NOVEL EXCERPT: Josie Haybottom is late

PROLOGUE (of sorts)

Josie Haybottom is late

*

At 05:01 on that fateful October morning, Josie awoke in a wet bed. Her bed was wet with urine, her own. The sun still slept.

Her brother, it seemed, observed an etiquette vastly transliterated from her own, regarding prank rules. To her, unconscious meant unarmed; to Drew, it meant easy pickings. He had been told the previous day about the trick of soaking your victim’s fingers in warmed vinegar-water during NREM3 (approximately 20% of a sleep cycle, his learned compatriot informed him). Roused by his alarm at 04:45 ante meridiem, he prepared silently while the blood throbbed in his ears. He crept into his sister’s bedroom, taking with him a tub of water estimated by his elbow to be damn near close enough to body temperature.

Needless to say (but hell, let it be said): the prank paid off. He watched on, petrified, feet fastened, shivering with gratified anticipation as the puddle grew. Josie released a soft groan, and stretched out her back. It clicked. The sound jolted Drew back to the immediacy of reality and he scarpered. In his rush he trod with full force on a stray Lego cube – Josie had not forgotten the value of tangible play, regularly creating for herself miniature worlds in which anything at all was possible, as long as it was constructed exclusively from quadrangles and could be connected, top and bottom, in the prescribed way.

Drew yelped to high heaven, quite unable to inhibit his reflexes against such a burst of visceral pain. The bolt shot up his leg and reached his brain before he could suppress it, and his cry rang forth. Josie’s torso snapped up like a spring, frightened into consciousness by her brother’s gasp. She retorted with a breathy AGH! which alerted Drew. Blenching at the thought of her impending revenge, he swung round and flung up his foot, wishing to soothe it for immediate escape. He lost his balance again, semi-somersaulted with a flying scissor-kick into the air, and landed on his bottom, unprotected but for a thin layer of pyjama cotton.

A blunt twinge seared from his left cheek and reverberated like a ripple through his rump. Josie tossed her duvet from her bed in order to reprimand her brother for waking her without permission, only to discover her compromised position. She sat in a pool of her own doing, warm and wet to the hilt. Her blood proceeded to poach. She knew her brother’s dastardly ways and knew in a second that he was the culprit. A ragged, fuming electricity began to pop and bubble in the pit of her stomach. It seethed and blew gales within her, raising her up onto her hind legs. Towering above Drew, she gained vantage, therefore advantage.

Standing now, a lioness in her prime, she roared with hearty rumble, her mane full aflame and plumage lit. She bounced once, twice, and then flew like a falcon onto her brother’s back. Her faithful talons sank in, prompting the blood to flow where it may. Drew’s sharp shriek could be heard from three doors down: Norwegian Ms Jerry in the yellow cottage at number 135 awoke with a start, shot up and knocked her head KATHUMP on the bedside lamp, wherefrom a searing bulge could be seen until a week later; sickly old Reverend Harklestamp, the Dane in the blue house opposite, yelped and defecated where he lay, staring up at the majestic compass which adorned the mantelpiece; down the hall, the fractious pair’s biological mother (their house was red; they didn’t have any fish) opened her weary eyes and, disorientated for a moment, flailed out beside her, thwacking her partner square on the nose.

Josie was in her element. All four limbs wreaked their most vengeful wrath upon her brother, inflicting so great a shock that he lost all consciousness. Drew crumpled under his sister’s bulk and, landing directly cube to cube, suffered comprised potency and generous scarring. Let that be a lesson to brothers all.

Unfazed by the hyperbole of the situation, and dehydrated after the fracas, Josie went downstairs for a cool glass of coconut milk. Coco was unassailable.

The morning's set-to had, however, taken its toll on Josie's foot-to-eye coordination. Steps were too much. Her humanness raised its gnarly head – or, more precisely, the minor discrepancy in length between her right and left legs went uncompensated for – she fell, oh how she fell!, with uproarious calamity. On her third step, her foot only narrowly shaved the stairlip, and clumped onto the level below. This knocked her so off course that she came tumbling down, step by step, with a series of percussive thumps which roused the whole household. Her mothers both, biological and nominal, came bounding out of their room, skipped down the staircase to find their daughter (biological, titular) star-fished on the tartan-rugged floor, florid and moaning. Knocked unconscious like her brother, Josie soon awoke to find herself one tooth down, a certified resident of sore-town.

*

Whoever said a weekend's a weekend's a weekend clearly hadn't tried ALL weekends

Lakeside fishermen swing their lines into the murk, their baits dolloping dolefully, splosh mimicking a fish & amusing passers-by with promise of success. To them, a day is a day is a day. If it rains, it pours. What are the scores, Georgie? Attitudes are blunt, stances lackadaisical, decisions whimsical, rods flimisical, mine's a popsicle, don't call my dog fickle, dime nickel, only a trickle, bibble bibble bibble. Bibble!

