To John, June, Magda, etc.
Away in the east the last headland slips under the horizon, and dry land becomes a memory. The world contracts to a circle of water, with the Talking Fish as its centre and a population of five half-naked men, two cats, one frog, an oyster and twenty-eight tins of sardines. We are alone at last with the sea and the sky and our great friend the sun, which pours its wealth upon us generously and unremittingly, browning our bodies and mellowing our philosophies.
Willy, flat on his back, stretches his arms luxuriously. ‘I’m almost convinced,’ he says, ‘that sun-worship is the only true faith.’
‘You’re getting soft,’ says Hugo, chewing a splinter of teak. He turns over on to his stomach and looks between the logs at the jumping, chuckling water.
Cwmlad Jones, who is wearing a leek in his swimming-trunks in honour of St. David’s day, shakes his head doubtfully. ‘Wonderful it is,’ he agrees; ‘but idolatry is something else altogether.’
It is Hugo’s turn to shake his head. He shakes it. ‘Gloh!’ he cries, and we look at him curiously. His beard is caught between two logs and he has lost interest in the discussion.
‘There you go again,’ says Cwmlad Jones, ‘you and your beard. I wonder you put up with it, mun.’
‘Blb-blb-blb Nnnnngh!’ says Hugo, and comes free with a jerk.
‘Safer it would be for all of us,’ says Cwmlad Jones, ‘if you should remove it.’
‘There’s a shark at my toes,’ says Batters, from below.
‘Well done, old chap,’ says Hugo.
I jot down the conversation in my notebook. An author’s life is no sinecure, even on a raft in the Pacific.
My name is Binder. I am an author, on a raft in the Pacific. My life is no sinecure.
The smooth Pacific swell pulsates lazily, like the slow heartbeat of a sleeping world. The raft rises and falls like a cradle, lulling us to a waking dream. Sun-strong reality dissolves to fantasy. The present becomes timeless and incomprehensible. What on earth, we wonder, are we doing here?
Willy raises his head. ‘What on earth are we doing here?’ he asks.
Cwmlad Jones scratches his plump thigh – the left one. ‘Something about fish, isn’t it?’
‘Who cares?’ says Hugo sleepily, and we drift away on our private dreams.
It is necessary to account for our presence on a raft in the Pacific. For me, it all started with an unexpected letter from Willy Wagstaff, whom I had not met since our schooldays, inviting me to visit him at his flat. He hinted at an adventure after my own heart and said he knew I would not fail him.
I consulted my dear wife, who agreed that I could not fail an old schoolmate; and a dismal November evening found me knocking at the shabby door of an attic room in a depressing house in Tooting.
As I remembered him, Willy Wagstaff was a bony, spectacled and pale-faced boy with long untidy hair and a passion for natural history. He was good at examinations and bad at games, but was respected for an ability to release important smells from deceptively innocent chemicals.
The door of the attic was opened by a bony, spectacled and pale-faced man with long untidy hair and a frog in his hand. Framed certificates hung behind him and a broken golf club stood against the wall. On the table was a beaker containing some deceptively innocent chemicals, from which came an important smell.
We shook hands cordially, frightening the frog, who protested at the top of his voice. To my surprise Willy answered him in the same language. ‘This is Darwin,’ he said. ‘He’s spending the winter with me. He says he’s glad to see you.’
This struck me as rather irregular; but not wishing to hurt anybody’s feelings I nodded to Darwin and remarked that any friend of Willy’s was a friend of mine.
‘In that case,’ said Willy, ‘you have a lot of friends. Come in and meet them.’
The small room contained few of the usual necessities of life, but it was stocked from floor to ceiling with little creatures of every conceivable kind. They hopped about in cages and boxes, crawled all over the walls and peeped at me from underneath every chair and table. Their cheeping and squeaking was not unpleasant to the ear; but their effect on the nose, combined with that of the deceptively innocent chemicals, was something beyond my experience.
Willy shooed a pair of hedgehogs, whom he introduced as Hengist and Horsa, from a dilapidated armchair, and invited me to sit down. Reflecting that this would not commit me to any specific course of action, I did so. A field-mouse on the mantelpiece interrupted her toilet to nod to me. Her name was Cleopatra.
