Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [53]
"Only what?"
"Only please don't go away till we've talked it over. I'm so frightened."
Hugh was paying for the beers, which were only twenty centavos; thirty less than the armadillo, he thought. "Or do you want another?" He had to raise his voice above the renewed clamour of the plant: dungeons: dungeons: dungeons: it said.
"I can't finish this one. You finish it for me."
Their cavalcade moved off again slowly, out of the courtyard, through the massive gate into the road beyond. As by common consent they turned right, away from the railway station. A camión was approaching behind them from the town and Hugh reined in beside Yvonne while the dog herded the foals along the ditch. The bus--Tomalín: Zócalo--disappeared, clanging round a corner. "That's one way to get to Parián." Yvonne averted her face from the dust.
"Wasn't that the Tomalín bus?"
"Just the same it's the easiest way to get to Parián. I think there is a bus goes straight there, but from the other end of the town, and by another road, from Tepalzanco."
"There seems to be something sinister about Parián."
"It's a very dull place actually. Of course it's the old capital of the state. Years ago there used to be a huge monastery there, I believe--rather like Oaxaca in that respect. Some of the shops and even the cantinas are part of what were once the monks' quarters. But it's quite a ruin."
"I wonder what Weber sees in it," Hugh said. They left the cypresses and the plant behind. Having come, unwarned, to a gateless level-crossing they turned right once more, this time heading homeward.
They were riding abreast down the railway lines Hugh had seen from the grove, flanking the grove in almost the opposite direction to the way they had approached. On either side a low embankment sloped to a narrow ditch, beyond which stretched scrub-land. Above them telegraph wires twanged and whined: guitarra guitarra guitarra: which was, perhaps, a better thing to say than dungeons . The railway--a double track but of narrow gauge--now divagated away from the grove, for no apparent reason, then wandered back again parallel to it. A little farther on, as if to balance matters, it made a similar deviation towards the grove. But in the distance it curved away in a wide leftward sweep of such proportions one felt it must logically come to involve itself again with the Tomalín road. This was too much for the telegraph poles that strode straight ahead arrogantly and were lost from sight.
Yvonne was smiling. "I see you look worried. There's really a story for your Globe in this line."
"I can't make out what sort of damn thing it is at all."
"It was built by you English. Only the company was paid by the kilometre."
Hugh laughed loudly. "How marvellous. You don't mean it was laid out in this cockeyed fashion just for the sake of the extra mileage, do you?" "That's what they say. Though I don't suppose it's true." "Well, well. I'm disappointed. I'd been thinking it must be some delightful Mexican whimsey. It certainly gives one to think however."
"Of the capitalist system?" There was again a hint of mockery about Yvonne's smile.
"It reminds one of some story in Punch ... Did you know there was a place called Punch in Kashmir by the by?" (Yvonne murmured, shaking her head.) "--Sorry, I've forgotten what I was going to say."
"What do you think about Geoffrey?" Yvonne asked the question at last. She was leaning forward, resting on the pommel, watching him sideways. "Hugh, tell me the truth. Do you think there's any--well--hope for him?" Their mares were picking their way delicately along this unusual lane, the foals keeping farther ahead than before, glancing round from time to time for approbation at their daring. The dog ran ahead of the foals though he never failed to dodge back periodically to see all was well. He was sniffing busily for snakes among the metals.
"About his drinking, do you mean?"
"Do you think there's anything I can do?"
Hugh looked down at some blue wildflowers like forget-me-nots that had somehow found a place to grow between the sleepers on the track. These innocents had their problem too: what is this frightful dark sun that roars and strikes at our eyelids every few minutes? Minutes? Hours more likely. Perhaps even days: the lone semaphores seemed permanently up, it might be sadly expeditious to ask about trains oneself. "I dare say you've heard about his 'strychnine,' as he calls it," Hugh said. "The journalist's cure. Well, I actually got the stuff by prescription from some guy in Quauhnahuac who knew you both at one time."