“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 God 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. “Fucking hell. 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 fuck a goat, Neal.”
“Sheep, then?”
“Don’t be coarse. I’m trying to have an elevated conversation here.”
“So you’re wondering in a scientific sense about the physical sensation of the act?”
“Well, sort of.”
“Technically, a sheep would be better than a goat.”
“Why is that, then?”
“A sheep’d take instructions from you.”
I let that sink in.
Neal asked, “Ray, you are talking about a female sheep, right?”
“No, Neal, there’s nothing wrong with fucking a male sheep, because if I did find something wrong with it, that would mean I was insensitive to the needs of the gay sheep community, and, of course, I believe in equality and peace and freedom for everybody—Oi! Benders forever! But for the purposes of this discussion, yes, female sheep. Definitely. And definitely not lambs. Because that would be wrong.”
“Well, you couldn’t really just hop the fence and go at it. You’d have to establish some level of trust first.”
“Neal, I really think taking a ewe on a date is too much effort for too little payoff.”
“Like she might change her mind at the end—and then you’re out ten quid for a plate full of clover and a zinc bucket of lager.”
“Neal. Stop right now.”
“You’re right. Probably all you’d need is a pile of alfalfa to keep the front end busy, and maybe a leash to make sure it doesn’t bolt when you get to the good part.”
“That sounds about right.”
“I feel like I’m on the Discovery Channel, decoding animal intelligence like this. You bring out the best in me, Ray.”
“I’m touched, but back to our sheep. You’ve got past the first hurdles and now you’re, well, ready to make the big move.”
“Wait, Ray—condom or unprotected? I don’t want to get mad cow or anything.”
“Neal, I think you should be more worried about your date. She’s only been grazing in a meadow for a few years, whereas you’ve basically been the clogged bacterial centrifuge of West London since the days of Adam Ant.”