Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (11 page)

 
          
Yet
maybe Kish was right. This established him from the start, in a strange town,
as on an equal footing with his wife.

 
          
At
any rate, it was their own business, and I soon abandoned any minor scruples I
might have felt about us getting in the way when I learned that Lalo's parents
lived in the new town, in a hanging home high up a tree. This I had to see.

 
          
And
that's what we set out to do, the very next day. But before that, an odd thing
happened.

 
          
We'd
arrived in Jangali in mid-aftemoon. There was the furling of the sails to see
to, and the gangers to supervise as they unloaded our cargo: crans of fish from
Spanglestream, barrels of salt trans-shipped all the way from Umdala, and
pickles from Croakers' Bayou and such. By the time everything was boatshape, we
only had time to go ashore for a brisk walk round the monumental old town,
culminating in a not so brief visit to Jambi's favourite bar—where I made my
first acquaintance with the fiery junglejack.

 
          
The
bar in question—the whole town, for that matter—was a-buzz in expectation of
the festival. The normal population must have increased by half again, what
with people trekking in from up- country and from smaller jungle settlements
along the shore, not to mention outside visitors. Lalo pointed out women from
Croakers' Bayou, and from Port Barbra. The former she identified by a more
sallow look to them, and the latter by the hooded cloaks and scarves they
wore—to cope, Jambi said, with occasional pesky clouds of insects in their
area; besides Port Barbrans spoke much more softly. By contrast the Jangali
locals seemed even noisier than I supposed they usually were. The Jingle-Jangle
Bar lived up to its name; and I ended up later on with quite a headache—quite
independent, of course, of the junglejack spirit.

 
          
The
motif of the Jingle-Jangle wasn't trees, but carved stone. The bar was an
artificial cavern of nooks and crannies and stalagmitelike columns, with fat
chunky nude statues holding oil lamps. Around their squat necks hung strings of
medallions, and around their
loins
brief girdles of
the same. Presumably these medallions would jingle and jangle if you shook
them. To my mind the whole mood of the bar was primitive and subterranean, with
a hint of secrets and conspiracy, an odour of dark mystery.

 
          
The
place was also very hot. There we were in the reeking petrified bowels of a
jungle so dense that it had become a cave. I must say that the place had
atmosphere: compounded of perfume and oil- fumes, sweat and mustiness, and
partly of sheer hot air from all the babbling voices. I wouldn't have been
surprised if savage drums had begun to beat; I noticed that there was a stone
dais for entertainers, currently unoccupied.

 
          
And
in the Jingle-Jangle I happened to notice Marcialla and Credence sitting over
a drink. This wasn't in itself unusual. What was odd was that they seemed to be
arguing. Credence was insisting on something; Marcialla kept on shaking her
head.

 
          
Every
so often Credence glanced in the direction of a small, hooded group of women
from Port Barbra; and Marcialla particularly shook her head then.

           
I should explain that Marcialla was
quite a short woman, though in no way squat even if she must have been in her
early fifties. She was wiry, and carried no spare flesh. Credence was big and
busty and blonde, and at least fifteen years her junior. Marcialla wore her
greying hair swept back in short shingled waves; Credence had hers in chopped
off pigtails. All in all Credence looked like an inflated, coarsened girl.

 
          
"I'm
peckish. Let's have a bite to eat," I suggested. So we carried our drinks
over to the buffet bar—this was supported by carved stone female dwarfs, pygmy
caryatids holding up the food table. On Jambi's say-so we bought spiced
snakemeat rolls.

 
          
On
the way back I ducked into an empty nook just round the comer from our
boatmistress and her boatswain. This was just on impulse. Besides, our previous
seats had already been taken in our absence.

 
          
1
admit
that I was curious and a little tipsy, therefore
bold. But with
all the
racket going on around us I
didn't really expect to hear anything. However, there must have been something
of a whispering gallery effect in that nook. Also, the din was so incoherent
that paradoxically this made it easier rather than harder to pick out snatches
of two familiar voices—the way that a mother can hear her own particular
offspring cry out amidst fifty other bawling babies.

 
          
Snatches was
all that I did hear, but they were interesting
enough.

 
          
"But
suppose you doped the black current with enough of the time-drug. . . ."
That was Credence.

 
          
A mumble from Marcialla.

 
          
".
. .
slow
down its response, wouldn't it?"

 
          
"That
fungus is a poison of the mind. . . ."

 
          
".
. .
test
it by mixing some in a phial of the black
current. . . ."

 
          
".
. . and who'll drink it?
You?"

 
          
".
. .
might
do."

 
          
".
. .
to
prove what?"

 
          
".
. .
achieve
more
rapport,
Marcialla!
Somehow to be able to speak to it, and it to us.
Maybe our time-scales are too different."

 
          
".
. .
contradicting
yourself. Slow
it
down? Slow us down, you mean. Anyway, it reacts fast enough when
it's rejecting someone."

