

The next day, as she ate kippers with her uncle, she noticed that he seemed preoccupied. 'What is it, Uncle Reuben?' she asked with sympathy in her voice.

'Oh, nothing I hope, just the chance of a storm. But we'll get on as quickly as we can; there's an oasis town a few miles south of here.'

Naomi felt a rush of blood. An oasis town! She had heard of them, where custom had remained unchanged for hundreds of years, and the men still carried off their brides for a honeymoon of passion behind the rocks. Long before nightfall they reached the camp, the white tents glittering and dignified under the powerful sun. 'You have to watch out for some of these chaps,' her uncle warned. 'They're friendly enough but their passions are strong. Be polite, but remember your honour.'

The chief came out from one of the tents and made signs of welcome. Naomi was thrilled. She could smell the animals, the cooking, and that different enticing scent of men in the desert. Suddenly she felt very young and asked to go and lie down. Her uncle arranged everything for her and they agreed to meet at sundown for supper. Naomi fell into a fitful sleep where she dreamed anxiously about her wardrobe. What should she wear to make an impact? Every young woman wants her first important entrance to be a success and Naomi was typical of anyone who has found themselves in a Bedouin camp without an iron. Finally, when she awoke she decided on her light silk dress specially designed to resist wrinkles. She matched it with a simple string of pearls and tied up her hair perfectly but casually. After about three hours she was satisfied that she looked as if she had made the minimum effort and achieved spectacular results. She wanted to be thought natural.

As she walked into the supper tent every eye turned to stare at her, and those admiring but uncivilised men could hardly quiet their admiration. For a few moments their whistling and lip-smacking deafened her, but her uncle bent over and told her to take it as a compliment. She noticed he seemed upset.

The meal lasted for hours, with every kind of delicacy offered to please her. At last, with the impatience of youth, she got up to take some fresh air. Once outside the tent she was overwhelmed by the menacing beauty of the desert: the timeless sand, the leering palms. She shuddered, and felt a hand against her bare shoulder.

'Forgive me.' A rich warm voice spoke. 'My name is Roy and I thought you might like some company. I am known to my tribe as a camel tamer.'

As she looked into his eyes, she knew he was more than just a passing stranger. Far away, the moon rose across acres of quiet sand. The storm had passed and the world lay still. He took her hand.

'Perhaps you would like to come to my tent? I have a fine collection of Arab weavings.'

Unable to speak she nodded her assent, and felt safe by his side as they turned from the communal dwellings into the private spaces of privilege. Naomi was used to wealth, but even she was amazed at the splendour Roy called his tent. Everywhere she saw gold and ivory and jewels without price. Roy noticed her surprise and, laughing softly, explained, 'I am more than just a camel tamer, I am also a very rich prince.'

Naomi felt inward relief. Surely now there could be no opposition to their union? But was she being too presumptuous? After all, she didn't even know if she was beautiful.

'You are the loveliest woman I have ever seen,' said Roy softly. 'Would you, perhaps, be my wife?' He waited, head bowed, not daring to look at her. He waited for at least five minutes, and still she had not answered. Bravely, he raised his eyes, and saw that she had entirely fainted away. He roused her with the scent of desert thistle, and as she regained consciousness she was saying, 'Yes, oh yes, I do so want that,' and his heart was glad.

They spent the rest of the night planning their future, lying side by side on deep cushions, but the morning brought a problem neither of them had expected. Her uncle refused his consent. Naomi fell weeping to the floor. She begged him, and promised to visit him regularly, but it was of no use. Finally, in despair, she turned to Roy and pleaded with him to make her uncle change his mind.

'I do not beg for what I want!' exclaimed Roy, and drawing his sword he chopped off Reuben's head. Naomi watched it roll away.

'You had to do it Roy, I know that, but we must send Auntie some flowers...'

Gloria put down the book. She usually read on, followed Roy and Naomi into their new life together as they fearlessly crossed the desert, spurning custom and flouting convention. They were married though, so it wasn't sinful. But this time Gloria wasn't really interested. Could it be that Bunny Mix was losing her hold? Or was it perhaps a stage in her own development? She knew there were stages, three to be precise, because she had read a book by Northrop Frye that said so. Just now and again Gloria's past had been punctuated with serious literature. She had never sought it, had always had it forced upon her at station bookstalls because she was too naive to understand that when a serious work is issued in paperback the publishers always use a misleading cover. And so she knew all about the Great Western Railway because the book cover made it look similar to Murder on the Orient Express; and she understood in their entirety the origins of early music because she had picked up a book that appeared to be a collection of love songs called My Lady Neville's Lute, with a couple intertwined round a set of musical instruments oh the cover. She always read these books, even after the truth had dawned, because she was careful about money and preferred reading to making anagrams out of the railway notices.

Northrop Frye had written about the development of language through three stages: the metaphoric, where persons and matter share a common energy and are described as an inseparable unit; the didactic, where persons and matter are separate and the inner life (intellectual) assumes ascendency; and finally the prosaic, where we describe what we see and feel without recourse to imagery because we think imagining gets in the way. Gloria had enjoyed the book though she hadn't expected to, and had begun to table her own life according to its premises. And now she had clearly reached stage two, and begun to separate what she felt and what she thought.

Her musings were broken into by her mother who had noticed her daughter's presence and suggested they have a cup of tea to celebrate the end of her gloomy kitchen. Besides, Mrs Munde wanted to talk about the Hallelujah Hamburger.

'It may get a bit chilly,' she admitted, resting the kettle over the fire, 'but I think it's nice to be in the fresh air. I don't know why we ever bothered with a kitchen at all, not a small one anyhow.'

Gloria smiled, her mind still caught up in the didactic stage of her development. As usual, Mrs Munde imagined they were communicating. She started to tell Gloria about Ham and her new role in saving the world.

'These restaurants won't be like any other,' she said proudly. 'Every dish will have a spiritual theme, so that we can think about YAHWEH while we're eating. And there won't be anything artificial, just as our Lord isn't artificial. What with the film you're making and the hamburgers I'm making, we'll have the world to rights in no time.'

'I'm not making a film, I'm collecting animals. You should know, you got me the job.' Gloria couldn't help noticing how much more fluid her sentences were becoming: she had almost reached the state of continuous prose.

Mrs Munde looked hurt. 'I've given you a start. It's up to you now. No one can say I haven't done my duty as a mother. I just hope you work hard and fall in love with the right man.'

'Why?' demanded Gloria starkly.

'Because only the right man can make you happy. Don't you long to be on the Bunny Mix Romance Show?'

'Not much.' Gloria was surprising herself again, thinking about what Desi had said about orgasms. If you could have them in supermarkets, then anything was possible. She left early, telling her mother she was out searching for a couple of bears.

When Rita and Sheila arrived, they were deep in conversation about Marlene's problem. They had spares, but not the right spare. Could they or couldn't they trim one to fit?

'What do you usually do with the — er — spares?' asked Gloria nervously. She knew she shouldn't be asking but a terrible curiosity drove her on.

Rita and Sheila glanced at one another, then Sheila said, 'You vegetarian?'

Gloria shook her head.

Sheila swallowed. 'You ever eaten sausages from a chain store called Meaty Big And Bouncy?'

Gloria nodded her head. It was the rival chain to More Meat, and usually cheaper.

'Well,' said Sheila, 'now you know what we do with the off-cuts.'

Gloria clutched her menu. Visions of sausage casserole swam before her eyes. Bevvies of sausage and mash danced in front of her. She was assaulted by hot dogs wherever she looked.