The Bamboo Forest Part 2

Once inside the fortress, Simon felt calmer but the acid confused him. Serge’s constant squeezes and froggy murmurs made him nervous but he no longer had the wherewithal to telegraph disapproval.  ‘60s refugees had come here to die. An elderly gay couple, one missing both legs, slumped in a wheelchair. He was pushed by his saronged lover on to the dance floor. An American  tried to sell Simon chocolate fudge brownies, while a huge, flabby woman from Karnataka offered mirrored belts. ‘Go with it. Ride ze acid like ze midnight surf.’ Was Simon hearing Serge right? All he could remember was that, in the beginning, there were torrents of protozoa and somehow, out of this amphibious slime, the elephant-headed God had slept with Simon’s mother. His head was dripping like a wax mask, burning in tiny concentric circles.

Serge thrust his tongue in Simon’s mouth. Fucking intrusion. Made it hard to breath. ‘No Serge, I’m not ready for this.’ But before he’d finished his sentence, he broke into fits of inane giggles and Serge was, very cleverly, imitating telegraph whistles. ‘You’re more than ready for zis Simon. You don’t know who you are. You’ll never know unless you try.’  Giant speakers suspended from the fortress’s twin towers boomed out an amplified two-note guitar riff. Abruptly interrupted by the ringing of a massive telephone.

To their left, an elderly smiling Indian woman sold chai under a tiny paraffin lamp. Her good nature and wholesome dwarf bananas were in marked contrast to the Panic revelry under the full moon. Simon, in a bid to escape Serge, attempted a transaction: cards, passports, keys tumbled out onto the rush matting. The old lady handed him two oranges and a box of matches.  Sitting cross-legged by her side, he placed an orange in each open palm representing Venus and Mars, then orbited between them in the night sky. The occasional phosphorescent flare represented those brief, interplanetary luminaries. What was that about machetes and the wolf in the mangroves with drooling jaws? Wrestled by fisherman and caught in their nets. Carried high into the rain forest in torch-lit procession. Simon was on all fours. He was Jenner, jetting luminous arcs of urine across the sky.  He snapped at the dancer’s feet. ‘Get him outta here, man! Fucking English pig! His feet don’t fit his shoes. He’s pissed all over the pancakes!’

Camilla held Gilbert’s hand in the pre-dawn breeze. The female turtle had a very strong scent and had long disappeared into the silver light. She’d laid her clutch of forty five eggs. A shack had been constructed with the slogan MORJIM BEACH MARINE MANAGEMENT: TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED. They took it in turns to watch over the eggs and guard the precious Olive Ridley brood from ending up in fishermen’s omelettes. Gilbert passed her the coconut chopped with his machete.

‘It’s lovely here. It’s been very special. I never knew they smelled so strongly.’ She wrapped her red sari around her. It was very cool.

‘Little by little, the locals learn to protect the turtle and save the beach from all the Israelis. Dodge military service on Tel Aviv beach. Always smoking. Knocked over a woman on the ferry. I like Cockneys. Alwight, mate? Is it true that within three kilometres of Big Ben they all speak Cockney?’

Pied Kingfisher alighted on the telegraph wire. Fluffy white chest ruffled by the light wind. ‘I better check on Simon. He can be such a prick.’

They laughed and sipped the coconut milk.

Serge was inside him or beside him but, somehow, Simon escaped minus his yellow lungi. It flapped redundantly in the branches of a frangipani.  The fulfilment of his fantasy had left him exhilarated. He raced naked through the grove, down the sandy track towards the boom and after-boom of the sea. Dislocation of soul and body was acute. Body still cooped up on British Airtours flight from Gatwick to Goa, soul curled up on futon in Shepherd’s Bush. Now a new elasticity. Splashing through the foam, Simon found difficulty in controlling his entirely unjustified hilarity. Past the rocky outcrop as the seabed fell steeply away. Floating in the empty immensity, dipping in the blue grey swell and now, looking up at the red Brahminy kites, mewling at their breakfast. Engulfed in the blue. Whisper of seaweed. Sudden shoal  in shaft of marine light skipping in the waves. Feeling of death, dissolution, not wanting to do anything, not wanting to want anything ever again. Simon fought against the current but tired himself out in futile splashing. He saw the lonely trudge to Shepherd’s Bush Tube, piles of prawn mayo sandwiches in his lunch-hour. Circling red kites with ragged wing tips dipped towards him, crows hopped beneath palms. Thump from the speakers in the fortress grew fainter. Finally thought of Camilla, soul in place, curled up in perfect commas. When it had been good and his heart was open.

The hospital smelt of carbolic soap. A mosquito coil burned in the corner.  Camilla peered into his peeling face. She wore a bindi and the doctors orbited around her, fussing over her bunches of wild flowers, slyly peeking at her brown breasts through the green silk blouse. 

‘Wakey, wakey Simon. I’ve got your Mogadon. Only three days left of our holiday and back to Shepherd’s Bush. What would you like to do?’

Simon felt his rash tingling under stiff white sheets. He saw shelves of shrink-wrapped sandwiches and neatly laundered pullovers. 

‘What is my little vole’s heart’s desire?’

Leave you. Give up this perverted existence. Quit prison care. Serge stood in the corner, clutching a bunch of black tulips. Simon tried to speak but only managed little barks.

‘There, there darling. Still traumatized and he insists on taking the initiative. Such a control banana! We need to spend some time together.’

Serge nodded vigorously in approval.