Willy had removed a family of lizards – the Starchers – from a teapot, and was brewing something. I had summed him up at a glance. He was the eager boffin type: a real enthusiast; good at his job, but apt to let enthusiasm get the better of judgment – the sort of man who would let a family of lizards live in his teapot.
‘I hope you like seaweed tea,’ he said. ‘It’s good for wrinkled kneecaps.’ He took an oyster out of the milk-jug and put it in a bowl of salad. ‘This is Neptune. He’s having a pearl. He finds milk good for his complexion. If you take sugar, be careful of the ants. They’re having a picnic.’
I sat on the edge of my chair, fending off a too-friendly turtle called Tannhäuser, who was having a nibble at my trousers; and listened to Willy’s story.
Briefly, he was the victim of professional jealousy. In spite of a first-class brain and an unrivalled knowledge of natural history his opinions were disregarded. For years he had struggled against neglect, and had almost despaired of getting a hearing. Briefly, he was ignored.
A magpie called Margaret had settled on my right shoulder and was making a thorough nuisance of herself. Preoccupied as I was with Tannhäuser, I was quite unable to cope with Margaret. Briefly, I was having my ear chewed.
But that, said Willy, wasn’t important. He was, he said, at last within sight of success. His theory, which constituted the most revolutionary advance in the history of revolutionary advances, had lacked only the proof of factual evidence. That evidence was now available; all he had to do was collect it.
All I had to do was grasp Tannhäuser firmly with my left hand and Margaret with my right. I did it; and a grass-snake called Gregory began to wriggle up my leg.
Willy said that an animal-lover like myself would have no difficulty in understanding his revolutionary theory, which was, briefly, that animals possess intelligence.
Crossing my legs to block the advance of Gregory, I said I didn’t doubt it. Willy looked hurt.
‘Not, of course,’ I added tactfully, ‘human intelligence.’ I pressed my chin against my collar to keep out a snail called Stanley.
Willy was pleased. ‘You’re too conservative,’ he told me. ‘My theory is that animals are every bit as intelligent as human beings.’
I banged my left ear against my shoulder to dislodge an intelligent earwig named Ernest.
‘No use shaking your head,’ said Willy. ‘I can prove it.’
Something called Simon was crawling down the back of my neck. I slid down in my chair and pressed the back of my neck against it.
The problem, Willy was saying, was one of communication. He had to find a creature he could talk to. Consulting the memoirs of celebrated animal-lovers, he had discovered that the seal could be trained to understand thirty-five words, against the dog’s twelve. Willy deduced from this that sea-intelligence was higher than land-intelligence; and experiment confirmed this. The average oyster, he found, could distinguish eighty-eight words; while Neptune, a most intelligent creature, was responsive to no less than one hundred and nine.
‘What about Darwin?’ I asked.
‘He doesn’t count,’ said Willy. ‘He’s a land animal.’
But, he went on, although these creatures could understand words, they could not speak them. The vocal chords of the oyster were rudimentary, and even Neptune seemed unable to master the Morse code. Willy had had to look elsewhere.
An owl called Oliver was trying to settle on my foot. As quickly as I kicked it away it would return.
The fish, said Willy, was the obvious choice, for he was man’s ancestor. Recent developments in underwater swimming had revealed that the fish is affectionate and responsive to sound. Willy set himself the task of finding a species of fish capable both of understanding and reproducing human speech: briefly, a talking fish.
Willy asked me if I thought this a reasonable proposition. I said that, as he put it, it was one of the most reasonable propositions I had ever listened to. I told him I was anxious to hear the end of it.
His researches, he told me, took him to every corner of the ocean. He recorded interviews with fish of all kinds, and tried to persuade them to include language courses in their schools. He spent a fortune on waterproof exercise-books.
All to no purpose. After years of devoted work he returned home bankrupt, with nothing to show for his trouble.
He showed me some photographs.
‘What are they?’ I asked.
‘Buburups,” he explained.
‘Really!’ I said.
Buburups, he told me, were inhabitants of a small island in the middle of the Pacific. Willy had spent some weeks there recovering from a bout of wrinkled kneecaps caused by prolonged immersion in warm water. Unable to pursue his work, he had amused himself by studying the Buburup language, little thinking that those few amusing weeks were to prove more fruitful than years of devoted work.
