Obstacles to Young Love

They have found the great Andean Altiplano breathtakingly lovely. The emptiness of the land, the great wide skies, the bare hills, the thatched adobe villages, the silver ribbon of river in the plain.

There have been cheese sandwiches for elevenses. A three-course lunch of avocado, beef stew and a banana has been served throughout the train. As they ate, the train had still been in sunshine, but dark clouds had sat on the high peaks like cowboys’ hats. And one lone cowboy had stood in the empty land, miles from anywhere, and watched the train go by just as every passenger had been eating a banana. Timothy has wondered if the man had ever seen a trainload of people all eating bananas before, and what he had thought of it. But he hasn’t mentioned it to Maggie. It wasn’t the sort of thing that interested her.

Now the train is descending into the valley of the Vilcanota, which becomes the Upper Urubamba, which becomes the Lower Urubamba, which becomes the Vilcanota again. Anyway, they are all tributaries of the mighty Amazon. Timothy and Maggie are going to visit the Amazon before they return home. Well, Roly Pickering is not too well, and his eyesight is bad. One day quite soon the board in the garden of number ninety-six will state ‘T. Pickering – Taxidermist’, and then Timothy is going to be busy. They may never get another chance.

More cheese sandwiches appear throughout the train. The countryside is much more fertile now. There are picturesque, tightly grouped villages, huddled against the hostility of the world. There are eucalyptus trees in abundance. And all the way the river rushes with them.

Twilight falls. The train stops. Somebody gives them the unwelcome news that on this very train last week, forty-six people were killed by bandits.

The delay is interminable. It’s now dark outside, and the lights inside are dim and unencouraging. More cheese sandwiches appear. An American further up the carriage calls out that they will not be allowed to move until all the cheese sandwiches have been eaten. The laughter is distinctly hysterical. Maggie doesn’t laugh. Timothy suddenly realises that she almost never laughs. Not that he wants her to. They are dedicated to seriousness. They face life sternly, hand in hand.

An American lady wants to go to the toilet but is told that the door at the end of the carriage is locked, so that thugs can’t get at them. This locked door will hardly save them from bandits, though. It has a huge glass pane running almost its entire length. Or appears to have. When the conductor steps right through it, they realise that there is no glass.

‘Don’t worry,’ says the conductor. ‘We have armed guards protecting you.’

This does not reassure them.

Suddenly, stubby fingers scrabble at a window. Timothy’s heart almost stops. Goose pimples run right down his back. He holds out his hand to comfort his bride. Are they to die after eight days of wedlock?

But Maggie doesn’t need comforting. She’s facing her Maker with a grim face, set in the granite of her courage. She is a sight to discourage all but the most desperate of bandits.

But the stubby fingers do not belong to a bandit. Somebody manages to hoist the owner of the fingers up until she can see into the train. The fingers belong to a short, stubby Indian lady. She is possibly the world’s unluckiest seller of cheese sandwiches.

There is laughter throughout the crowded, tense carriage. Timothy and Maggie are outraged by the cruelty of the laughter, but even Timothy cannot avoid a slight amused tremor. He looks out of the window, lest Maggie spots it.

The explanation for the delay turns out to be extremely banal. The engine has broken down.

Naomi sits in the bar of the Hotel de Turismo in Cajamarca. She has been buying little knick-knacks for her friends at drama school. Simon wants her to get presents for his friends too. He’s happy to pay but can’t be bothered to look. It’s just one more little stain discovered on the shining surface of his perfection.

The bar has dim lights, bare tables and one other customer. He smiles at her.

‘May I join you?’ he asks politely.

‘I’m expecting my husband,’ she says hurriedly.

‘Oh no, I am not trying to…I am German. I am a travel agent. I am on a fact-finding mission to improve services to my clients.’

‘Well…fine…I hope I can help.’

He moves over to her table, bringing his beer. He is tall, stiff, flaxen-haired, quite good-looking in a rather inanimate way. He looks like a well-made waxwork of himself.

‘The North of Peru is neglected,’ he begins. It’s his idea of introductory small talk. ‘But it is much more interesting than the South. Most of the South is very overrated. Lake Titicaca, for instance, is very boring. Don’t go there.’

‘We’ve been there.’

‘What did you think of the Chullpas of Sillustani?’

She has never heard of them. What are they? People? Liked him, hated her? ‘I…er…I haven’t actually heard of the Chullpas of Sillustani.’

