'Excuse me,' he said. He got some breath back. 'I really am most dreadfully sorry. I feel a complete idiot and . . .' He gestured helplessly towards the small pile of his own vomit Iying spread around the entrance to her cave.
'What can I say?' he said. 'What can I possibly say?'
This at least had gained her attention. She looked round at him suspiciously, but, being half blind, had difficulty finding him in the blurred and rocky landscape.
He waved, helpfully. 'Hello!' he called.
At last she spotted him, grunted to herself and turned back to whacking flies.
It was horribly apparent from the way that currents of air moved when she did, that the major source of the smell was in fact her. The drying bladders, the festering bodies and the noxious potage may all have been making violent contributions to the atmosphere, but the major olfactory presence was the woman herself.
She got another good thwack at a fly. It smacked against the rock and dribbled its insides down it in what she clearly regarded, if she could see that far, as a satisfactory manner.
Unsteadily, Arthur got to his feet and brushed himself down with a fistful of dried grass. He didn't know what else to do by way of announcing himself. He had half a mind just to wander off again, but felt awkward about leaving a pile of his vomit in front of the entrance to the woman's home. He wondered what to do about it. He started to pluck up more handsful of the scrubby dried grass that was to be found here and there. He was worried, though, that if he ventured nearer to the vomit he might simply add to it rather than clear it up.
Just as he was debating with himself as to what the right course of action was he began to realise that she was at last saying something to him.
'I beg your pardon?' he called out.
'I said, can I help you?' she said, in a thin, scratchy voice, that he could only just hear.
'Er, I came to ask your advice,' he called back, feeling a bit ridiculous.
She turned to peer at him, myopically, then turned back, swiped at a fly and missed.
'What about?' she said.
'I beg your pardon?' he said.
'I said, what about?' she almost screeched. 'Well,' said Arthur. 'Just sort of general advice, really. It said in the brochure– '
'Ha! Brochure!' spat the old woman. She seemed to be waving her bat more or less at random now.
Arthur fished the crumpled-up brochure from his pocket. He wasn't quite certain why. He had already read it and she, he expected, wouldn't want to. He unfolded it anyway in order to have something to frown thoughtfully at for a moment or two. The copy in the brochure wittered on about the ancient mystical arts of the seers and sages of Hawalius, and wild– ly over-represented the level of accommodation available in Hawalion. Arthur still carried a copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy with him but found, when he consulted it, that the entries were becoming more abstruse and paranoid and had lots of x's and j's and {'s in them. Something was wrong somewhere. Whether it was in his own personal unit, or whether it was something or someone going terribly amiss, or perhaps just hallucinating, at the heart of the Guide organisation itself, he didn't know. But one way or another he was even less inclined to trust it than usual, which meant that he trusted it not one bit, and mostly used it for eating his sandwiches off when he was sitting on a rock staring at something.
The woman had turned and was walking slowly towards him now. Arthur tried, without making it too obvious, to judge the wind direction, and bobbed about a bit as she approached.
'Advice,' she said. 'Advice, eh?'
'Er, yes,' said Arthur. 'Yes, that is– '
He frowned again at the brochure, as if to be certain that he hadn't misread it and stupidly turned up on the wrong planet or something. The brochure said 'The friendly local inhabitants will be glad to share with you the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients. Peer with them into the swirling mysteries of past and future time!' There were some coupons as well, but Arthur had been far too embarrassed actually to cut them out or try to present them to anybody.
'Advice, eh,' said the old woman again. 'Just sort of general advice, you say. On what? What to do with your life, that sort of thing?'
'Yes,' said Arthur. 'That sort of thing. Bit of a problem I sometimes find if I'm being perfectly honest.' He was trying desperately, with tiny darting movements, to stay upwind of her. She surprised him by suddenly turning sharply away from him and heading off towards her cave.
'You'll have to help me with the photocopier, then,' she said.
'What?' said Arthur.
'The photocopier,' she repeated, patiently. 'You'll have to help me drag it out. It's solar-powered. I have to keep it in the cave, though, so the birds don't shit on it.
'I see,' said Arthur.
'I'd take a few deep breaths if I were you,' muttered the old woman, as she stomped into the gloom of the cave mouth.
Arthur did as she advised. He almost hyperventilated in fact. When he felt he was ready, he held his breath and followed her in.
The photocopier was a big old thing on a rickety trolley. It stood just inside the dim shadows of the cave. The wheels were stuck obstinately in different directions and the ground was rough and stony.
'Go ahead and take a breath outside,' said the old woman. Arthur was going red in the face trying to help her move the thing.
He nodded in relief. If she wasn't going to be embarrassed about it then neither, he was determined, would he. He stepped outside and took a few breaths, then came back in to do more heaving and pushing. He had to do this quite a few times till at last the machine was outside.
The sun beat down on it. The old woman disappeared back into her cave again and brought with her some mottled metal panels, which she connected to the machine to collect the sun's energy. She squinted up into the sky. The sun was quite bright, but the day was hazy and vague.
'It'll take a while,' she said.
Arthur said he was happy to wait.
The old woman shrugged and stomped across to the fire. Above it, the contents of the tin can were bubbling away. She poked about at them with a stick.
'You won't be wanting any lunch?' she enquired of Arthur.
'I've eaten, thanks,' said Arthur. 'No, really. I've eaten.'
'I'm sure you have,' said the old lady. She stirred with the stick. After a few minutes she fished a lump of some– thing out, blew on it to cool it a little, and then put it in her mouth.
She chewed on it thoughtfully for a bit.
Then she hobbled slowly across to the pile of dead goat-like things. She spat the lump out on to the pile. She hobbled slowly back to the can. She tried to unhook it from the sort of tripod-like thing that it was hanging from.
'Can I help you?' said Arthur, jumping up politely. He hurried over.
Together they disengaged the tin from the tripod and carried it awkwardly down the slight slope that led downwards from her cave and towards a line of scrubby and gnarled trees, which marked the edge of a steep but quite shallow gully, from which a whole new range of offensive smells was emanating.
'Ready?' said the old lady.
'Yes . . .' said Arthur, though he didn't know for what.
'One,' said the old lady.
'Two,' she said.
'Three,' she added.
Arthur realised just in time what she intended. Together they tossed the contents of the tin into the gully.
After an hour or two of uncommunicative silence, the old woman decided that the solar panels had absorbed enough sunlight to run the photocopier now and she disappeared to rummage inside her cave. She emerged at last with a few sheaves of paper and fed them through the machine.