Chapter 1
It was an odd season in Java. Rain the size and density of ripe walnuts ceaselessly attacked the crude corrugated roofs sheltering the Indonesian inhabitants. Water rolled in rivulets down the steep slopes, clattering like the polite, haughty ladies that gathered for the religious sipping of Earl Grey in the late morning. Children flitted trough the relentless drumming like unstable shadows and chirped like excitable birds. Their families huddled beneath the shelters like crows on a branch, looking miserable. But it was relieved misery. The rice fields would be drenched for the first time in months, perhaps yielding a healthy crop. What had they to frown upon?
Heaven just had to make a godsend wet and cold. The old crones occasionally hopped from the crowded, shadowy confines to prance on stiff limbs in the hailing weather, as if skipping on scolding coals, before hobbling under the canopies again, exposing toothless grins of rasping laughter. Their bare gums gnawed on disgusting bitter leaves pinched from rainforest shrubbery. The village reeked of it. A subtle pair of hazy pupils was resignedly following the old people dart to and from wet and dry, comparing them to senseless children playing a drunken variation of British Bulldog. The eyes had often observed children scurrying around the estates like vermin, pursuing reckless balls or tapping spinning hoops with rods; some poised stationary, absorbed in concentration, and attempting to cup a soaring ball attached to yarn in a vessel like a chalice. Sometimes, the urchins would slither past the boundaries and join them, flaunting their skills with the infants' trinkets: they were always the best – instinct and reflex sharpened by the flogger's threats. The eyes would watch from the windowpane towering above the lawns, not even listening to the fluent ramblings issued by the mistress. How she hated it when it was humid, when she would squat by her desk and perspire, confronted by sums that tangled her thought, while the children frolicked below and their laughter pealed and chimed through the silence of writhing minds. How she would envy, and colour emerald green, and yearn, and imagine. Underneath the eyes, there was a nose – quite ironic - that was creased and flared like a mare's, averted from the pungent scent of the herb. Beneath the nostrils, there was an upper lip, scarlet and slick, that was curled like a flake of butter with a knife of contempt. The tongue underneath the lip clicked mechanically, from roof to floor, roof to floor, of the mouth, exploring like a curious serpent. The tongue and the hazy eyes belonged to Miss J. Buckingham. (The original design of the nose and lips were that of an aristocratic model for ladies' corsets – Irene Caroline Ermintrude – but that is irrelevant. The result of the lips is a pout like a crater.) Miss Buckingham was perched placidly on a wicker seat stationed by the grimy pane of a window. Several inches away churned the automated organs of a typical steam engine, belching gritty fumes like her dear Uncle Frederick after a particularly carbonated bottle of rich champagne. (Note the 'bottle' is referred to rather than a convenient 'glass'.)
"Stop that, Jemmabel," muttered her mother, a vulture in coral pink petticoats. Jemima's habit was indeed repulsive, distracting and avoided all tactical laws of etiquette. Needless to say, she continued to clop – adding extra volume in spite. "Daddy, this is positively hideous," said the lips, for it is now necessary to separate the lips from Miss Buckingham for we have just learnt that they do not belong to her, in a manner of speaking. Miss Buckingham traced the rim of a heavy, floral mug with her delicate gloved finger, then inspected the residue on the finger grimly. "I know, Jemmy. It won't take long. Parkinson, damned fellow! What's the stall?" bawled Lord Buckingham in his nasal drawl, adapted from the country house afternoons. "I'm getting wet!" "Awfully sorry, sir. Just a – slight eke of the tension, er, meaning a slight tweak of the engine, um, sir," babbled an awkward David Parkinson, wringing his oily hands like wet flannels. Well, the second adjective in that sentence would be accurate enough. The poor man was saturated. The lips complained in the same thick voice as her father. "Really, Daddy. I did recommend the later train. What a waste of time! What is the hurry to get to Bangkok anyway, darling?" Lord Buckingham was a broad fellow with a moustache like a pair of tusks protruding from a very dull, haughty expression permanently attached to his face like a crustacean. And his lips weren't his own either. "I know, Jemmy darling. Curs'd employees! What do I pay you for, man? Dawdling like a bad smell? Get a move on, common weed! Move it along, now. Hup, hup, hup!" But the authority and frequent tendency to spank the shying engineers did not accelerate the process any more than the heavens prising open and letting rip an increasingly ferocious hail. Yes, it made things considerably worse. After discarding poor Parkinson, Lord Buckingham began to pat his waistcoat pockets, his cufflinked sleeves, his breast pocket lined with an embroidered handkerchief, snorting and grunting like a rhinoceros stifling a sneeze. "Damned cigars...Merryl, do you have my cigars?"
The Lady Buckingham inclined her head gracefully, and pricked him with an icy glare.
"You know quite well what I think of your cigars, Benedict. Although I wish I had confiscated them earlier, no. I do not have your cigars. They have no purpose, for which I have use for," she spat.
"Oh...oh, well. Jemima, do you have my cigars?"
"No, Daddy. I would not take them in the first place," replied Jemima sweetly.
Unknowingly, the Lord Buckingham had been involved in a natural Indonesian custom, common in the poor areas. It concerned relieving a rich, courtly businessman of any items holding particular affection, slight potential on a polite, respectable market scale or any such value. (The definition does not include returning such item.)
Lord Buckingham had promptly had his vast range of pockets, trousers, shirt and waistcoat, which many had starved for due to unjust labour, picked thoroughly – twice infact, the second wretch much more disappointed than the first.
