Homesickness Read Online Free Page B

beggar on crutches managed to stand up, other gangetic shapes moved and as both Louisa Hofmann and Violet felt it necessary to lift their hems, bones shot out, fingernails, yes, for baksheesh.
    â€˜Don’t give them anything,’ Doug Cathcart shouted, his mouth dry. Borelli had one hand in his pocket. ‘Or you’ll never get rid of them. They’ll tag along!’
    And Kaddok, raising his camera at one—a face swollen with ganglia—nicely caught the open mouth and milky stare of a native, blind.
    Looking up then they could see that the sans-serif MUSEU OF HANDICRAFTS was ‘printed’ in neon pipes. MUSEU was not a misspelling or an example—as Sasha had assumed—of some local dialect. The M had long ago fallen off in a wind and as they passed underneath they were showered in sparks from the permanent short circuit.
    Sheila attached herself to the Cathcarts as they moved inside and immediately began looking around for the handicrafts. The unexpected bright lighting, circuits of flickering fluorescent, punctuated by duds and ceiling fans, and others about to expire, made her sneeze. She blew her nose. The Museum sounded completely empty. A few divisions of plywood broke up the cavernous space. Even from a distance these looked ricketty.
    In a peeved voice Gerald asked whether it was open or finished yet.
    There was after all a smell of fresh paint.
    Doug Cathcart cleared his throat, a bit irritated.
    Ah! a tall robed figure appeared. He had bare feet and so they hadn’t heard him. Sasha and Violet exchanged glances, raising their eyebrows. He was a Masai, stone-faced, and smelling of cattle. Although he said nothing they all followed him. Now in the bright hall they could see heads and eyes of the museum staff in cubicles apparently waiting for their arrival. The guide stopped and looked on with them. An attendant—or was he curator?—in khaki shorts and bare feet busily wrapped some rope around a dented lawnmower. His cubicle was crowded with lawnmowers. All appeared to be in original condition (the bottle-green duco) although the filigree of scratches and the mirror-finish of the flywheels indicated a long hard life. One still had the rare canvas grass-catcher, a British invention. Borelli speculated whether that model would have been pre-Suez. Along with the sturdy British motorcycle, the mowers ( By Appointment …in gold transfer) held the lion’s share of the export market. At the height of the Empire… Foreshadowing the Empire’s decline, the BSA motorbikes and Moffatt & Richardson mowers of the 1950s developed stasis in their design and model range, proclaimed more a sturdy heaviness, as if the traditional arteries from Head Office had gradually and irreparably hardened.
    With a leap backwards the mechanic/attendant started a two-stroke. Within the stone walls it kicked up a tremendous reverberating racket and the blue smoke made the ladies step back and press handkerchiefs to their nostrils. He started another, then a third—a small one with an unusual kick-starter. Then he turned to the one which clearly held pride of place, the large bowling green model in the foreground: heavy roller and perforated tractor seat! For all its size this seemed to be the quietest of them all, ‘the Rolls Royce of lawnmowers’; but by then with what, four, five firing and vibrating together it was difficult to tell. For Chrissake!’ Doug Cathcart shouted. ‘Tell him to stop!’ Turning and waving his arms at the guide he found the Masai and the Brown attendant standing open-mouthed, watching the machines. The smoke—‘carbon monoxide’, Gwen Kaddok repeated several times, choking—would hang in the hall for hours.
    The next few exhibits were without attendants.
    Under glass three English toothpaste tubes were at different stages of use: full, half full (thumb-dented tube, white worm protruding), and a fine example of a completely