‘Does anything strike you about these people?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They have no clothes on.’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Their fingers.’
‘They haven’t any.’
‘Exactly!’
‘I see your point,’ I said.
‘Now,’ said Willy, ‘I’m going to play you a recording of their language.’ He removed an eagle’s nest from his tape-recorder and set it in motion. ‘What does it sound like?’ he asked.
‘Water coming out of a bottle,’ I suggested.
‘Exactly! Now listen carefully to the last bit.’
I listened carefully.
Willy switched off. ‘What were they saying?’ he asked.
‘It sounded like “blum-blum”,’ I said.
‘You have a good ear,’ said Willy.
‘Not at all,’ I said. A baby alligator called Algy was climbing on to my knee and I was in no mood for compliments.
‘Now,’ said Willy, changing spools; ‘I want you to listen to another record.’
It sounded to me exactly like the last portion of the first record: a chorus of voices saying ‘blum-blum’ over and over again. Then it became incoherent, and Willy switched off.
‘You heard it?’ he asked. He seemed excited. He had drawn a handkerchief out of his pocket and was wiping his forehead with Darwin.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘“Blum-blum”, again.’ Algy was nibbling my nose.
Willy apologised to Darwin and put him in the salad-bowl. He jumped on top of Neptune, who opened suddenly, throwing Darwin head-over-heels. The latter raised an indignant croak.
‘Stop it, you two!’ said Willy. ‘That’s no way to behave in company.’
Neptune blushed.
‘They’re showing off,’ said Willy. ‘They’re usually quite well-behaved.’
‘I’m sure they are,’ I said.
‘Well now,’ he said. ‘The word “blum-blum” is the Buburup word of greeting; it means both hello and goodbye. The first recording was their farewell to me when I left the island. The second recording…. You’ll never guess what that was!’
I shook my head, dislodging a duck called Dan.
Willy leaned forward. ‘It was an underwater recording of sounds made by fish!’
‘No!’ I cried. I was getting anxious about my nose. Choosing the lesser of two evils, I released Tannhäuser and grasped Algy, leaving my trousers to look after themselves. Stanley and Ernest were still trying to get at me and Margaret was struggling frantically to free herself. Gregory was having things all his own way.
‘Are those creatures bothering you?’ Willy asked.
‘No, no,’ I said.
‘You have a true feeling for animals,’ he told me. ‘They seem to understand you perfectly.’
The second record, it appeared, had been made on a trans-Pacific raft voyage by a friend of Willy’s who had allowed him to copy it. It proved conclusively that Buburup was the native language of a certain species of fish. Moreover, said Willy, it was clear that the Buburups must be direct descendents of these fish. Their language proved it, and the absence of fingers confirmed it. Fishes, also, he pointed out, have no fingers.
This was undeniable. I began to have a new respect for Willy. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ I asked.
The thing to do, he said, was to find the talking fish. Unfortunately, his friend had got his spools mixed up and didn’t know within a thousand miles or so where the recording had been made. Willy intended to duplicate the conditions of his friend’s voyage exactly, by setting out on a raft from the same place on the same day, making recordings at frequent intervals.
‘But why,’ I asked, ‘are you telling me all this?’
‘I want you to come along.’
‘It’s a great honour,’ I said; ‘but I really couldn’t. I’m a family man, you know.’
‘It’s only for three months,’ said Willy.
Things were reaching a climax. Algy had broken loose and was attacking my lower lip. Tannhäuser had eaten my left trouser leg as far as the knee. Reinforcements were pouring in from all directions. Something, I decided, had to be done, and done quickly.
‘But why me?’ I asked. ‘Surely there are others.’
‘Nobody,’ said Willy, ‘with your qualifications.’
‘True,’ I agreed. I was in a quandary. A woodpecker called Wilfred had settled on my nose and was examining my forehead. Should I release Margaret? An immediate decision was essential.
‘Would you stamp my insurance cards?’ I asked.
‘Every day,’ said Willy.
‘I’ll come!’ I said. ‘Now get me out of this.’
At my suggestion our next meeting took place at my flat. I said that too many visits to Willy’s room might overexcite his friends. He brought Darwin and Neptune with him – they both enjoyed a tube journey – and asked if he might borrow a bowl of milk.
Darwin croaked twice.
‘Pasteurised,’ said Willy.