The Book of Strange New Things(109)
‘Yeah,’ said Tuska, deadpan. ‘You can just see that radiating off of the folks in Freaktown.’
Berns, worried that the two men were about to have a serious dispute, touched Peter’s forearm and directed his attention to his dinner plate. ‘Your flapjack’s getting cold.’
He looked down at the rolled-up pancake. It had dried out somewhat, and resembled a rubber dog bone.
‘I think I’ll have to leave the rest of this,’ he said. He got to his feet, realising as he did so that he was unbearably sleepy, and that he’d been mistaken to think he was in any state for socialising. It took all his effort to move smoothly, rather than lurch like a drunk. ‘I think I need to lie down for a bit,’ he said. ‘Please excuse me.’
‘Decompression,’ said Tuska, and winked.
‘Get yourself rested,’ said Berns. And, as he shambled towards the exit: ‘Don’t be a stranger, now.’
Back in his quarters, he collapsed on the bed and slept for half an hour or so, then woke with an urgent need to vomit. He spewed the undigested pancake into the toilet bowl, drank some water, and felt better. He wished he had a stalk of ??????? to chew on, to keep his mouth fresh without needing to drink. In the settlement, he’d grown accustomed to drinking very little, probably less than a litre a day, despite the heat. Taking in any more just felt excessive, like trying to pour a bucket of water into a small bottle. Your body wasn’t big enough to hold it all; your system was pushed to find a way of getting rid of it.
The dishdasha was still damp but drying fast. In anticipation of being able to put it on again, he stripped down to his underpants. Then, a few minutes later, he took those off too. They irritated him.
Peter, why aren’t you writing to me? wrote Bea in the most recent of her messages, freshly arrived. I know you must be very busy but things are difficult here and I’m having trouble coping without your support. I’m just not used to spending day after day without any contact. I won’t deny that being pregnant is probably making me feel extra vulnerable and I don’t want to come across like a needy, hormonal female but on the other hand the silence from you is deafening.
He felt the blood flush into his face, right to the tips of his ears. He was failing his wife, he was failing his wife. He had promised he would write every day. He’d been busy and bewildered and Bea understood that, but . . . he’d broken his promise and was still breaking it, over and over. And now, under pressure of the anguish he’d caused, she was telling him straight.
If only she’d sent him just that first paragraph – a five-line message – maybe he could have shot a five-line response back, instantly. A quick shot of reassurance. But there was more. So much more.
I’m off work, she went on. My right hand is bandaged up and apart from the hygiene issue I can’t nurse one-handed. It’s not serious, but it will take a while to heal. It was my own stupid fault. The bathroom window is broken, as you know, and Graeme Stone said he would come and fix it but when days went by and he didn’t show up I phoned him and he was very embarrassed – he’s moved away. To Birmingham. ‘That’s sudden,’ I said. Turns out his mum’s house was ransacked last week by a gang of thugs and she was left for dead. So he’s moved in with his mum. He’ll take care of her and fix up the place at the same time, he says. Anyway, I phoned up a window repair company next but they said there’s a huge backlog because of all the storms and vandalism recently, and it could be a long wait. Our bathroom is a mess, muck everywhere, it’s too cold to wash in there, I’ve been washing at the kitchen sink, and the wind keeps slamming doors all through the house. Plus it’s not safe, anyone could climb in. So I thought I’d replace the broken pane with a sheet of plastic and some duct tape, and before I knew it I had a gash in my hand. Lots of blood, five stitches. This morning I washed myself left-handed at the kitchen sink while the wind howled through the house and the surviving windows rattled and the toilet door slammed constantly. I had a bit of a cry, I must admit. But then I reminded myself of the extreme suffering and misfortune all over the world.
You won’t have heard, but a volcanic eruption has destroyed one of the most densely populated cities in Guatemala, I’m not going to attempt to spell the name of the place but it sounds like an Aztec deity. Anyway, a volcano called Santa Maria blew its stack and spewed ash and lava for hundreds of miles around. The people had 24 hours warning, which only made it worse. There were zillions of vehicles jammed onto the roads, everybody was trying to escape with as many of their possessions as they could carry. Roof racks with half a house teetering on top, bicycles with baby cots balanced on them, crazy stuff like that. Cars were trying to take shortcuts through shops, cars were trying to drive on top of other cars, trapped motorists were smashing through their own windscreens to climb out because they couldn’t open the doors, the army wanted to demolish some buildings to widen the bottlenecks but there were too many people in the way. There was nowhere for planes to land or take off, the entire region just became one vast mass grave. People with only seconds to live were filming the lava with their phones and sending the footage to their relatives overseas. And get this: THERE IS NO RESCUE EFFORT. Can you imagine that? There’s nothing and nobody to rescue. The city has ceased to exist, it’s just part of the volcano now, it’s a geological feature. All those people had so many reasons to live and now what are they? Just chemical traces.