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young girl. She had a brightly coloured greegree high on one arm, and wide solemn lips. Seeing Borelli she cupped her hand over her mouth.
    â€˜I could stay here a few years,’ Garry Atlas told North. Nudge, nudge. ‘What d’you reckon?’
    North suddenly cleared his throat loudly. Cathcart was peering inside the nearest round hut: travel broadens the mind. And Mrs Cathcart began pulling faces. There must have been a smell nearby. Or was it the dirt? Cross-eyed goats watched; dogs with sores trotted in and out among shards. Holding up money and pointing, Hofmann tried to buy a woman’s necklace, but she kept laughing and glancing at her friends. ‘Good, good, that’s it, good,’ Kaddok kept saying, shooting close up: women, balloon-bellied children, goats, their cooking pots and huts. Rapidly reloading in the shade he fumbled, such was his eagerness.
    On the ground lay large squashed insects. A dry wind rolled brittle carcasses among the huts. Bending down North smoothed the dust and inspected like a geomancer: Locusta migratoria . Wide pronotum, or dorsal selerite, yellow and black (gregarious phase). Characterised by short horns. Locust, originally from lobster ? Could be. A plague here: been? gone? In many countries used for food. Balance; revenge.
    â€˜Take it off, someone! Quickly!’ Sasha screamed, both hands over her ears.
    â€˜Who did that?’ Violet demanded. Garry lifted a long locust from Sasha’s shoulder and stamped on it. The old women of the village were all laughing: toothless, with jewellery jingling. Their dogs began barking and ran around in circles. It seemed to the group they were liked, or had been accepted, and at such short notice.
    The Cathcarts came back to the bus, satisfied. Doug beamed a bit to show their approval. These people were all right. Some of the women stood up, breasts swinging, and children crowded around the metal door, staring. The driver started the engine.
    Mrs Cathcart bent down before getting in.
    â€˜And what’s this little tacker’s name?’
    The boy pointed to himself:
    â€˜Oxford University Press.’
    â€˜She means your name,’ Doug put in, encouraging.
    The boy nodded.
    â€˜Oxford University Press.’
    â€˜That’s nice. Doug, give him a coin. What would you like to be, dear, when you grow up?’
    The boy looked up at Mrs Cathcart. The driver began revving the four-cylinder engine.
    â€˜A tourist.’

2
    Heavy stone: bevelled edges. If not bevelled, the edges blended into the cement-coloured (overcast) sky. The downpipes of houses, the edges of elms and the poles, the outline of a man’s nose and forehead blur with the air, a type of barnacle or optical protoplasm—opposite to the startling clarity of the Southern Hemisphere, There was a heavy steadiness. Untidy stateliness. Even the air seemed old.
    Permanence (stone), ancient power of seats and establishments, stone fingertips and pigeon shit: grey, all weighed down and rained upon.
    Order, order! Time had worn channels in the city, but smoothed the faces of the English. In a bus which suffered from respiratory problems the group gradually approached the centre, channelled by the houses and bevelled hedges which immediately closed in behind (the jungle in Africa, the maze at Hampton Court); yet once at the centre there was no ‘centre’. It was somewhere else. Rolls/Bentleys blurred past all aglitter, tall cabs knocked on diesel—immensely practical; and Jaguars, dark Daimlers with the gold line hand-painted along the side (patience: handed down), and small Triumphs, labouring Hillmans, Morgans and many Morrises—miles of Oxfords and Minors, like those rows of trimmed houses. Yet at the same time London offered to them an instant gaiety. Not only with its little window boxes and the double-deckers the colour of geraniums, but in the language; theirs again. Messages were everywhere. And there was gaiety, subtle