Marabou Stork Nightmares (9 page)

I let my hand fall onto his knee and gave it a squeeze.

— A fucking brave chap, Sandy sniffed.

We drove down the dusty road in silence for a while. Then, as we cruised along the track that straddled the west side of Lake Torto, I spotted someone. — Look Sandy! It's that young lad, from the football game.

— Yes, a funny little creature! Sandy smiled. We stopped the jeep alongside him.

— Lift? I asked. — Ride? You like ride?

He looked suspiciously at us.

— What's Bantu for 'ride', Sandy? I turned to my companion. Sandy seemed different. This heat, it was making me hallucinate. . . his face looked a scaly reptilian green.

— I've dem well forgotten all the bloody fucking shitey cunt radge Bantu I ever cunting well learned! Sandy groaned, punching the jeep's body in exasperation.

I'm losing it. Concentrate.

— Never mind, Sandy, I said, turning back to our ragged young friend. — Ride? Brm! Brm! It's alright! We won't hurt you! Get into the jeep!

For some reason Sandy was rummaging through the medical supplies. A forked tongue darted out his head as he lisped in a strange voice: — Come and share some lemonade with us, young fellow. You must be
absolutely
parched!

The little urchin's face lit up in a delightful smile as he eyed the bottle of lemonade, and I thought that he was going to climb into the jeep.

— C'moan little fellow, we'll have some fun! Sandy said. Then he went, — Ye want a fuckin ride ya wee cunt, ah'll gie ye a fuckin ride awright . . .

No no . . . it wisnae like that, Sandy n me urnae like that . . . The native boy turned on his heels and ran away. Sandy looked distraught.

— Never mind, Sandy, I smiled, — It's just the way they're brought up.

— Yes Roy, he beamed largely, — and anyway, it's just simply heavenly being on our own.

— Tell me another one of your lion adventures, I requested. Sandy thought about this for a while, then said, — Oh, no Mr Strang. Methinks it's time for one of your shark hunting tales.

— Hmmm, I considered, — did I ever tell you about the spot of bother I got into with Johnny Shark down in Natal province?

— I don't believe you did.

— Well, I was down in Natal investigating attacks on local divers. Some suspected that one of our old friends the Great White, or at least a Tiger shark, was responsible. For some reason, I had my doubts; the bite marks on the survivors' legs seemed inconsistent. Those doubts were confirmed with a vengeance when I was diving alone near the scene of these attacks. I found myself confronted by
Carcharhinus longimanus.

— The Oceanic White-tip shark, Sandy gasped.

— You know your sharks, Sandy. Anyway, this brute was circling around me. It must have been in excess of three metres long.

The Oceanic White-tip is very aggressive. This was the shark responsible for the slaughter of survivors of the
Nova Scotia,
when that ship sank off the Natal coast. In a similar scenario to your little encounter with the lion, this bugger came twisting towards me, just as I was about to let fly with the explosive harpoon.

— Oh my God, Sandy said, his eyes widening.

— Before I could react, the beast had fastened onto my leg. I felt no pain, however, and I took my knife and thrust it into the creature's snout. This caused the beast to loosen its grip. I quickly jammed my harpoon gun into his jaws to prevent them from closing again on my leg, then I prised my wounded limb off the monster's bed of teeth. The creature began thrashing around, trying to get the explosive gun from its mouth but, fortunately for me, only managed to detonate the device, blowing its own face to pieces. I still have a little memento from that brute ... I showed Sandy the scars on my leg.

— Gosh, he said.

We drove on, swapping tales, until night settled around the lake. We could hear the trumpeting noises the flamingos made as we drove along the track, our headlights cutting through the darkness. We were growing very tired. Somewhat fortuitously at that point, our maps indicated that there was a hut nearby and we managed to locate it fairly easily.

With our spirits lifted, we found that we were not too weary to conduct a thorough examination of our new abode. The building was constructed on high stilts and it looked out from deep in the forest down a slope over the still lake. I gleefully anticipated the morning appearance of the rising sun which would shine straight into our hut from above the lavish green hills.

Sandy exclaimed in unbounded delight as he opened cupboard after cupboard. — Towels! Cutlery and crockery! Bedding! And look, in the refrigerator: bottles of pop!

— We could light the stove to heat the room up, I suggested, pointing to the old stove in the middle of the room. It seemed as if the hut, which was really more like a small lodge, hadn't been occupied in ages.

– No, we don't need to, Sandy said, – not the way we're facing. That sun will be simply pouring in before too long! If it gets cold we

Ah mean, she kens ah've been playin away fi home, but wi her sister . . . well, ah suppose that's different right enough. It's just that she'd try n stoap ays fi seein the bairns Roy, you dinnae ken how spiteful that cunt is . . . ah fuckin gied her it tight the other day thair, telt a few home truths . . . here, ah bet if ye did wake up you'd have some stories to tell though Roy, eh? Mind you, might no be that bad. Gittin a bed bath fi the nurses everday. Ah'd be up fir that. Thir's a couple in here ah'd fuckin ride in a minute man, ah'm tellin ye . . .

Tony. You're visiting me. Fuck. This is a rare treat

— The thing is, her sister, she's gantin oan it . . .

The Big Ride

Shut up

— . . . bangs like a fuckin shitehoose door in a gale, ah'm tellin ye . . .

SHUT UP

— . . . thir aw the same, though, these daft cunts . . . fill their heids fill ay shite n they cannae wait tae whip thir fuckin keks oaf . . .

