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| From the Cotswolds to the Andes by CHERYL PALIN It happened again this morning. A blue-footed booby on the garage roof. Just as suddenly as it wasn’t there, it was. ‘Oye, tu!’ I murmured, my mouth still on my coffee mug. Hey, there, you! What was he doing here lording it over the sparrows, tapping out a far off salsa beat with his turquoise flip flops, goose-stepping along the guttering? I closed my eyes to hold him there, to capture the scent of the sea, and when I opened them again he was gone. A lone magpie, thin-necked and mean, pretended not to look at me. It flapped as a shower of last night’s garlic bread plummeted onto the roof from the upstairs flat. And above it slid only a mulch of papier mâché sky, vacant and smudged like something vital had been rubbed out during the night. Three hours later I’m at a wildlife park in the Cotswolds with a film crew, a bunch of jigging six-year-olds and their willing parents. It’s half term and so I’ve had to bring Frank. He doesn’t want to wear his coat because it makes him look floofy. Before it’s even 10 o’clock, the children are hankering after the picnic baskets. They’re too cold to walk to the zoo map and point, and walk to the zoo map and point (smiling this time) and walk to the zoo map and point (smiling, but not looking at the camera this time). Then the spider monkeys won’t come out and stretch their pipe cleaner arms and legs for us. They stay in the warm, wooden shed where we can see them through the window. They’re eating fruit and veggies at various angles, dangling from one toe, then back-to-front with bits of smooth bottom swinging. ‘Look, Mummy!’ says Frank. I’m worried we’re getting left behind and Justin, the cameraman, is disappearing around the side of the reptile house. ‘Look how he only wants the cucumber!’ The black finger searches and prods, rejects grapes and apple slices like an old lady searching through a button box. The monkey finds a stack near the corner and takes the lot. Frank leaves a mouth print of approval on the glass. He likes cucumber. We can’t shoot the monkeys, but we need something furry. Justin is back. ‘Llamas!’ he says. And I tremble a little under my cape. ‘Llamas are from Ecuador, aren’t they, Mummy?’ says Frank. ‘Mummy! Aren’t llamas from ...’ ‘Yes!’ I say quickly. ‘They’re out in the field,’ says Justin. ‘They’ll be much easier, not behind glass or grills.’ The last time I saw Ecuadorian llamas was in the foothills of Cotopaxi. Most of them were shagging. It went on for ages. We walked up to the refuge, ate gritty quinoa soup, frolicked in the snow and slithered back down on stony crag, and they were still at it. Better to be a female llama than a lioness, I’d thought. The llamas in Cotswold Wildlife Park aren’t shagging. They seem to be holding a meeting when we arrive at the fence. It’s not a meeting we’re invited to – that’s made instantly clear – but they can’t resist Frank’s fistfuls of grass. It’s the same grass that’s growing on their side of the fence. ‘Llama,’ says Frank, pronouncing it the Spanish way. And then I see her. First just a flash of fuchsia shawl between two fluffy rear ends, and then the swing of her prune-black plait, a dented felt fedora. As she turns, her mouth is chewing and I taste the salt and snap of chochos, feel the little yellow buttons popping on my tongue; I remember the buckets of frilled herbs, the dank jugs of alfalfa juice of Santa Clara market. With her hat brim pulled down low, her mouth is all of her face, and all of the roadside markets, and all of the country of Ecuador. |
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