Read Online Looking for Mrs Dextrose by Nick Griffiths - Free Book Online

constraint. I was on the craziest, most
intoxicating holiday of my life. And I would drink it in.
    The leader, Gdgi, was seated centrally on one side of the far middle table, in the largest chair of all. His torso, arms and head were painted yellow, his hair whitened. On his head he wore a
coiled snake, poised to strike, hood extended, which was dead enough but still threatening. He spotted the Shaman and I, and beckoned us towards him.
    “Welcome!” he said, standing up. He had swapped to a golden codpiece, I noted. “Please, you must join our table,” he said, waving towards two spare stools next to each
other and opposite him, though I had hoped to avoid sitting near the Shaman.
    “This is my wife,” said Gdgi, helping the woman to his right to her feet.
    It was all I could do to avoid looking perplexed. Grey haired, thin and toothless, hunch-backed, half his height and twice his age, her breasts hung like unoccupied hammocks beneath a thick
golden neck-chain. Hanging from her waist, covering her privates, was some sort of mini armadillo.
    I waved at her gormlessly. The Shaman bowed; his son said nothing.
    As I took my seat, I said to Gdgi, “I see you have tables here.”
    “Yes,” he replied, shrugging.
    Then I remembered: “Ah yes. I brought you a gift.”
    “How kind. You should not have.”
    I held out the cigar.
    His eyes lit up. “How wonderful. Cigars are one of my favourite things. How did you know?”
    Should I come clean? “Always do your homework – that’s my motto!” I laughed falsely and avoided looking at the Shaman.
    The other occupants of our table clapped in appreciation and I bowed. They were more elderly than most attendees, and boasted the shiniest jewellery. I nodded at the gentleman to my left. He
looked at me as if I had just shat in his lap and I wondered whether nodding had negative connotations in these parts.
    “My name is Pilsbury,” I said, extending a hand.
    He stared at it, wrinkling his nose, and said something in his native tongue.
    “Do you speak English?” I asked.
    He nodded.
    “Thank goodness for that! Could have been an awkward dinner party otherwise!”
    Gdgi called across. “That is Ekoto. He is one of the elders who refuses to learn English. He is a bit of a grumpy old sod, I am afraid.”
    Then the leader clapped his hands and the sound of drums began to echo through the jungle as masked dancers, their masks representing jungle animals, their waists wrapped in red sashes, began to
circle us, losing themselves in the tribal rhythms.
    A middle-aged woman, wearing earrings the diameter of dinner plates, brought around a tray laden with drinks and popped one in front of each diner. I hoped it might be cold beer, however it
turned out to be an insipid creamy brew that tasted bittersweet and on the cusp of unpleasantness, at least with an alcoholic aftertaste that suggested perseverance might prove worthwhile.
    I called the earring lady back. “Excuse me, what is this drink?”
    She raised an eyebrow and clicked her tongue. “It is ch-ch. It is made from root swallowed by woman then collected later when shat into pot.”
    I retched, barely managing to keep the terrible concoction down.
    The earring lady spotted this, looked quizzical then tutted to herself. “I am sorry. I meant spat, not shat. Your language, it is very complicated.”
    Somehow her revision felt like an improvement.
    Food began to appear on the table. Piles of pork meat and crackling; the pig’s head stripped of its ears, which had been sliced up and placed beside it; its tail,
blackened and in one piece; way too much stuff that looked like offal; a pile of what looked like roasted rodents; fruits and vegetables – tubas, squashes, nuts and greens, in shades of
browns, reds and yellows – the like of which I had never seen; plates of flat bread and bowls of honey; and – ah – reed dishes filled with fat, writhing grubs trying desperately
to escape over the dish rims. Aside from