wonderful to listen to someone like Chas, whose utterances sent messengers flying fleet-footed down every single one of one’s neurological pathways.
“Shoot the Egyptian geese! You will do no such thing!” objected Sharon. “They mate for life, you know. And their babies are so cute!”
“It’s not that I like killing,” said William.
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Fundiswa.
“I just think that if you’re going to eat a living thing, then it should be something you’re prepared to kill yourself.”
“Do you have a gun?” asked Neville.
“No,” admitted William.
Nina saw that William liked to solve problems. He was touching his forehead as though there were an abacus in there and he was moving the wooden beads around to find an answer. “It’s the grass that’s the problem,” he said. “You want the grass for your campers and your croquet; the Egyptian geese want it for the seed. You could go indigenous. Plant reeds, for example, or let the vygies grow in.”
“I have no wish to play croquet amidst the reeds,” said Mrs Fawkes. “Or squelch about on a carpet of succulents.”
But William was keen to explore green solutions. “I could set up a webcam, and you could monitor it. Then, if you see a goose on your lawn, you could maybe activate an explosion by remote control. But that might be quite expensive to set up. What we really want is some predators – hawks, owls, maybe a mongoose – to eat the chicks or the eggs.”
Mrs Fawkes gave an exasperated sigh. “Please forget that I mentioned the Egyptian geese. I don’t want a surveillance camera or hawks circling overhead or gunmen hiding in the reeds. Emmanuel can just keep picking up the poo. Next, Neville.”
“Next,” said Neville, “is our friend the outcast baboon.”
“Good eating perhaps, William?” suggested Chas.
“Bushmeat is no good. That’s probably how humans got …”
“Let’s not get sidetracked again,” said Fundiswa. “I want to tell you my story. Last Saturday I am sitting in my kitchen, reading the news on my laptop. I’m feeling a bit hungry, so I reach out to the fruit bowl for an apple, and what do you think? A furry paw is there! This baboon is sitting beside me on the kitchen counter, eating my bananas!”
“He’s a cheeky bugger this one,” said Neville, coming in swiftly before things became even more anecdotal. “Look, we’ve all got a story like Fundiswa’s. The point is, we have to be vigilant about closing our windows and all that stuff. The tamper-proof bin system helps a lot. As long as you are all religious about keeping your food waste locked away, we should be okay.”
“You could give your food waste to me,” said William.
“Good eating?” Chas’s face was bright with merriment.
“For my worms,” said William. “And I don’t totally agree with the locked-bin strategy. I would like to be able to go through your bins …”
Sharon was indignant: “What d’you want to go through our garbage for? You mad or something?”
“Maybe he’s the paparazzi,” said Fundiswa. “I believe they get a lot of information out of celebrities’ bins.”
“People throw really good stuff away,” said William. “Like this shirt, for example.”
“I thought I recognised it,” said Mrs Fawkes. “Didn’t I give you that as a gift, darling?”
“It looks much better on William,” said Chas. “Polyester, isn’t it?”
“Drip-dry,” said Mrs Fawkes. “The ideal thing when you’re travelling.”
“It was in your wheelie bin,” William defended himself. “I asked Emmanuel and he indicated that he didn’t wear polyester.”
“La-di-da,” said Mrs Fawkes and stubbed out her cigarette.
“So, what exactly would you like us to do?” Neville was clearly keen to reach a compromise so that the meeting could come to an end. “Can I suggest that if people would like to, on a purely voluntary basis, they can drop their food waste off at William’s, for his worms, along with any old clothes.”
“And any old machines or gadgets that don’t work any more,” said William.
“But keep your bins locked against our furry friends.” Neville looked hard at William’s beard. “Our furrier friends, should I say. Right, well we seem to have covered everything on tonight’s agenda. Thanks for your participation. I’m not going to bother sending you all the minutes. I’ll give them to you orally, right now. By majority vote, no streetlights. Lantern assistance on dark nights to be provided by William. Shoot the geese: no. Continue to keep bins locked: yes. All recyclables to William. Another successful Slangkop community forum meeting. Vote of thanks to Neville for the refreshments. End of story.”
“I really think we should have proper minutes,” said Fundiswa. “This is not procedurally correct. You know, in Geneva …”
“The problem with minutes is that they end up taking hours,” said Chas. “Long live Chairman Neville.”
“Good. Now we can get back to our guests,” said Mrs Fawkes. “They’ll be wondering where the birthday boy is.”
Chas walked down the steps of the clubhouse behind his mother. Nina rose hesitantly to follow them. She hoped Chas would turn around to summon her, remembering his earlier invitation.
“Go on,” said Fundiswa. “Enjoy yourself.”
William and Fundiswa did not speak as they made their way home after the meeting. At first William kept twisting his head around to see if Nina was about to join them, but eventually he reconciled himself to the truth. She was following Chas and Mrs Fawkes to Midden House, walking away from him, a willing sperm donor.
You could give it any name you liked – pollination, fertilisation, sperm donation – but it was all the same thing. Nature converged on this one imperative. Every sticky, scented flower, every female baboon in oestrus, every teenage girl in shorts, was dressed for the main event. Some species went to town with colourful displays, others were infinitely subtle. Orphium frutescens came to mind, the sea-rose that opened its pores only when it felt the precise vibrational frequency of the carpenter bee.
As they crossed the dry stream bed that bordered the caravan park, William broached the subject that had been preoccupying him. “I want to ask you something in confidence,” he said. “I overheard what Nina said to you earlier, about needing a sperm donor. I’d just like to ask your advice about how I could offer my services. I think I would be the best man for the job.” He reached into the pocket of his shorts and brought out a piece of paper. “I’ve written down some of the reasons why I think Nina should choose me as her sperm donor. First of all: testimonials. My parents told me that I was a radiantly happy baby. The principal of my primary school told them that I had an exceptionally high IQ. My mom’s done the family tree and I can show it to Nina – I think she’ll find my genes satisfactory (the red-haired Celtic stuff got mixed up with solid Flemish stock somewhere along the line). One
