The Book of Strange New Things(102)

As for whiteflower, there was, he learned, a catch to its wondrous versatility: each plant had to be individually and frequently assessed to ascertain what stage of its growth cycle it had reached, because different things could be made with it depending on when it was pulled from the ground. On a given day, a plant’s roots might be good for ‘mushroom’ soup, its fibre good for ‘liquorice’, its flowers good for bread, its nectar good for ‘honey’, whereas on another day, its roots might be good for ‘chicken’, its fibre good for rope, its flowers good for ‘custard’, its dried sap good for ‘cinnamon’, and so on. Timing was most crucial straight after rainfall, because that’s when the oldest plants yielded their best. Morbidly porous, they swelled with water, lost what little stiffness they had left, slumped to the earth, and would swiftly begin to rot if they were not plucked out. Found in time, they were the most useful agricultural product of all, for they provided yeast.

Aware that the Oasans would already be on their way to the field, Peter stopped guzzling the rain and walked back into the church. Water ran down his legs as he crossed the floor, and each step left a paddle-shaped puddle. He strapped on his sandals (the yellow boots were too precious for filthy labour), combed his hair flat against his scalp, took a few bites of a dark-brown pumpernickel-like substance the Jesus Lovers called Our-Daily-Bread, and set off.

The rain dwindled as he walked. The watery swirls still made distinctive shapes in the air but some of the arcs softened into vapour, and there was less force, less impact on the skin. He knew the downpour would last only a few more minutes, and then the sky would clear for a good while – if ‘clear’ was the right word for a sky that was always saturated with moisture. After that, the rains would return once more, then lay off for twenty hours or so, then return twice more again. Yes, he was getting the hang of it now. He was almost a local.

Three hours later, if he’d been counting hours, which he most definitely hadn’t, Peter returned from the whiteflower fields. His hands and forearms were stained whitish-grey with the powdery slough of the harvested plant. The front of his dishdasha, from chest to stomach, was so filthy from the armfuls of whiteflower he’d been loading onto the carry-hammocks that the inky crucifix could scarcely be seen. Further down, where his knees had made contact with the ground, the fabric was slimy with sap and soil. Specks of pollen fell from him as he walked.

Emerging from the outskirts of the settlement, he began to cross the stretch of prairie between the town and the church. More conscious of his ridiculously grubby state with every step, he peered up into the sky, looking for signs of the next burst of rain, which was due very soon. The rain would rinse him clean. All he need do was stand naked under the deluge and rub his hands over his flesh, maybe with the aid of the bar of soap he’d brought from home. He would stand just outside his church and the rain would wash him and when he was clean he would hold up his clothes and the rain would wash them too. After that there would be a long sunny spell, excellent drying weather.

As he strode across the wasteland his eyes were focused squarely on the silhouetted church building, and, in anticipation of reaching it, he yanked off his garment and flapped it a couple of times to shake off the excess dirt.

‘Whoah!’ called a voice.

He swung round. About twenty metres to his left, parked alongside the wall whose welcoming graffiti had long vanished, stood the USIC van. And, leaning against the vehicle’s grey metal hull, with a large water-bottle clutched to her breast, stood Grainger.

‘Excuse me for interrupting you,’ she remarked. Her eyes were levelled at his face.

He draped his clothing in front of his genitals. ‘I . . . I’ve been working,’ he said, moving towards her with slightly clumsy steps. ‘In the fields.’

‘That’s what it looks like,’ she said, and took another swig from her bottle. It was almost empty.

‘Uh . . . Bear with me,’ he said, gesturing, with his free hand, at the church. ‘I just need to have a wash; do a few things. I can be getting on with that while you’re busy handing over the medicines.’

‘The drugs handover is done,’ she said. ‘Two hours ago.’

‘And the food?’

‘Also done. Two hours ago.’

She downed the last of the water, tipping the bottle almost vertical against her lips. Her white throat pulsed as she swallowed. Sweat twinkled on her eyelids.

‘Oh, my . . . gosh,’ he said, as the implications sank in. ‘I’m so sorry!’

‘My fault for not bringing a magazine, I guess,’ she said.

‘I just lost . . . ’ He would have spread his arms helplessly, had one of them not been covering his nakedness.

‘Track of time,’ she confirmed, as though it might still be worth saving a few precious seconds by finishing his sentence for him.

On the drive back to USIC, Grainger was less peeved than Peter expected. Perhaps she had passed through all the stages – irritation, impatience, rage, worry, boredom, indifference – in the two hours she’d hung around waiting, and she was beyond it all now. Whatever the reason, she was in reasonable humour. Maybe the fact that she’d found him in such an unsavoury state, and had caught a glimpse of his shrunken penis clinging to his pubic hair like an albino garden slug, was contributing to her mood of benign condescension.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ she remarked, as they sped across the flat, featureless terrain. ‘Has anybody been feeding you?’