He jerks his head upward like a frightened thoroughbred. He is astounded. He is contemptuous.

‘What?? But they are the most interesting of all the funerary towers in which the Aymara buried their nobles.’

‘We didn’t actually see any funerary towers,’ she admits.

‘What? But the funerary towers are the only thing of interest in the whole area around Lake Titicaca.’

‘We missed them.’

He is shocked, but he rallies.

‘You didn’t get a boat to one of the reed islands, did you? They are tourist traps.’

‘We did.’

Her coffee arrives, with three slices of sweet apple on a separate saucer. There has been some little extra gift everywhere they have been in Peru.

‘But not the first island? That is a complete sham.’

‘We went to the first island.’

‘But you didn’t buy a mat?’ he asks with dimishing hope. ‘Those mats are phoney. The women tell you that they represent, in pictures, their life story. They do not.’

‘We bought a mat.’

He is silent. This is too difficult for him to bear.

Where is Simon? He should be here by now.

She begins to talk non-stop. It’s the only way to avoid being lectured by him. She talks about Cusco, about the poverty she has seen: an old woman asleep on a pavement beside her wares, which consisted entirely of spring onions; a little boy selling cigarettes one by one; a sweet, pale girl, aged about nine, trying to make a sale in a café, holding out her complete stock on a tray – two toilet rolls. She contrasts these scenes with a description of a treasure she saw in the magnificent La Merced church in the city. It was a representation of the sun, with topazes, emeralds and pearl mermaids, and, at its shining centre, fifteen hundred diamonds.

‘These contrasts are all too easy to make,’ says the German dismissively.

‘But true and obscene just the same.’

He shrugs. He is not pleased. Where is Simon?

He asks her where they are going next.

‘We’re going on a bit of a farewell tour with Simon’s uncle, who is a priest, and then Simon and I hope to be off to the Amazon.’

‘Don’t. It is a very boring river.’ He pauses. ‘But if you do go, don’t go to Iquitos. It is a very boring town.’ He pauses again. ‘But if you do go to Iquitos, don’t go on a trip to any of the jungle lodges. They are a real waste of time.’ He pauses again. Naomi glances out of the window, and an icy blast runs through her veins. She barely hears the last piece of the travel agent’s advice. ‘But if you do go to a jungle lodge, don’t go to the first one. That is a very boring lodge.’

Simon has walked into view with Greta. He kisses her cheek. She walks on, he turns and approaches the hotel.

He orders drinks – a beer for himself, an Inca Cola for Naomi. The German refuses the offer of a beer and says that he has to go. Even when he has gone, Simon doesn’t mention Greta.

‘Had a nice time with Greta?’

Naomi doesn’t like this new sound in her voice. She wishes she could swallow the words back.

‘What do you mean? I met her, that’s all. We walked a bit.’

‘Do you usually kiss nuns you hardly know?’

‘Yes, I’m the secret nun kisser of Basingstoke. I give myself ten points per nun, and fifty for a Mother Superior. No, of course I don’t. But she showed me one or two things and I was grateful and…I kissed her.’

‘You fancy her.’

‘I do not. What the fuck is all this? What’s got into you?’

Doubt. That’s what’s got into her. Not a very serious doubt. Just the very slightest dent in her conviction that she has done the right thing in marrying him.

A minibus collects Naomi and Simon from their hotel in Iquitos at nine twenty-five. Already, the heat and humidity are stifling.

There are three other passengers on the bus – Timothy, Maggie and the German travel agent.

Naomi is stunned. So is Timothy.

So is the German travel agent.

‘What are you doing in Iquitos?’ he says. ‘I told you not to come here. It is too hot, the hotels are too expensive, the town is dull, and it closes at weekends.’

At first, Naomi and Timothy are too shocked to speak. At last Naomi says, ‘What are you doing in Peru?’

‘I’m on my honeymoon. This is Maggie.’

These words, spoken so innocently, are bullets that fly straight to Naomi’s heart. She is astounded to find that this is so, utterly unprepared for her sudden yearning for Timothy’s body beside her in a sagging bed.

‘You?’ he asks.

‘The same. This is Simon.’

Introductions and explanations follow. Timothy’s eyes are making a desperate appeal to Naomi, and she realises what it is. Don’t mention our three nights together, especially the second one.

