Anansi Boys

He lay on the hammock, in the tropical sunshine, listening to the music, basking in how extremely cool it was to be him—and for the first time even that, somehow, wasn’t enough.

He climbed out of the hammock and wandered over to the door. “Fat Charlie?”

There was no answer. The flat felt empty. Outside the windows of the flat, there was a gray day, and rain. Spider liked the rain. It seemed appropriate.

Shrill and sweet, the telephone rang. Spider picked it up.

Rosie said, “Is that you?”

“Hullo Rosie.”

“Last night,” she said. Then she didn’t say anything. Then she said, “Was it as wonderful for you as it was for me?”

“I don’t know,” said Spider. “It was pretty wonderful for me. So, I mean, that’s probably a yes.”

“Mmm,” she said.

They didn’t say anything.

“Charlie?” said Rosie.

“Uh-huh?”

“I even like not saying anything, just knowing you’re on the other end of the phone.”

“Me too,” said Spider.

They enjoyed the sensation of not saying anything for a while longer, savoring it, making it last.

“Do you want to come over to my place tonight?” asked Rosie. “My flatmates are in the Cairngorms.”

“That,” said Spider, “may be a candidate for the most beautiful phrase in the English language. Myflatmates are in the Cairngorms. Perfect poetry.”

She giggled. “Twit. Um. Bring your toothbrush—?”

“Oh. Oh. Okay.”

And after several minutes of “you put down the phone” and “no you put the down the phone” that would have done credit to a pair of hormonally intoxicated fifteen-year-olds, the phone was eventually put down.

Spider smiled like a saint. The world, given that it had Rosie in it, was the best world that any world could possibly be. The fog had lifted, the world had ungloomed.

It did not even occur to Spider to wonder where Fat Charlie had gone. Why should he care about such trivia? Rosie’s flat-mates were in the Cairngorms, and tonight? Why, tonight he would be bringing his toothbrush.

Fat Charlie’s body was on a plane to Florida; it was crushed in a seat in the middle of a row of five people, and it was fast asleep. This was a good thing: the rear toilets had malfunctioned as soon as the plane was in the air, and although the cabin attendants had hung Out of Order signs on the doors, this did nothing to alleviate the smell, which spread slowly across the back of the plane like a low-level chemical fug. There were babies crying and adults grumbling and children whining. One faction of the passengers, en route to Walt Disney World, who felt that their holidays began the moment they got on the plane, had got settled into their seats then began a sing-song. They sang “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” and “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers,” and “Under the Sea” and “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It’s Off To Work We Go,” and even, under the impression that it was a Disney song as well, “We’re Off to See the Wizard.”

Once the plane was in the air it was discovered that, due to a catering confusion, no coach class lunch meals had been put on-board. Instead, only breakfasts had been packed, which meant there would be individual packs of cereal and a banana for all passengers, which they would have to eat with plastic knives and forks, because there were, unfortunately, no spoons, which may have been a good thing, because pretty soon there wasn’t any milk for the cereal, either.

It was a hell flight, and Fat Charlie was sleeping through it.

In Fat Charlie’s dream he was in a huge hall, and he was wearing a morning suit. Next to him was Rosie, wearing a white wedding dress, and on the other side of her on the dais was Rosie’s mother, who was, a little jarringly, also wearing a wedding dress, although this one was covered with dust and with cobwebs. Far away, at the horizon, which was the distant edge of the hall, there were people firing guns and waving white flags.

It’s just the people at Table H, said Rosie’s mother. Don’t pay them no attention.

Fat Charlie turned to Rosie. She smiled at him with her soft, sweet smile, then she licked her lips.

Cake, said Rosie, in his dream.

This was the signal for an orchestra to begin to play. It was a New Orleans jazz band, playing a funeral march.