you work, then.’
I smell her hate, always, and it’s a hot-hate, has a hot smell which makes me shrivel, inside, outside. And she loves to stare, to invade, to gouge. She lives for it.
‘While you work, then,’ she repeated.
I said nothing.
‘Am I irritating you or something?’
‘No. ‘
She prodded the base of my back with the tip of her stick.
‘Stop that.’
I swatted her stick with my arm but didn’t turn.
‘You’re just too sensitive,’ Saleem said, and by the sound of her voice she had a smile on her lips. ‘And usually,’ she added, I wouldn’t care, but lately, well, things are coming to a head and I’m looking to you for some kind of decisive action.’
I didn’t respond to this, didn’t rise to her, and she, in turn, was silent for a minute, sitting up straight, viper-still, her amputated leg jutting out in front of her like the short butt of a cigar.
‘You know, sometimes, Phil, your natural reserve comes across like a kind of hostility. Turn and look at me, Phil,’ she added, almost whispering. ‘Turn and look, go on. Go on, Phil. Turn and face me. Look at me. Go on.’
‘I’m busy.’
My head was so low as I spoke that my chin touched my chest. She laughed at this. Her incisors are protrusive, are very clearly pointed. I could picture them in my mind, and the very idea of them scorched me, scalded me. She prodded me again, sharp in the back with her stick. ‘Go on, Phil, go on. Go on.’
And I blocked out her taunting, was working, like I’d said, was busy, was working, was planting, was digging. Quickly, busily. Five plants, then four plants. Then three plants left, only three, and after I’d placed those I’d have to turn to face her and she’d see, with glee, that I was burned by her proximity, that I was red as beet, purple-red as beet. Two plants left. One plant.
I turned. But Saleem wasn’t looking at me. She was a hooded reptile, yes, still a reptile, drawn up to spit, rocking, readying herself, but suddenly not focusing on me, but staring beyond me, over my shoulder, at the museum, its black shell. I thanked God for it, the museum. That was a skin she’d shed a long time ago, but she kept on inspecting it, sniffing at it, mulling it over.
I turned away again, shuffled the soil into smoothness with my palms, broke down lumps with my thumb and forefinger, patted it, softened it. And for a minute or so I was still blushing, red and ripe and bright as a poppy. Blood. My curse.
You see, I blushed before I could walk, before I could talk. People’s eyes invade me and make me anxious. Maybe because I think too well of other people, or maybe because I don’t think well enough of myself. My schooldays were tortured, my teenyears a wash-out, and when I grew older, my only recourse was to disguise. Girls wear green-tinted make-up. Yes, that helps to hide blushes, apparently. I grew my hair, a mass of curls that fall over my face, cover my ears, which always tingle first, sting and heat up. A neat and moderately well-spread beard - up my cheeks, down my neck - helps to shelter further exposed flesh. I am Monkey Man. I am Mountain Man. I am Scott of the Antarctic after a very long expedition.
Doug told me once, in a lighter moment, that my face was a vagina - all curls, all hair, with pink lips protruding and a small nose, labia-like, just above - a tender fold. After that I knew I didn’t just feel strange, vulnerable, like a whelk when its shell has been jerked open, but that I seemed strange to others, that I looked strange to others.
It’s all so complete, so perfect. A sun, a moon, a circle, a cycle. Maybe I think too much. Maybe I don’t think enough. Saleem knows all this. She smells it. She sees it with her yellow eyes.
‘What’s that?’ she asked suddenly, pointing with her stick. I followed its line. To the right of the museum I could see Doug in the distance, carrying what looked like a small tree.
‘Doug.’
‘What’s he up to?’
‘I don’t know. He’s working.’
‘Come off it! Anyway . I don’t mean Doug. I mean that . . .’ She continued pointing and added, ‘ A plant. Inside the building, the museum.’
I squinted. It was too far to see anything, not clearly.
‘It’s a plant,’ she insisted, ‘crawling up where the chimney used to be.’
I looked again, still not seeing but vaguely remembering -the park, its constituent parts, every small thing etched in my very heart - I aid, ‘I think it’s a passion flower, growing up in the charcoal and old cinder.’
‘What kind of a plant?’
‘A creeper. It has a beautiful flower. White and very ornate. In Jamaica they have a variation which they call a grenadilla. Doug might know more about it.’
‘I bet it grew from my leg,’ she said. ‘My skin and foot. During the fire, that’s where the burning beam fell, right there.’
I stared at her. She was warped. She was rubbing the stump of her knee, smiling. I shuddered.
‘What does it do?’
‘It works like a kind of morphine, affects the circulation and increases the rate of respiration. In homeopathic medicine they use its narcotic properties to treat dysentery. Sleeplessness. Some types are used for treating hysteria and skin inflammation.’
‘Yeah? How?’
‘I’m not sure. Dry the berry or boil the root. Something like that.’
Saleem started drawing a pattern in the grey gravel of the path with her stick.
‘Let me tell you something, Phil,’ she said. ‘I was talking to Doug this morning, over breakfast. And guess what we talked about?’
I didn’t turn but I shook my head.
‘We talked about the Gaps. ‘
I carried on smoothing the soil, thinking of softness, soil-softness.
‘Are you listening, Phil? The Gaps. Does that mean anything to you?’
I said quietly, ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘What was that?’
Saleem. My tormentor. I turned. ‘I don’t know.’
‘OK,’ she said, ‘OK, so Doug has this theory, right, about why London doesn’t work. It’s to do with the postal districts. He has this theory about London not working . . . Did he tell you this yet?’
I shook my head.
‘Oh, you’ll love it. You’ll love this. Here’s how it goes: Doug says that everything in nature moves in a circle, OK? That’s how nature works, a kind of winter-spring-summer-autumn-winter thing. A kind of sun-follows-moon-and-earth-revolving thing.
