Limekiller!

Henrietta, she hahve wahn abortion when she strain she-self. - “Abortion,” here, in the old sense of miscarriage. Henrietta, she hahve wahn pickney die young ahn bory in Baby Heaven (the Infants’ Burying-ground), wahn she do away with (“abortion” in the modem, or North American, sense), ahn t’ree living child she hahve, bock home, by Bullet Creek. “Henrietta, she says E-nough." (Jack was inclined to feel that Henrietta had a point. But —)

But Minerva, she of the tight frock, was not so inclined. “I ahm ah Cot-o-leek, ahn dat ees ah seen," she said, emphatically.

Another woman (Ernestine? Ernestine.) declared that she was not a Catholic although had been baptize one; nevertheless neither did she hold with taking little pills not to have baby. “It is ahgainst Nature,” she said. “If you make mellow, you suppose make child,” she said. “God want it so. Nah true?”

“Fah true, fah true, Ernestine!”

“I say, leff it to Nature. God want it so.”

“Fah true. - Here come Jeremy.”

Jeremy, the limber, light young man (“clear,” in the local language) who acted as assistant manager and courier to, in, and around about the Hotel Pelican, came up the stairs with the five bottles of Fanta, dancing to the music of the jukebox in the bar. “No fahget leff me de pints, now: mind," he cautioned them. The deposits on the bottles (and in British Hidalgo, all bottles were “pints” regardless of measure) were his commission. Jeremy, not that it mattered, had a long chin.

And, somehow, from hearing (and, thus, seeing) this every-day peaceful vista (can one hear a vista?), Jack’s mind and eyes oh so softly and without transition slipped along the Northern highway and its few but striking signs: Bless God Farm. Grine Meat for Sale. Trespasser Will Be Prosecuted. Banns Read In This Church. Cashew Wine for Sale. Trespassers Will be Persecuted. Colonial Immigration Ordinance, 1955 and Subsequently Amended (Section 4) This entitles JOHN LUTWIDGE LIMEKILLER holder of Canadian Passport No. 684,660 issued at Toronto on 7th Feb. 196 — to enter British Hidalgo and to remain therein subject to his/her

they could have asked JLL to have dropped his drawers at the border and so decided if it was his or her, but no

compliance with the provisions of subsection (6) of section 4 of the Colonial Immigration Ordinance, 1955 as Provided that Thou shalt not practice cozenage or guile nor deal with the Devil

Limekiller knew that he had fallen off back asleep; and, on hearing the words:

“. jungle…" knew that he had awakened again, and that, to prove that the whole imagery had come full circle and that time wras timeless, he would at once and once again hear the words, “No tahk aboet eel!” — and he did.

And next he heard, “Some of dese womans, dey using dev bodies, you does know what I means?” and, well, if one didn’t know what she meant, here, here at the Hotel Pelican, second biggest house of assignation (in effect: whorehouse: but not exclusively, though) in King Town, where in the hell would one know? — But one of the familiar voices swept this aside with another question: “Why Minerva no want we tahk aboet jungle?” — only, only, he being more awake this time than asleep, it sounded more as though the word were jumble… if one washed to be more precisely phonetic (and what in the hell was all this bullshit about phonetics when he was lying well-spent, half asleep, in a whorehouse?): “… jumble…“

. and one voice: “Becahse she fright. — What? You no fright from jungle?" Ans.: “ Whatt?. In King Toewn? No, gyel, me no fright here.”

His total reply to all this was the simple, Eh?

He must have said it out loud. “Eh?”

Because at this, Bathsheba awakened, rolled over, applied her hand to That One Talent Which Is Death To Hide, and, as it wasn’t really hidden at the moment, anyw ay. John Lutwidge Limekiller instantly forgot all about any goddam conversation elsewhere, no matter how near, whatsoever.

On whatsoever subject.