‘So, this is a happy coincidence,’ says the German travel agent.

‘Happy, yes,’ lies Naomi. ‘Coincidence? Not entirely. We were both in a play about Peru at school. I think something of its magic touched us.’

The minibus turns off the road onto a wide track that leads down towards the river. It pulls up by a locked gate. The driver hoots several times, then gets out and bangs on the gate.

‘Why are you going to the first jungle lodge?’ asks the travel agent, almost angrily. ‘I told you this was not interesting.’

‘We only have time for one, and we did want to see the Amazon,’ says Naomi lamely.

At last an elderly unshaven man, with a touch of the salt about him, shambles up and unlocks the gate.

The passengers proceed down a flight of steep wooden steps to a small pontoon alongside which lies a long, narrow, thatched boat. It seats about a hundred. They are the only five customers.

‘Tourism has died here this year. It is because of the Falklands War. People are frightened. The Falklands are thousands of miles away. European people are idiots,’ says the German travel agent.

The boat eases slowly out into the stream, and chugs off on its two-and-a-half-hour journey to the jungle lodge. Everybody wants to admire the scenery. Nobody wants to talk. There is going to be plenty of time for talking at the lodge.

Naomi links arms with Simon. She hopes he is unaware that she is doing this for Timothy and Maggie to see.

Outside the town they pass a great confusion of ships, shipbuilders’ yards, half-finished boats, abandoned boats, rubbish dumps, timber yards, and rusty cargo vessels.

Three tankers, the Tupa, the Rio June and the Alamo, are moored at a large petroleum installation. They’re all registered at Manaus.

Naomi gives a little sigh.

‘Something wrong?’ asks Simon.

‘Not at all.’ If only he was better at understanding her thought processes. ‘The registrations on ships excite me. All the way from Manaus. Suddenly the Amazon all makes sense. I mean, wouldn’t you be excited if you saw a ship registered at Valparaiso?’

Simon smiles and oh my God it’s the smile of someone attempting to pacify a child. How will they get through their night in the lodge with Timothy so close? This is devastating. Only a week ago, Simon was Mr Perfection. Julian had told her that he had wandering eyes, that he loved his own body, hence all that keep fit. Always quick to see the worst in anyone, Julian. He’ll have a very successful career as a lawyer.

They meet thatched boats coming upstream, heavily laden, mainly with bananas. People in canoes are hauling in their nets. And all the while there is the rainforest on both banks, punctuated by small villages of thatched houses on stilts. One village looks very much like another. One house looks very much like another. One stilt looks very much like another.

‘I told you,’ says the travel agent. ‘It is a very boring river.’

‘And how very brown it is. How very, very brown,’ says Naomi in a Noel Coward voice.

There is a question she has to ask of the German.

‘You say Iquitos is boring. You say the Amazon’s boring. You say the first jungle lodge is boring. Why are you here?’

He snorts like a horse approaching a jump which frightens it.

‘For research for my clients. My clients demand these places. They are cowards.’

They see two large kingfishers. How beautiful they are. Simon, give him credit, loves birds. She points to them, and he smiles and squeezes her arm. Maybe things will still be all right. She certainly doesn’t want Julian to be proved right. It’s his hobby.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmurs.

Yes. Beautiful. But Maggie is so ugly. How can Timothy possibly fancy somebody so ugly?

A lady with a bright pink parasol rides in a canoe towards the green grass and well-tended fields of yet another thatched village. She carries more of an aura of Henley than of the jungle.

Ugly is putting it far too strongly. She has to admit that. The nose is a little too wide, but not horrendously so. The lips, though on the thick side, are reasonably shapely. Some people probably find bushy eyebrows attractive.

Maggie’s skin, though white and lifeless, is not much marked. Except for the mole on the right cheek, of course. But the mole is really quite small and it’s only when the sun strikes it that you can see the two thin hairs that are attached to it. Naomi turns now, and sees them in the sunshine. No, to her regret, they aren’t horrendous.

She is appalled by her feelings. What sort of woman is she?

A big diving bird with a white head and a long, forked tail is hunting for food. Vultures and large hawks wheel slowly overhead. They see a small tern with a black head, birds like sand martins, birds like sooty chubby swallows.

Simon shakes his head. ‘If only we’d brought a bird book.’

‘Never mind. They’re lovely.’

They kiss. It becomes quite a long kiss. Their tongues are two snakes mating.