*



[the inmates are playing cards and betting with cigarettes]
Martini: [rips a cigarette in half] I bet a nickel.
McMurphy: Dime's the limit, Martini.
Martini: I bet a dime.
[Puts the two halves onto the table]
McMurphy: This is not a dime, Martini. This is a dime.
[shows a whole cigarette]
McMurphy: If you break it in half, you don't get two nickels, you get shit. Try and smoke it. You understand?
Martini: Yes.
McMurphy: You don't understand.

Oh, Martini!

*

At least, when all's said and done, there's Ofo. Ofo offers users lots of options, or rather, is one of lots Ofo ptions. These are like Boris bikes, only yellow, and cleverer. You download the app - either Ofo, Mobike, Bluegogo or I think there is one more; pay a deposit; scan & ride! There are no docking stations, so bikes are scattered EVERYWHERE like pock-marks on a glorious chocolate & banana cake. Pick up wherever, leave wherever. One quai a pop, that's about 12p, and they ride like low-riders. In fact, when it comes to comfort, I'm sure they're fantastic for people of smaller stature than myself. Not designed for chaps over six foot, but they do make for smooth zoomin'.



This weekend just passed was the Chinese festival of 清明节. Got that? Oh, what's that? Can't read it?!!? Imagine how I feel!! OK, so the festival is called Qing Ming Jie, or All Souls Day / Tomb-Sweeping Day. It is a time for honouring one's ancestors, so many people go back home to their families, visit the graves of dead relatives, sweep their tombs and leave them food, wine, tea, chopsticks or other goodies to help them in the hereafter.This year it was observed on the 4th April, and merits two days' holiday. Lessons were rescheduled, so all told we had a three and a half day weekend. What do you do on three and a half day weekends? Climb a flipping mountain.

I had met some students a few days earlier, in the field in the middle of the track, who had taught me a brill new Chinese card game called Gān Dèng Yăn, whose company had been swell, and who had invited me to go climbing with them at the weekend. Two and two together = here we are! / were. We're down now.

Spot the Soph! She's ever so sophiesticated.



At the top of a large amount of stairs, there was a wonderful temple, with shrines and joss sticks, the works, and these elegant lampshades. I suppose they were hoping no one poked around inside them whilst no one was looking and saw the IKEA logo!!!!!!!



It was a treacherous walk up a great many steps, mud plains and grassy knolls, but we all made it alive, sweaty betties to the hilt and smiling with more enthusiasm than I ever thought possible. Wait for the apex though, because when in China, you have to take photos of everything along the way up the mountain, including collective selves. This is not obligatory but compulsory, and is actually rather fun. Besides, my comrades' (woah, politically turgid word considering my location!) penchant for pictorial documentation rendered my own camera almost ruddy futile, and my eyes free. Hoowah.

Here is #1 of boss team looking boss. From left to right, I give you Fei Long, nominal chief of our band (he instigated our first meeting, brought the climbing gear, wore the sunglasses, had arms bared, etc., thus earning his title); next is Lou Xian, principle photographer and dutiful translator/teacher of Chinese language; on the right of me or to MY LEFT is Chen Xie, second-in-command on the climbing front and all-round calming presence; Zhou Yu, who faintly resonates with punk vibe and certainly knows how to dance; young Sophie, whom you know, pulling the cha V like an absolute stinger. Who you gonna call?



Here, again, in this photo taken by Lou Xian (principle photographer in action) I plundered centre-stage for all it was worth, turning side-on in order to appear extra casual, like this climbing business is, has always been and will forever be a righteous doddle, no more no less. Sophie is competing for Lou Xian's title, as evinced by her indefatigable efforts to snap the snapper while she snaps. Fortunately we are all pacifists so no real snapping occurred.

At the top, we discovered (much to my chagrin - I bet the bastards already knew) that we weren't the first intrepid explorers to ever reach the summit. Many families live there, and they cook up a darned good bowl of dàn chǎofàn - egg fried rice. We gobbled and slurped from the darned big bowl, and another of scrumptious cabbagey soup until...

it was all gone!

We hung loose for some time, letting that pile of rice move downwards to the bottom of our stomachs, and then, as if to tempt and taunt fate, we shook up the Christmas crystal balls of our insides, letting rice-snow scatter in whorls and torrents about our stomach-walls.



What does that mean?? -- It means we went climbing // for real climbing! Here is one of me doing the old switcheroo on a boulder that thinks it's cleverer than me. Little does it know that I have sentience on my side, and elbows made of steel (and a rope attached to my pant-line which catches me if I fall - HA).