 
          
"Reflexes
and thoughts are two different things. If I stuck my hand in a fire. . .
."

 
          
"Your
trouble is
,
you're a true believer. Like your Mother;
and so she named you Credence. You believe in the godly spirit of the river . .
." A surge in the level of the din cut off the rest of this.

 
          
"Besides,"
was the next thing I heard, from Marcialla, "take this notion one stage
further. It's all very well to talk blithely of doping one phial with this
wretched fungus powder. But suppose somebody then thought of dumping a few
barrels of the stuff into the midstream, eh? Slow down
its
,
ah, reflexes long enough to take a boat through, perhaps? Over to the other
side . . . Where does that lead to in the long run? I'll tell you where: it leads
to poisoning the current. It leads to making the river safe for men. What price
your goddess, then? The whole thing falls apart. A whole, good way of life goes
with it. Always assuming that the black current didn't react horrendously to
being poisoned! What you're saying is sheer madness."

 
          
"Sorry,
Guildmistress,"
said Credence
unctuously.

 
          
"You
know those people, don't you?"

 
          
"Which
people?"

 
          
"The Port Barbra ones over there.
Do you think I'm
blind? You've arranged something. Now you want a phial of the black current. Or
is it a bucketful? They want it.
In exchange.
Do they
appreciate the dangers? Any more of this, and we'll be
having
to flash word to every boatmistress on the river to keep the stuff under double
lock. Don't you think that would be sad? Is there no trust? No sense any
more?"

 
          
Then
the noise really did get out of hand. Some musicians had arrived, to do
terrible things to my head—although they played pipes and flutes and banjos
rather than bashing on drums. Jambi was growing restive about my noncommittal
grunts and yes-noes as I sat with my head
cocked,
intent on other things.

 
          
"You
in a trance or something?" she shouted.

 
          
"Hmm
. . . ? No. Sorry! Cheers."

 
          
After
a long lie-in the next morning, I was up and leaning against the rail at the
head of the gangplank waiting for Jambi to join me— when along came Marcialla.

 
          
"Yaleen,"
she said thoughtfully, "saw you in the Jingle-Jangle last night." She
waited for me to volunteer something.

 
          
"Quite
a place," I said. "Oof.
My head."
I
rubbed my tender skull.

 
          
"You
meet all sorts in a place like that."

 
          
"All
sorts are in town for the festival, I suppose."

 
          
"Even women from Port Barbra."

 
          
"Oh
yes, Jambi pointed some out to me. They wear hoods and scarves."

 
          
And
so we continued to fence for a while (or at least that's what I thought), and I
was feeling fairly pleased with myself, though also praying that Jambi would
hurry along and break it up.

 
          
"Weird
place, Port Barbra," said Marcialla.
"Odd people
there, some of them."

 
          
"So
I've heard.
Strange jungly rites."

 
          
"People
sometimes get attracted by strange things." When I said nothing, Marcialla
went on, "Of course, you can't judge a place by its oddballs.
Its extremists.
After all, look at Verrino."

 
          
Did she know?
Had word got out of what I
had done, and passed along the river? I was talking—I remembered—to a
guildmistress, no less. I'd heard that much last night.

 
          
"And
equally," she mused, "people can get mixed up in queer things quite
innocently, even the best of them." My heart was thumping. But then, so
was my head. That was when Marcialla glanced up at the rigging and furled
sails, her boatswain's special province, and sighed; and I realized that she
had been thinking all along in a sad and lonely way of Credence, and simply
associating me with her because I too had been in the Jingle-Jangle.

 
          
"Maybe,"
I said—I was trying to be helpful, without at the same time betraying myself as
an eavesdropper—"maybe people who believe deeply in things are all
innocents, but it's a dangerous kind of innocence. . . ." And maybe I only
said this to impress, in the hope that Marcialla would be amazed at my youthful
perspicacity. What I'd said certainly wasn't true of the Observers at Verrino.
Hasso hadn't been an innocent. On the contrary! Nor Yosef, either.
Nor Capsi.
Dedicated men, but by no means naive. If I had
overheard that conversation aright the previous night, though, Credence was
both dedicated
and
naive, deep down.

 
          
Marcialla
obviously regarded me as the innocent, here. She smiled in a kindly way.

 
          
"You've
done good painting work.
Quite commendable.
And if I
hadn't kept you at it back then, there wouldn't have been time for a holiday
now, would there? Don't let me keep you from enjoying yourself."

 
          
"I'm
just waiting for Jambi." (Where was she, damn it?)

 
          
"Take
care ashore," Marcialla added softly.
More to herself
than to me.

 
          
"Care,
Boatmistress?" And I realized that I was echoing Credence's suave tone,
of not so many hours earlier.

 
          
Marcialla
stared at me, puzzled. "The booze, I mean, girl. Watch the booze; it's
lethal." And she patted me on the arm.

 
          
"Don't
I know
it!
"