Naomi turns round, hoping that Timothy and Maggie will have seen, but they are busy looking out over the water and Maggie is making notes. Only the travel agent has noticed, and he looks very wistful.

‘Maggie?’ asks Naomi, feeling strange to be actually talking to her and addressing her by name.

‘Yes?’

‘Can you identify any of these birds?’

‘Sorry? What birds?’

How could a taxidermist fall for a girl who didn’t like birds? Maybe taxidermists only like dead birds. Naomi is comforted by this thought.

No, Simon is great. What does it matter if he isn’t interested in the registrations of ships? They will watch birds together, jog together, do yoga together, do Pilates together, ride bicycles together, use rowing machines together, make babies together. Life will be good.

Babies? Where did that thought come from? How would that square up with her career?

They swing round to nose upstream to a little landing stage. They step out into a Turkish bath, and walk slowly to the thatched lodge.

The five of them go for lunch in the large, thatched dining room, which seats a hundred. They had assumed that they would be joining other visitors, but they are the only five.

‘I suppose…er…maybe the four of us should share a table,’ suggests Timothy.

‘It would be awfully British not to,’ says Naomi.

‘I think we have to, really,’ says Maggie.

What a charming way of putting things she has, thinks Naomi.

The travel agent has gone straight to another table and is already sitting down. He is immaculate in shorts and sneakers.

‘What about the Kraut?’ hisses Simon.

Naomi glares at him.

‘He looks happy enough,’ she whispers.

‘I suspect he’s a bit of a bore,’ whispers Timothy.

That’s rich from someone married to Maggie, thinks Naomi.

The German is aware of what they are hissing and whispering. They might just as well have talked normally.

‘No, I am fine,’ he says. ‘I am used to my own company. You will have much to catch up on.’

It’s a buffet lunch, with fried fish, fried rice, spicy kidney beans, French beans, tomato and avocado.

‘So, how are things, Naomi?’ asks Timothy.

‘Yes, fine. Really good, thanks. Yes, really good. Simon and I got married eight months ago. He runs the gym where I go.’

‘Oh. So you’ll both be pretty fit.’

Naomi reminds herself that Timothy was never known for his sparkling repartee.

‘Things didn’t work out with Steven then?’

‘No. You were right. He isn’t very nice.’

‘And how about work?’

‘Well, I’ve only just left drama school, but I’ve got my first job.’

‘Great!’

She realises that his enthusiasm is utterly genuine.

‘We go into rehearsal the first day back.’

‘Oh, I’m thrilled for you.’ The sullen look leaves his face and he smiles with boyish excitement. Naomi had forgotten how handsome he was.

‘Yes, that’s really good news,’ says Maggie, and Naomi has to admit to herself that she sounds pretty genuine too.

‘So what’s the part?’ asks Timothy. ‘Not Juliet?’

‘No. Sadly I have to learn my lines. It’s an Ayckbourn play.’

‘A what?’

‘You must have heard of Alan Ayckbourn, Timothy. He writes comedies. He’s very famous and very good.’

‘I’ve heard of him, of course,’ says Maggie. Naomi puts the ‘of course’ into the debit column of her newly opened mental ‘Is Maggie nice?’ ledger. ‘But I’m afraid we’re really rather serious in our theatrical tastes.’ Debit. ‘I wish I’d seen your Juliet. People still talk about it.’ Credit. No, double credit.

‘This food’s good, isn’t it?’ says Simon, just so as not to be left out really.

‘I suppose it is,’ says Maggie. ‘I’m afraid I’m one of those people who get talking and thinking and forget to taste what they’ve eaten and suddenly find it’s all gone and wish they’d concentrated on it a bit more.’ Debit. ‘But it’s difficult. I have a lot of responsibilities in my life.’ Debit. They’re piling up.

‘Maggie teaches RE at Coningsfield Grammar.’ Debit. Massive debit. Oh, Timothy, you should have gone for somebody who brings light into your shady life. No. Don’t think like that. He’s happy. He’s in love. It’s touching to see. Fucking irritating as well, though.

‘Food’s good, isn’t it,’ Simon calls out to the travel agent, in the hope that he won’t feel left out. Naomi is pleased. It reminds her that there are pleasant sides to his personality.