Zhou Yu is triumphant, for she hath scaled that wall with both thumbs raised and clothed in flowers or birds. The wall and rugged ropes tried their darnedest to pinion her but she is strong like an ox and nimble like a hare and multifarious other similes and is thereby unpinionable, and grinning.



I know not what we rep, but I rep with the reppers. My neck has grown a thumbs-up so what choice do I have??!



Abseiling is great.



By this time, we had each of us accumulated quite an appetite. Fortunately for us Angles, our Chinese cohort had thought ahead! Part of our luggage during the ascent was food, two bags overflowing with all sorts of colours and leaves. Sun down, tummies grumbling, the knives and the axes come out, and we get down to the real Hannibal Lector stuff. Where are they? They're right here, cooking up a storm!

This was kind of like hot-pot, but I suppose was more accurately maocai. Things fried and then stewed and boiled and separated and flavoured, marinated and freshly chopped and all kinds of joy. This was a serious feast and left us all feeling fantastic. Finish with coffee and a bit of dark choc Toblerone (my contribution) and a quick game of tag -- wahey!! 

We camped on the floor of the restaurant shack, and had a swell brek too! Heavens above.



This mountain has caves, which we entered. I reminded Sophie of The Descent, a film about a crew of half a dozen women who enter an untapped cave system, become trapped and are hunted UNTIL DEATH (no spoilers) by undead freaky deaky flesh-eating and morbidly hungry humanoids. So that was nice.

Here she is now, debating escape routes with the other girls while I watch from on high, crouched on all fours and dropping globules of saliva onto the rocky floor. Or maybe they are deciding who they will eat first - me or Fei Long? I got out long before they did, so the joke's on them.



The land here is joyous, and therefore glows a lustrous pink. Its luminescence can be felt and heard, especially to the synesthetic among us. Zhou Yu spent some time listening to the intricacies of the hillside fugue and grew half an inch as a result. These truly are remarkable dales.



Lunch was more of the same, more of the terrific same. Hyuk hyuk hyuk.

Many Chinese hands make much light work, and much tasty food. Sophie and I watched in quiet admiration as none of them chopped their fingers off, silent but for a steady gastric rumble.



Chicken feet really are a thing here. They're in all the shops, and I've written about them before, but this was the first time I've borne witness to young folks just like us eating them simply because they want to. To us, thus far, they've been something of a novelty, possibly a source of bemusement, curiosity, etc. But these chaps were wolfing them down as apperitifs, no holds bARRed. Different people, different methods. Sometimes it's one toe at a time, sometimes the whole thing goes in, gets churned with molars and spittle, and emerges after two or three minutes as a mere pile of brittle. That's good work.

Are they toes? What's the word? Talons, claws, digits...

Doesn't Lou Xian look happy with hers? And when she asks why I'm not happy with mine, what should I say? Shit on your customs, it's weird! ? or perhaps I should say to the claw, it's not you, it's me. But is that honest? It is the claw. It's the very fact that it is a claw.



We got right muddy in the cave and I LOVED it. We all made it out alive and kicking (though not each other, remember pacifist comment above). I was invited to sit down by this lady, who probably used to have more teeth, but whose face and manner held more wisdom and character than any fully betoothed human I know.



All told, it was a groovy two days. We made friends, we ate, we even guffawed. We moved with the tide of the hour, and it was good. Credit to Lou Xian for the bulk of the decent pics here. Snapper strikes again.



Our journey home lacked some of the peach of the holiday, but we had each other, and we put our minds to work on picking up new words (well, Sophie put her mind to work on sleeping, and you can't say fairer than that).

*

Round-up:

I had a discussion with my doctors & nurses class yesterday about their own practical and theoretical perceptions of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) versus so-called western medicine, and it was very interesting indeed, even using only quite basic English.

I'm reading Zadie Smith's first book, White Teeth, and it's bloody wonderful. Honest & sensitive handling of different people from different places, blunt rendering of London beauty and ugliness, human beauty and ugliness, totally possesses the playfulness of a first piece of writing or first novel, not weighed down by duty of writing at all, semantically and thematically fun, funny, modest; takes no prisoners, having a good time with it.

I wrote out a full two A5 pages of pinyin Chinese yesterday or the day before about various things, using almost all the words I've learned over the last few weeks. Slowly but surely it's coming, and I can say some things! Pls don't test me. Thx. Been drinking lots of walnut milk - sweet, wholesome, nutty, faintly woody, everything I want in a carton.



when daylight stings your daylight wings
you dwell too long in velvet rings

a bluebird stops and slowly chimes
along with tales of loving times

and roving hymns to spark a smile,
mark the sun, a twinkle dial

no more weight, no hardened wings
for now's the time to chime and sing

*

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