I?'
24
As if Wexford had protested rather than concurred, Mr Sung said in a repressive scolding way, 'It is not economic drive bus fifty kilometre for one man. This is very wasteful. Much better you come with party, very nice Europe and American people. Light?'
The very nice European and American people were trooping off to the bus as he came out of the hotel. They looked weary and somewhat dishevelled and as if the last thing they wanted was to be driven out into the scorching Chinese countryside to the scenes of Mao Tse Tung's birth and infancy. However, they had little choice about that. Their guide, with whom his own was chatting in rapid Mandarin over a post-breakfast menthol cigarette, looked as relentless, determined, cheerful and clean as Mr Sung. He was a little taller, a little thinner, his English a little worse, and was introduced to Wexford as Mr Yu. They shook hands. It turned out he was a fellow alumnus of Mr Sung's from the alma mater of foreign languages.
Of all green growing things the greenest is rice. Wexford looked out of the window at rice seedlings, rice half-grown, rice near to harvest. This was the very quintessence of greenness, perhaps Aristotle's perfect green which all other greens must emulate and strive for. Men and women in the age-old Chinese blue cotton and conical straw hats worked in the fields with lumbering grey water buffalos. To distract Mr Sung and Mr Yu from their enthusiastic disquisitions on Mao's political career, Wexford asked what the crops were and was told peanuts, aubergines, castor oil plants, cassava, tare and soya beans. Sheets of water- ponds, lakes, canals - studded the neat landscape like jewels on patterned silk.
After a while Mr Yu got up and went to the front of the bus and began translating items from a newspaper into bad English for the benefit of the tourists. Wexford was trying to decide what was meant by a pirates' strike in Hungary and measles in Afghanistan when one of the men from the
25 f
'
party came and sat in the seat next to him. He was a small man with a lined red face and a shock of sandy hair.
'Mind if I join you?'
What could he say but that he didn't mind?
'My name's Lewis Fanning. It was either coming to sit with you or jumping screaming off the bloody bus. You can't be worse than that lot and there's a chance you're better.'
'Thanks very much.' Wexford introduced himself and asked for an explanation of Mr Yu's news disclosures.
'He means pilots and missiles. If I'd known he was coming on this jaunt I wouldn't have myself. I'd have stayed in my room and got pissed. As it is I don't reckon I'll make it sane to Canton.'
Wexford asked him why he had come if he hated it so much.
'Dear God in heaven, I'm not on my hors. I'm uJorking. I'm the tour leader. I brought this lot here by train. D'you wonder I'm going bananas?'
'On the train from where?'
'Calais,' said Fanning. He seemed cheered by Wexford's incredulity. 'Thirty-six days I've been in trains, the Trans-Siberian Railway among others. Ten lunatics to shepherd across Asia. I nearly lost one of them at the Berlin Wall. They uncoupled the carriage and she got left in the other bit. She jumped out yelling and came running up along the track, it's a miracle she's still here. There's another one an alcoholic and one who can't leave the men alone. To my certain knowledge she's had four in various wagons-fits en route.'
Wexford couldn't help laughing. 'Where's your destination?'
'Hong Kong. We leave tomorrow night on the train via Kweilin. I'm sharing sleeping quarters with two guys who haven't been on speaking terms since Irkutsk.'
Wexford too would be on that train, sharing his fourberth compartment, as far as he knew, only with Mr Sung. 26
~ - But he hesitated over inviting Lewis Fanning to join them and in the end he didn't. Instead he listened to a long account of the alcoholic tourist's propensities, how she had drunk a bottle of whisky a day and had had to be carried by four men
24
As if Wexford had protested rather than concurred, Mr Sung said in a repressive scolding way, 'It is not economic drive bus fifty kilometre for one man. This is very wasteful. Much better you come with party, very nice Europe and American people. Light?'
The very nice European and American people were trooping off to the bus as he came out of the hotel. They looked weary and somewhat dishevelled and as if the last thing they wanted was to be driven out into the scorching Chinese countryside to the scenes of Mao Tse Tung's birth and infancy. However, they had little choice about that. Their guide, with whom his own was chatting in rapid Mandarin over a post-breakfast menthol cigarette, looked as relentless, determined, cheerful and clean as Mr Sung. He was a little taller, a little thinner, his English a little worse, and was introduced to Wexford as Mr Yu. They shook hands. It turned out he was a fellow alumnus of Mr Sung's from the alma mater of foreign languages.
Of all green growing things the greenest is rice. Wexford looked out of the window at rice seedlings, rice half-grown, rice near to harvest. This was the very quintessence of greenness, perhaps Aristotle's perfect green which all other greens must emulate and strive for. Men and women in the age-old Chinese blue cotton and conical straw hats worked in the fields with lumbering grey water buffalos. To distract Mr Sung and Mr Yu from their enthusiastic disquisitions on Mao's political career, Wexford asked what the crops were and was told peanuts, aubergines, castor oil plants, cassava, tare and soya beans. Sheets of water- ponds, lakes, canals - studded the neat landscape like jewels on patterned silk.
After a while Mr Yu got up and went to the front of the bus and began translating items from a newspaper into bad English for the benefit of the tourists. Wexford was trying to decide what was meant by a pirates' strike in Hungary and measles in Afghanistan when one of the men from the
25 f
'
party came and sat in the seat next to him. He was a small man with a lined red face and a shock of sandy hair.
'Mind if I join you?'
What could he say but that he didn't mind?
'My name's Lewis Fanning. It was either coming to sit with you or jumping screaming off the bloody bus. You can't be worse than that lot and there's a chance you're better.'
'Thanks very much.' Wexford introduced himself and asked for an explanation of Mr Yu's news disclosures.
'He means pilots and missiles. If I'd known he was coming on this jaunt I wouldn't have myself. I'd have stayed in my room and got pissed. As it is I don't reckon I'll make it sane to Canton.'
Wexford asked him why he had come if he hated it so much.
'Dear God in heaven, I'm not on my hors. I'm uJorking. I'm the tour leader. I brought this lot here by train. D'you wonder I'm going bananas?'
'On the train from where?'
'Calais,' said Fanning. He seemed cheered by Wexford's incredulity. 'Thirty-six days I've been in trains, the Trans-Siberian Railway among others. Ten lunatics to shepherd across Asia. I nearly lost one of them at the Berlin Wall. They uncoupled the carriage and she got left in the other bit. She jumped out yelling and came running up along the track, it's a miracle she's still here. There's another one an alcoholic and one who can't leave the men alone. To my certain knowledge she's had four in various wagons-fits en route.'
Wexford couldn't help laughing. 'Where's your destination?'
'Hong Kong. We leave tomorrow night on the train via Kweilin. I'm sharing sleeping quarters with two guys who haven't been on speaking terms since Irkutsk.'
Wexford too would be on that train, sharing his fourberth compartment, as far as he knew, only with Mr Sung. 26
~ - But he hesitated over inviting Lewis Fanning to join them and in the end he didn't. Instead he listened to a long account of the alcoholic tourist's propensities, how she had drunk a bottle of whisky a day and had had to be carried by four men
Similar Books
Burying the Sun
Gloria Whelan
Clearer in the Night
Rebecca Croteau
The Orkney Scroll
Lyn Hamilton
Cast the First Stone
Margaret Thornton
One Red Rose
Elizabeth Rose
Agent Provocateur
Faith Bleasdale
Foreigners
Caryl Phillips
Would-Be Wilderness Wife
Regina Scott
Miss in a Man's World
Anne Ashley