It was an odd season in Java. Rain the size and density of ripe walnuts ceaselessly attacked the crude corrugated roofs sheltering the Indonesian inhabitants. Water rolled in rivulets down the steep slopes, clattering like the polite, haughty ladies that gathered for the religious sipping of Earl Grey in the late morning. Children flitted trough the relentless drumming like unstable shadows and chirped like excitable birds. Their families huddled beneath the shelters like crows on a branch, looking miserable. But it was relieved misery. The rice fields would be drenched for the first time in months, perhaps yielding a healthy crop. What had they to frown upon?
Heaven just had to make a godsend wet and cold. The old crones occasionally hopped from the crowded, shadowy confines to prance on stiff limbs in the hailing weather, as if skipping on scolding coals, before hobbling under the canopies again, exposing toothless grins of rasping laughter. Their bare gums gnawed on disgusting bitter leaves pinched from rainforest shrubbery. The village reeked of it. A subtle pair of hazy pupils was resignedly following the old people dart to and from wet and dry, comparing them to senseless children playing a drunken variation of British Bulldog. The eyes had often observed children scurrying around the estates like vermin, pursuing reckless balls or tapping spinning hoops with rods; some poised stationary, absorbed in concentration, and attempting to cup a soaring ball attached to yarn in a vessel like a chalice. Sometimes, the urchins would slither past the boundaries and join them, flaunting their skills with the infants' trinkets: they were always the best – instinct and reflex sharpened by the flogger's threats. The eyes would watch from the windowpane towering above the lawns, not even listening to the fluent ramblings issued by the mistress. How she hated it when it was humid, when she would squat by her desk and perspire, confronted by sums that tangled her thought, while the children frolicked below and their laughter pealed and chimed through the silence of writhing minds. How she would envy, and colour emerald green, and yearn, and imagine. Underneath the eyes, there was a nose – quite ironic - that was creased and flared like a mare's, averted from the pungent scent of the herb. Beneath the nostrils, there was an upper lip, scarlet and slick, that was curled like a flake of butter with a knife of contempt. The tongue underneath the lip clicked mechanically, from roof to floor, roof to floor, of the mouth, exploring like a curious serpent. The tongue and the hazy eyes belonged to Miss J. Buckingham. (The original design of the nose and lips were that of an aristocratic model for ladies' corsets – Irene Caroline Ermintrude – but that is irrelevant. The result of the lips is a pout like a crater.) Miss Buckingham was perched placidly on a wicker seat stationed by the grimy pane of a window. Several inches away churned the automated organs of a typical steam engine, belching gritty fumes like her dear Uncle Frederick after a particularly carbonated bottle of rich champagne. (Note the 'bottle' is referred to rather than a convenient 'glass'.)
"Stop that, Jemmabel," muttered her mother, a vulture in coral pink petticoats. Jemima's habit was indeed repulsive, distracting and avoided all tactical laws of etiquette. Needless to say, she continued to clop – adding extra volume in spite. "Daddy, this is positively hideous," said the lips, for it is now necessary to separate the lips from Miss Buckingham for we have just learnt that they do not belong to her, in a manner of speaking. Miss Buckingham traced the rim of a heavy, floral mug with her delicate gloved finger, then inspected the residue on the finger grimly. "I know, Jemmy. It won't take long. Parkinson, damned fellow! What's the stall?" bawled Lord Buckingham in his nasal drawl, adapted from the country house afternoons. "I'm getting wet!" "Awfully sorry, sir. Just a – slight eke of the tension, er, meaning a slight tweak of the engine, um, sir," babbled an awkward David Parkinson, wringing his oily hands like wet flannels. Well, the second adjective in that sentence would be accurate enough. The poor man was saturated. The lips complained in the same thick voice as her father. "Really, Daddy. I did recommend the later train. What a waste of time! What is the hurry to get to Bangkok anyway, darling?" Lord Buckingham was a broad fellow with a moustache like a pair of tusks protruding from a very dull, haughty expression permanently attached to his face like a crustacean. And his lips weren't his own either. "I know, Jemmy darling. Curs'd employees! What do I pay you for, man? Dawdling like a bad smell? Get a move on, common weed! Move it along, now. Hup, hup, hup!" But the authority and frequent tendency to spank the shying engineers did not accelerate the process any more than the heavens prising open and letting rip an increasingly ferocious hail. Yes, it made things considerably worse. After discarding poor Parkinson, Lord Buckingham began to pat his waistcoat pockets, his cufflinked sleeves, his breast pocket lined with an embroidered handkerchief, snorting and grunting like a rhinoceros stifling a sneeze. "Damned cigars...Merryl, do you have my cigars?"
The Lady Buckingham inclined her head gracefully, and pricked him with an icy glare.
"You know quite well what I think of your cigars, Benedict. Although I wish I had confiscated them earlier, no. I do not have your cigars. They have no purpose, for which I have use for," she spat.
"Oh...oh, well. Jemima, do you have my cigars?"
"No, Daddy. I would not take them in the first place," replied Jemima sweetly.
Unknowingly, the Lord Buckingham had been involved in a natural Indonesian custom, common in the poor areas. It concerned relieving a rich, courtly businessman of any items holding particular affection, slight potential on a polite, respectable market scale or any such value. (The definition does not include returning such item.)
Lord Buckingham had promptly had his vast range of pockets, trousers, shirt and waistcoat, which many had starved for due to unjust labour, picked thoroughly – twice infact, the second wretch much more disappointed than the first.