Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones

disappoint in that regard. The visit to the paint factory was
as good as it got. Afterwards they filed on to the bus to visit the historic cemetery.
But they weren’t interested. They drifted around the blackened headstones. One woman
tried to call someone in Toronto on her mobile phone. They weren’t generally as fascinated
as we had hoped they would be. When it started to spit they all rushed back to the
bus. Heath wondered if it was the creepy feeling of the spongy grass; when he said
that we both fell silent at the sound of the nearby creek water running beneath the
graves.
    They were more excited at the sight of a chicken walking along a footpath. A cry
went up, ‘A chicken! Look!’ and the cruise ship people rushed to that side of the
bus. At the commotion Heath looked up in his mirror. A woman yelled at her husband
to roll on more film. Heath wrestled with the gear stick to change down but I waved
him on.
    After the chicken highlight I sat back and let the town drift by my elevated window.
I thought back to that black woman at the nightclub Adrian had taken me to. I remember
telling her I was the mayor. I have an awful feeling I might have also said it in
a boastful manner. It was after she said her name was Ophelia. But is anyone really
called that? Ophelia from ‘around here’ had half-mockingly said, ‘Well Mister Mayor,
are you going to buy me a drink?’ I do wish I hadn’t told her she was black, though;
for all that I don’t think she minded much. She seemed to be the forgiving type.
I amused her. When I told her I was the Mayor her eyes lifted and I think it genuinely
surprised her. I didn’t tell her about Pre-Loved Furnishings & Other Curios.
I didn’t think she needed to know about the tip, either. I let her hang on to her
vision of mayoral chains.
    A mayor tends to know his town in an unique way. A visitor, Ophelia say, will see
trees, a handsome welcome from Rotary, arrows pointing to the beach. A more bleak
vista greets the mayor, a more troublesome one in terms of expenditure covering
sewage, landfills, potholes. You see it in terms of what remains to be done rather
than what has been accomplished. It is forever a work in progress. From the bus window,
however, we had looked even more desperate than the records show. It was embarrassing
and heartbreaking too, in a way, to see everyone stand so stiffly by their pie warmers
and vege stalls after the cruise ship people left Angie’s. How politely we averted
our eyes as they pecked away among our arts and crafts. We are not London or Rome
where for every customer put out by yet another half-arse meal and mediocre service
another customer crowds the doorway. Our chance to impress is our only chance.
    I had some other stops scheduled but I decided to pass them up. The cruise ship people
were already tired of getting on and off the bus. When I looked up in Heath’s mirror
I could see them stifling yawns, glancing at wristwatches. Now they began to speak
of other places they had visited, of other voyages, other cruise ships. Travel tips
passed up and down the aisle. As Heath slowed down for one of our natural wonders,
a rock formation which from a certain angle looks like a giant lion’s head, the cruise
ship people leant in to the aisle to hear the Englishwoman describe the wonderful
colours of the fishing boats in Zanzibar. The bus dropped down another gear. Heath
leant his head back for instructions. I waved him on. ‘We won’t worry about Lion’s
Head, Heath.’ And that was that. I settled back to listen to the cruise ship people
talk of restaurants with fish tanks and iced water. Opinions on last night’s meal
out at sea were exchanged and with a surprising depth of feeling that had been notably
absent from all the other conversations I’d listened in to. Their voices seemed to
rise another octave. A rumour swept the bus that they would be served lobster tonight—and
one elderly man who had hardly moved a facial muscle from the time he