I and many others of my kind turn a blind eye.’
‘For…’ She is going to say, ‘For God’s sake,’ but she stops. Simon smiles to himself as he witnesses the battle between her passion and her manners. ‘Sorry, Paul, but I just don’t think a blind eye’s enough,’ she says quietly. ‘The message needs to be shouted from the rooftops.’
Paul smiles. Suddenly he looks weary. Perhaps he has faced enough of the world’s poverty.
Greta, who has listened intently, moving her gaze back and forth like a spectator at Wimbledon, crosses her legs. Her skirt is tight and the stretched material makes just the faintest rasp. Simon turns to look at her legs, and Naomi notices, recalling suddenly how Timothy had only ever had eyes for her.
She hasn’t given a thought to Timothy for months, and now she’s thought of him twice in one day.
She wonders where he is.
She would be shocked if she knew. He is also on his honeymoon, and he is also in Peru. He was married eight days ago, in Coningsfield, in the church where he was confirmed and from which Naomi ran so dramatically. Tommo, who failed to get into medical school and so had little hope of becoming a gynaecologist, was his best man, and was surprisingly nervous when making his speech. Dave Kent managed an afternoon off from his dad’s greengrocer’s. Steven Venables was amazed to be invited, but Timothy explained that Christians believe in forgiveness. He suggested Peru for their honeymoon. Peter Shaffer’s play had given him an interest in the country, and Maggie hadn’t needed much persuasion. She wasn’t one for lying around on beaches. Her naked body was known only to her and her Maker, and she was having a bit of difficulty in letting even Timothy in on the secret.
And now here they are on a train from Puno to Cusco. The train has run along the shore to the head of Lake Titicaca, which died gently in a salt-bed of mud and reeds. There were wading birds everywhere, including egrets and birds that looked like a South American species of curlew. Timothy thought briefly about Naomi’s curlew. He wondered if she still kept it on display. He wondered who the handsome young man in the photograph in her room had been, and why she had refused to tell the truth about him. He wondered if she ever thought of him, of Romeo and Juliet, of their nights is Earls Court. But it was only a passing thought. He has long ago recovered from his Naomi-itis. In all probability he will never see her again.
They have found the great Andean Altiplano breathtakingly lovely. The emptiness of the land, the great wide skies, the bare hills, the thatched adobe villages, the silver ribbon of river in the plain.
There have been cheese sandwiches for elevenses. A three-course lunch of avocado, beef stew and a banana has been served throughout the train. As they ate, the train had still been in sunshine, but dark clouds had sat on the high peaks like cowboys’ hats. And one lone cowboy had stood in the empty land, miles from anywhere, and watched the train go by just as every passenger had been eating a banana. Timothy has wondered if the man had ever seen a trainload of people all eating bananas before, and what he had thought of it. But he hasn’t mentioned it to Maggie. It wasn’t the sort of thing that interested her.
Now the train is descending into the valley of the Vilcanota, which becomes the Upper Urubamba, which becomes the Lower Urubamba, which becomes the Vilcanota again. Anyway, they are all tributaries of the mighty Amazon. Timothy and Maggie are going to visit the Amazon before they return home. Well, Roly Pickering is not too well, and his eyesight is bad. One day quite soon the board in the garden of number ninety-six will state ‘T. Pickering – Taxidermist’, and then Timothy is going to be busy. They may never get another chance.
More cheese sandwiches appear throughout the train. The countryside is much more fertile now. There are picturesque, tightly grouped villages, huddled against the hostility of the world. There are eucalyptus trees in abundance. And all the way the river rushes with them.
Twilight falls. The train stops. Somebody gives them the unwelcome news that on this very train last week, forty-six people were killed by bandits.
The delay is interminable. It’s now dark outside, and the lights inside are dim and unencouraging. More cheese sandwiches appear. An American further up the carriage calls out that they will not be allowed to move until all the cheese sandwiches have been eaten. The laughter is distinctly hysterical. Maggie doesn’t laugh. Timothy suddenly realises that she almost never laughs. Not that he wants her to. They are dedicated to seriousness. They face life sternly, hand in hand.
An American lady wants to go to the toilet but is told that the door at the end of the carriage is locked, so that thugs can’t get at them. This locked door will hardly save them from bandits, though. It has a huge glass pane running almost its entire length. Or appears to have. When the conductor steps right through it, they realise that there is no glass.
‘Don’t worry,’ says the conductor. ‘We have armed guards protecting you.’
This does not reassure them.
Suddenly, stubby fingers scrabble at a window. Timothy’s heart almost stops. Goose pimples run right down his back. He holds out his hand to comfort his bride. Are they to die after eight days of wedlock?
But Maggie doesn’t need comforting. She’s facing her Maker with a grim face, set in the granite of her courage. She is a sight to discourage all but the most desperate of bandits.
But the stubby fingers do not belong to a bandit. Somebody manages to hoist the owner of the fingers up until she can see into the train. The fingers belong to a short, stubby Indian lady. She is possibly the world’s unluckiest seller of cheese sandwiches.
There is laughter throughout the crowded, tense carriage. Timothy and Maggie are outraged by the cruelty of the laughter, but even Timothy cannot avoid a slight amused tremor. He looks out of the window, lest Maggie spots it.
The explanation for the delay turns out to be extremely banal. The engine has broken down.
Naomi sits in the bar of the Hotel de Turismo in Cajamarca. She has been buying little knick-knacks for her friends at drama school. Simon wants her to get presents for his friends too. He’s happy to pay but can’t be bothered to look. It’s just one more little stain discovered on the shining surface of his perfection.
The bar has dim lights, bare tables and one other customer. He smiles at her.
‘May I join you?’ he asks politely.
‘I’m expecting my husband,’ she says hurriedly.
‘Oh no, I am not trying to…I am German. I am a travel agent. I am on a fact-finding mission to improve services to my clients.’
‘Well…fine…I hope I can help.’
He moves over to her table, bringing his beer. He is tall, stiff, flaxen-haired, quite good-looking in a rather inanimate way. He looks like a well-made waxwork of himself.
‘The North of Peru is neglected,’ he begins. It’s his idea of introductory small talk. ‘But it is much more interesting than the South. Most of the South is very overrated. Lake Titicaca, for instance, is very boring. Don’t go there.’
‘We’ve been there.’
‘What did you think of the Chullpas of Sillustani?’
She has never heard of them. What are they? People? Liked him, hated
