gingerly away from the puddle, Yantra folded onto the cold ground and waited. He was undecided. Should he submerge into a meditation or smoke his first joint of the day? Ideally, he’d have dropped a trip and come on as the sun went up. But they were down to emergency petrol and food money: there was work to be done. Besides he wasn’t a bloody idiot. If there had to be laws at all, then there should certainly be one about driving on acid. The One trip at a time statute, he quipped to himself.
He detected the rumble of a car perhaps five miles south. It vexed him. The only road around here was the one they’d pulled Biddy over on. It meant the bloody thing would pass directly in front of him, annihilating any sense of isolation. Quite obviously a meditation was out of the question under such circumstances, so he unclipped the flap on his bulky breast pocket and slid out a pre-rolled spliff. So much negativity at this hour in the morning could never be good for a person of his exquisite equilibrium.
The first inhalation barely made his lungs before sending a succession of painful firecrackers back up his larynx. He expelled the phlegm, waited a minute or so for his breath to cease grating and attempted to reload himself. Again, it went down like a ball of wire wool and he coughed it into the darkness.
‘The ways to enlightenment are many, mate,’ he gurgled acrimoniously at the car as it passed and instantly felt guilt at taking the words in vain and his lack of positivity in general. And perhaps it was because the vague high was distorting his vexation, or perhaps it was the other way round, but he thought: though mother nature is unquestionably beautiful, sometimes one has to try fucking hard to be in a good mood about it at this time in the morning.
As he’d feared, dawn was an indiscernible penumbra of cold and drizzle.
He heard the whimperings of Endometrium inside the van and rose shakily to liberate him. Then he felt the need to fertilize the land himself and stepped in to grab the bog roll and trowel.
Admittedly, the man had certain ideological objections to toilet paper. Indeed, a few years back he’d flirted with leaves and brush but, truly, that was an unspeakable martyrdom. Even so, he wished someone had the good sense to make the stuff more biodegradable or even a credible shade of natural green. He’d read somewhere that the steep face of Everest was little more than a morass of human excrement and sheets of toilet paper. All of it suburban pink, he’d bet. Still, pub bogs only ever stocked white rolls or that medicated grease-proof stuff, so he guessed he was stuck with it.
Yantra opened the van up and leaned inside waving what was left of the spliff.
‘Oy, Jayne. You want some?’
‘Save it me, darling,’ she murmured and nuzzled further into the blankets.
‘Can’t do that, Jayne. This is a dawn doobie. A vampire smoke. A mayfly that expires with first light.’
‘Did you see it then, Yan?’
‘Mu.’
‘Call again.’
‘Yeah and no. I experienced the experience, but the experience wasn’t what you might call an experience.’ She laughed half-heartedly.
‘But it goes on the map, yeah?’
‘The corporeal map, certainly, the map of my incarnation, no change.’
‘Right. Well do us a favour then, Yan. Take your incarnation out for a stroll with Endy and let me get a bit more dreaming done.’
As yet, not much of the morning’s colour had been filled in and Yantra could feel the mu-rain (the cold highland steam which though not rain is equally competent at drenching a person) begin to descend. Even Endometrium who was usually a lesson in life appreciation seemed pissed off. He prized Biddy back open and Jayne made a little grizzling sound.
‘Sorry to drag you up from the underworld, babe, but how do we stand in the dog food stakes?’
‘Well it won’t be in here, will it?’ she said with restrained irritation.
‘No, right. You’re right Jayne. Yeah.’
Yantra moved round the vehicle and awkwardly opened one of the front doors. It reeked of dog food which was a good sign. Then again the whole van did – amongst other things. Endometrium jumped in.
‘Lend us a nose, Endy.’
Within moments the dog located it and dug his wiry body under the Babylon bibs. Yantra leaned over and retrieved the half-full tin. He moved out and Endometrium bounced after him. Yantra dug out a couple of clumps of the cat food with his hand and managed to scrape out the remaining collops with a screwdriver. He wiped his palms vigorously up, down and along the dog’s coarse sides and skipped back round to join Jayne.
She made no noise as he entered the van. He smiled at the lump bedecked with patchwork blankets, only a pair of boots and a hint of suedey head poking out. Kneeling, he began to caress her fuzzy scalp, then comb his fingers through the thin blue fringe at the front. He drew the blankets down a little way and saw that her face smiled drowsily. Lazily, he traced a finger along the arête of her nose.
‘Dog food,’ she mumbled.
‘Cat actually,’ he told her, bowing and kissing the small knob of shoulder that escaped from her shapeless black jumper.
Jayne rolled around to meet him and opened her arms slightly. He manoeuvred in and ran his tongue up along her coil of earrings. She took one of his ginger dreadlocks in her mouth and sucked at it like liquorice, then she pulled gently at his sparse beard and gave his nose ring an affectionate flick. Clawing tenderly at the shaven sides of his scalp, she jerked him down and rammed her rheumy tongue into his polluted mouth.
They glutted on each other’s face for several seconds, rapidly working their hands under layers of greasy fabric. Abruptly Yantra broke away.
‘What is it, baby?’ she drawled.
‘Time.’
‘An a priori synthetic concept, an illusion of mortality. Fuck time, Yan. Just fuck me.’
‘Jayne, we’re out of provisions. We gotta do a milk round.’
‘Just a quickie. A wam-bam-thank-you-Yan. Time can take a breather for ten minutes for us immortals.’
‘Near immortals. I mean we’re good.’ He kissed her briskly. ‘But not …’
‘We are good though, aren’t we?’
‘The fucking best.’ He dived down and kissed her more definitively. ‘But, babe,’ he said drawing himself up, ‘hunter-gatherers must do their stuff.’
He kicked open the doors and flew out with a whoop. Jayne followed him with the trowel and paper.
‘Roll one for the road,’ she shouted and disappeared behind a tree.
Still intoxicated by the strange charm of his morning dream, Sheridan Entwhistle propelled himself from the bed.
Then he remembered and padded across the room with the supreme care his condition warranted.
He opened the bathroom door and was greeted by the sweet coconutty scent of his daughter. He smiled. It smelled good. Unlike Jennifer’s
