"So there it is, Lyddy old man," said Forbes of Marmion. "I won't be seeing much more of you now. I want you to know that I forgive you for getting that poor little kiddy drunk that time and that I won't think any more about it. I want you to shike hands with me." Lydgate took the dry calloused road-foreman's paw in his. "That's right, Lyddy.You're still my cobber."
Outside an afternoon procession of decorated cars, honking jubilantly for the Caliph's birthday. Inside packed bags and palpable heat packed in the basket that was called a house. "So you're going," said Lydgate. "Is she going with you?"
"Yes," said Forbes of Marmion. "They're sending us out of the Stite. It's not bonza justice, the wy I see it, because it was all that black bastard's fault tiking advantage of poor little Eileen the wy he did. I did what any decent husband would do. I knocked his bleeding teeth in for him. Then all his servants and secretaries and hangers-on kime out of the rooms along the corridor — they had all that corridor to themselves, man — and started on me. So I bashed them about a bit, too, which is only natural. And soft as bleeding putty they were, man, no stamina in them somehow. Of course, it stands to reason, considering what they eat. It'll be a chinge to get back to a couple of fried eggs with a big stike underneath, which is what we always used to have for breakfast back home. Anywy, they reckon there'll be a lot of big trouble or something and they've got to pretend that what I did was wrong. Otherwise, they reckon, there'll be a big flare-up in the Middle East with the Arabs fighting the United Nations, and it'll all be my fault, they reckon. Which doesn't strike me as being a bit right, but there you are, you can't stand out against them, not small fry like you and me, Lyddy old man. So we're going back next week on a boat of some kind or other, all four of us. Or you might sy four and a half of us, because Eileen, poor little kiddy, is in the family wy again."
"Yours ?"
"Now, come off it, Lyddy old man, you don't want me to start getting crook agyne, do you? Of course it's mine, bound to be, because I'm the only one she's done it proper with, see? The wy I see it, it must have happened when we were living in the other plice, outside the town. There was only me she saw. She'd come in and do a bit of shopping once a week in the Land-Rover, but she never saw any other men, so I reckon it's my kiddy that poor little kiddy is carrying. Real bucked about it she is too, Lyddy old man."
"So everything's worked out for the best," said Lydgate. "You're sticking to your wife. It's the only way really, the only thing to do. Responsibility. You marry a woman and you stick by that woman." He nodded, believing it for other people. And, in a sense, it was true for him; certainly, none of his false marriages had worked.
"Although, Lyddy, to tell you the truth, I had thought of just clearing out, see, and leaving her to get on with it. I'd even thought of letting her go back to the other bloke, the one who got her in the family wy that time, and I thought once of just dumping the kids on you."
"Thanks," said Lydgate.
"Yes, I had thought of bringing the kids here, while you were out, and leaving a note sying that I knew you'd look after them, having black kids of your own. But it's all different now. We're going back by a nice slow boat, and it'll do my little kiddy good to have a bit of a look at the world. Iden she's very anxious to see. She says, you just sty in some nice little pub or other and look after the kids when we get to Iden and I'll go off, she says, and buy you a nice present, something you can't get in this miserable dump of a plice, because you've been a good husband and you deserve a nice present, she says. A real good kind-hearted little kiddy who's been let down by a bad man and been tiken advantage of by a lot of other bad buggers, foreign bastards, if you'll forgive me sying that, Lyddy. Anywy, we shan't be going back to Marmion. I think I've finished with Marmion. My mum and dad have been talking about moving to Sydney, to retire there, you see, where there's a bit of life, and I reckon that's as good a plice as any for me to get a job, me now having the experience I have had. And if little Eileen ever wants to go out and do a bit of shopping or to have a milk-shike somewhere I know she'll be sife. The men are different in Austrylia. More trustworthy, if you see what I mean. You can't imagine an Aussie tiking advantage of a little black girl like that. Although, you know, Lyddy, she has a British passport, do you know that? A little black girl off the trees almost, and, coming from Naraka, you see, she has a British passport. So there's no trouble there. Well, Lyddy, I'll have to be going now. Rotten old dump of a plice thy've put you in here. I notice you've not even unpacked your bags yet, and I don't blime you. You stick out for something better, old man. We've missed you back at the old plice, really we have. There's some Indian or other with ten kids next door now. Terrible row by day and night. Oh, and talking about Indians, I know I had something for you. I'd be forgetting my head only it's fastened on to me." And he gave Lydgate a letter. "An Indian's been round looking for you, says he was given this letter by another Indian. A bit complicated, Lyddy, but, anywy, there it is. Now I'll leave you to get on with it."
The cars still passed, honking holiday joy. Lydgate, left alone, read the letter. It was most literate, the letter of some Indian who, having done great wrong perhaps, or having had some great wrong done to him, was now an exile, Ovid among the Goths, living with books up-river, looking after a P.W.D. transport depot near a Government river ferry. The letter said:
'Dear Sir,
I have not the honour of your acquaintance, but I have been asked to get in touch with you by a man who says that he was asked by somebody further up-river if there was anybody in this uncivilised region who was capable of editing a reasonably intelligent missive to a Mr. Lydgate of Dunia Town. You are Mr. Lydgate; this is, I hope, a sufficiently intelligible epistle. My name, as you will see from the subscription of this letter, is Mahalingam. Mahalingam, as you may know, is Sanskrit for 'large or great or mighty generative organ' — this, of course, having more a religious (through associations of religion and fertility) significance than an anatomical one. Though anatomically and, as I hope to be able to tell you sometime if I am ever lucky enough to make your acquaintance, socially the name has not proved inept. This partly explains why I, a man of some small educational attainments, am here living with savages. But you will not wish to hear this story now. To my purpose. A young Potok lady of your acquaintance, together with three children who it is alleged are yours (I foresee that, when we eventually meet, we shall have much to talk about, having not a little in common) has crossed from a village in Shurga by river and is now esconced in the district of Khras, staying with relatives. This region, as you may have heard, has been much troubled recently with a refocillation of an old and barbarous custom — to wit, man-eating. The young lady is, however, quite safe, and she intends to travel by river up to Dunia Town very shortly. Apparently she has encountered no immigration difficulties —there being at the present time no living white official in the area — and anticipates no trouble at all in achieving her goal, to wit, a happy reunion with you in Dunia Town. She is delayed because, apparently, she has a present for you, but this present is not yet ready. The nature of the present it has not been easy for me to ascertain. The man I met talked unintelligibly about a 'head of mud', whatever that is, but no doubt you will find the present acceptable, coming as it does from one who seems to have a great regard for you and is very anxious to be re-united with you in the near future. I do hope we can meet some time and talk of books, the arts, music, philosophy. Here, as you may well imagine, I am starved of intellectual intercourse.
Yours very sincerely,
Mahalingam."
Lydgate put the letter down, closed his eyes, shivered despite the oven-heat. Never pray for anything. Prayer is always answered. Never see visions. Visions come true. The head of Mudd, dried and shrunken, black with smoke, hanging on the wall. "That's a fine specimen. Where did you bag that?" "Dunia, Do you know Dunia?" "Can't say I do." "Let me tell you the story." How long would it be, wondered Lydgate, before his own head would be lovingly smoked and hung up to be admired. "This man once live alongside me. He good man. Then he be bad man. He try to go but I not let him go. We eat his body. Here hang his head. It good head. He bad man but it good head. Worth much money." The sweat streamed. Oh, come along, come along, tomorrow. Into the wide air, away from it all.
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