Part 16 (1/2)

and hen's eggs. Or maybe excellent entertainment

on a colour television set.

”Satellite dish since 1994.”

Bridge to North Island is now out of commission

due to salt corrosion. Truck access now only

at lowest tide.

Remember: condoms promote licentiousness,

so reconsider before using.

Coral is pretty, but it cuts you easily and then

infection will set in and you will die.

Remember sand shoes when visiting reefs.

Kiribati is a full voting member of the United Nations.

Kiribati has few natural resources. Commercially viable phosphate deposits were exhausted by 1979, when it gained its independence from England. Copra and fish now represent the bulk of production and exports. Tourism provides more than one-fifth of the country's GDP. It's a very, very dull place.

Dear al Qaeda, If you ever feel like putting some of your young lads on planes again, I have just the place for you. Snuggled in the warm waters of the central Pacific, Bonriki Airport has about as much protection as a leftover plate of spaghetti in the fridge covered with a layer of cling film. The facility's security team is composed of mange-ridden, malnourished stray dogs whom the natives take great relish in taunting with hurled coral chunks. And I wouldn't worry too much about CCTV cameras or the like. Chances are greater than not that the power is out. Honestly, you could stuff 200 pounds of Semtex up your gary in this place and no one would ever notice your payload. These people are ma.s.sive.

Yours, Raymond Gunt

29.

”Sarah, we just pa.s.sed our hotel.” (The hotel, I might add, resembled a detention facility in a cruel post-architectural world of cinder blocks and corrugated zinc sheeting. Dumpiness notwithstanding, I very much wanted to be there.) Sarah was rubbing my head with PABA lotion. ”We're going into town for supplies.”

”Why now? Shouldn't we at least check in first?”

”No. I think it's best to go now.”

The last thing I wanted was to displease Sarah, so I shut up.

Sarah, Neal, Elspeth and I were in a fifteen-seater Toyota van driven by a local. Owing to the escalating global nuclear situation, the private jet that brought us here was forbidden to leave. Elspeth had now joined us as a prisoner of Bonriki until things cooled down. Most everyone was waiting for the heli-evacuation unit to take us to the island so, nuclear crisis or not, we could start shooting our dreadful, dreadful, dreadful TV show.

Kiribati was basically Wake Island covered with palm trees, grey, highly flammable-looking thatched roofing, feral dogs, rusty trash barrels and thousands of poor people smiling, though G.o.d knows why.

Neal said, ”Supposedly, Kiribati will be the first country on earth to vanish with global warming. Saw that on the telly last year.”

”I can just imagine the ripple effect that news must be having at the United Nations,” I said. ”Kenya and Kuwait will have to sit beside each other. Sparks will fly.” Sarah's hands on my scalp felt heavenly, particularly when she worked the base of my skull-such tenderness. It almost made me forget the X-ray sunlight and the stop-and-go jerking of the van on a road that suddenly became blocked by goats.

I yelled a command to the driver. ”f.u.c.king h.e.l.l. Just throw rocks at them.”

”No, we must let goats do their thing.” Our driver, apparently, found goats sacred.

Sarah stopped her scalp rub and turned to Elspeth. ”Why don't you help me out with my shopping list. I can't wait to see the delicious local treats this magic island has to offer.”

I was horrified. ”No! My head isn't fully lotioned!”

”Oh, Raymond! I'll finish working on you later. Come on, Elspeth. My paper and stuff is at the back of the bus.”

Elspeth was excited. ”I wonder if they sell bikinis here, though I'd have to shave me lady bits first. Looking a bit like a barber shop floor at the moment.”

As the women sat in the rearmost seats and bonded over shopping, Neal and I stared at the goats. ”Neal,” I asked, ”have you ever, you know, wondered what it might be like with, well, not a person?”

”You mean a goat, Ray?”

”Neal, those are your words not mine, and I'm appalled that that's the first place your mind went-but a goat is as good a place to start as any.”

”So you are, then, thinking about goats?”

”No, no, I don't want to f.u.c.k a goat, Neal.”