SHUT THE FUCK UP YA SICK MISOGYNISTIC WOP CUNT IT'S AFRICA AH WANT TAE THINK ABOOT

DEEPER

DEEPER– – – – – –I'm out of range of that crazy spic clown's rantings, but I can't get deep enough to hunt the Stork. I'm deep enough to remember, though.

I remember.

After Uncle Gordon's lecture, I avoided Valerie. I now looked upon her with a mixture of fear and contempt. I quickly put Kim in the picture about her and we kept out of her way, occasionally playing some mean tricks on her to ingratiate ourselves with Gordon; hiding stuff in different cupboards and that sort of thing, which caused her a great deal of distress. We made up nasty songs with words like 'coon' and 'Kaffir' and 'nigger' in them and sang them lustily around the house. Dad and Gordon would laugh approvingly at us.

I ingratiated myself with Gordon successfully; I ingratiated myself too much. Since coming to South Africa, all I had wanted was to get to see some of the wildlife I had read about in my books. One day Gordon came home and took me out with him for a drive into the bush to show mc some animals. I was excited, as we had two sets of binoculars and had packed a large picnic. It was hot and I drank a lot of Coca-Cola. Due to this, and my excitement, I got sore guts and had bad trapped wind. I was rubbing my stomach, it was agony. Gordon pulled over by the side of the road and told me to lie down flat on the back seat. He started rubbing my stomach, feeling me, then working his hand slowly inside my shorts and down over my genitals. I just gave a nervous giggle. Part of me didn't really believe that this was happening. Then I felt a diseased spasm wrench through me and I began to tense up under his touch.

— It's alright, it's all connected up, he smiled, — the stomach, the bladder . . . I know what's wrong here.

Then he opened my trousers and told me that I was a good boy while he started stroking my cock, masturbating himself with his other hand.

His face reddened and his eyes glowed strangely, yet appeared unfocused as he seemed to struggle for breath. Then his body jerked before relaxing and a sharpened concern came into his eyes. He spent a few minutes massaging my stomach again, until I farted and burped a couple of times.

This incident stayed in my mind, but the funny thing was that we had a great day out after that. I filled six pages of my notebook with what we'd seen: a Black and white colobus, a Side-striped jackal, a Clawless otter (in a stream by the forest) a Black-tipped mongoose, a porcupine and an African hare on the mammals front, while in terms of birds it was really fuckin ace: European grey wagtail, African marsh owl, Golden-rumped tinkcrbird, Olive thrush, doves of the Pink-breasted and Red-eyed variety, African snipe (which might have been a Jack snipe, I couldn't be one hundred per cent sure) and a Steppe buzzard.

I couldn't wait for my next trip, though this anticipation was tainted with a sense of unease and reservation as Gordon's abuse of me continued. It sometimes took place on drives, but often in the garage when he would come home from work during the day on some flimsy pretext. The funny thing was that it didn't really feel like abuse at the time, it felt mildly funny and amusing watching Gordon making a drooling tit of himself over me. I felt a sense of power, a sense of attractiveness, and a sense of affirmation that I hadn't previously experienced, during those sessions in the garage.

I used that power by extorting gifts from Gordon, my most lavish being an expensive telescope. In order to appear even-handed and avoid drawing suspicion, he had to sort out Tony, Bernard and Kim with costly gifts as well. John and Vet, feeling inadequate and jealous, with their meagre salaries, said that he was spoiling us and that caused a bit more aggro.

I loved South Africa. Even when we moved into our own place, a few miles away from Gordon's in a poorer area, we still had a big house with a back and front garden, and I had my own room. Through blackmail I had built up a huge library of nature books, mainly relating to African wildlife. John and I became big pals at this time. Our mutual interest in the natural world and animals flowered into an obsession. All our free time was spent in natural history museums, the zoo or local game reserves; or, chauffeured by Gordon, just driving out of the suburbs into the veld, trying to see some of the animals we'd identified from the books. The zoo was disappointing; the animals looked plastic and drugged. There was something sad and broken about them. I had to pretend to be enthusiastic as the zoo trips meant a lot to the old man; because the zoo was served by public transport, it was the only place he could take me on his own. He was planning to take driving lessons. Although sightings in the parks and bush were more irregular, they were more exciting.

SWITCH THAT SHITE OAF

Such a cold finger.
Beckons you . . . to enter his web of sin,
But don't go in . . .

The Garage.

— Time for a bedbath, Roy.

DEEPER

DEEPER – – – – – – Bernard and Kim showed little interest in wildlife. When Gordon asked Tony if he'd like to come along, Tony told him, — The birds I'm into are of the two-legged rather than the winged variety. He was still shagging everything in sight; usually the women who worked or resided in his hotel.

Gordon took us on the Blue Train to Bloemfontein down in the Orange Free State. We were going to the zoo there to see the famous Liger, the beast that was a cross between an African lion and a Bengali tigress. I felt disappointed, then sad, when I saw this creature in its enclosure. To me it seemed a misfit, a freak, something that should never have been, would never have been but for human intervention. I felt sorry for it. The most enjoyable part of that day had been the journey. I had the best ice-cream I've ever eaten on the train down, which was a really luxurious vehicle: ten times better than any crap British shite. To me, everything in South Africa was ten times, naw, one hundred times better than anything in fuckin Scotland.

The most memorable trip, though, was a family outing organised by Gordon to the Kruger National Park in Eastern Transvaal. We drove out to Gordon's timber farm, stayed at his lodge for a few days, then journeyed out towards the park, approaching it from the more rugged north-eastern end, which backed onto the Mozambique border.