‘Very palatable. Did you know that until fifteen years ago, Peru was a net exporter of rice. Now it imports. Why? Because the Velasques government broke up the haciendas and gave the land to the peasants. When it’s theirs, they don’t expect to get their fingers dirty any more.’

They are glad they didn’t invite him to join them, on the whole.

‘So, how about you, Timothy? How’s the taxidermy going?’ asks Naomi.

‘Oh, very well. Very well. Dad’s leaving it to me more and more.’

‘How is he?’

‘Oh, he’s very well, but his eyesight’s failing.’

‘Give him my best wishes.’

‘I will. He’ll be pleased. He really liked you. He was…’ Timothy stops. Naomi knows he was going to say that his father was upset they split up. So does Maggie. ‘He really likes you too, of course, Maggie,’ continues Timothy unwisely. He turns to Naomi. ‘The first day back will be exciting for both of us. You’ll be meeting all the other actors and rehearsing for your play. I’ll be going to Kilmarnock Zoo to collect a tiger that lost its will to live.’

‘I’d lose my will to live if I was in Kilmarnock Zoo,’ says Simon.

‘I hate zoos,’ says Maggie. Credit. ‘And if you think that puts me in a difficult position over taxidermy, it doesn’t. Timothy’s the most ethical person I know. He would never have anything healthy and happy killed to further his business.’ Easy to mock, but, actually, rather reluctantly, credit.

After lunch, they have a walk in the jungle. Their guide, Basilio, is young, even boyish, and quite small. He takes his terrier with him, which gives it the feel of a Sunday walk in the park rather than an intrepid voyage of discovery. He shows them an achiote tree, picks a fruit from it and opens it up to demonstrate how the Indians paint their faces red. He thinks he hears rain.

‘We are not having the jungle walk cancelled,’ hisses the German. ‘I will not accept short measure.’

The rain holds off. They see many kinds of trees, and some ants, but no animals. Basilio apologises for the lack of animal life. There are too many people here. Clearly, to see the animals of the jungle you have to go where you aren’t.

The skies darken. The trees murmur their indignation at the increasing wind, and begin to shake anxiously. The walk ends forty minutes early.

‘Short measure,’ whispers the travel agent.

The next item on the agenda is a nocturnal canoe trip. It gets dark early here.

‘They will try to cancel it because of the rain,’ says their new friend. ‘We must insist. I will not accept short measure.’

But the rain stops. They go to the creek and climb into a canoe. Their guide for the trip is Basilio. They drift down the creek beneath the mudbanks, in the dark. They hear the noises of the jungle – crickets, more crickets, and then…Can it be? It is. More crickets. They also see the tail of a young anaconda. Well, they’re told that it’s the tail of a young anaconda, and choose to believe it. They hear a bullfrog. And more crickets. Suddenly the moon shines brightly. Basilio explains that it is now too light for alligators. Presumably, you can only see them when it’s too dark to see them. They are beginning to get the hang of this jungle travel.

The trip is abandoned.

‘Short measure,’ whispers the travel agent.

They invite him to join their table for the candlelit dinner. He is delighted.

They sit right in the middle of the huge, empty, candlelit room. Dinner is served by Basilio. It begins with a beetroot salad.

Their German friend asks Naomi and Simon where they have been since he last met them.

‘We went to Chiclayo,’ says Naomi.

‘Ah! What did you think of the Bruning Museum?’

‘The what?’

‘The Bruning Museum at Lambayeque.’

‘We didn’t go there.’

‘But it’s a marvellous museum, and the wacas between there and Chiclayo are also very interesting.’

‘We missed the wacas.’

‘But there is nothing else to see around Chiclayo.’

‘We went with Simon’s uncle, who is a parish priest, for him to say farewell to some Canadian nuns. We liked Chiclayo, its stubby cathedral covered in vultures, its friendliness, names like the Bang Bang Amusement Arcade. We spent a lovely evening in the nuns’ Parish House. They didn’t know how to mix gin and tonics, though. Either that, or there’s a great shortage of tonic in Peru.’

Naomi is trying to get a reaction from Timothy and Maggie. Even a slight sniff of disapproval would do. But they are impervious. So very disappointing.

The beetroot salad is followed by soup with a fried egg in it, tasty highly spiced chicken with poor fried rice, and a fruit salad. With so few people there the meal is finished in under an hour. Never mind. That will give them all the more time to enjoy the promised traditional local cabaret in the bar.