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crumpled white suit patched with darker shades under the armpits, a frayed blue shirt open at the collar. He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, glanced back at the bus and said, ‘Yeah, I think this is it.’
    A gasp rippled round as a female face emerged through the doors, though one couldn’t see much of it behind sunglasses so large she resembled a fly. Thick tresses of black hair cascaded over her shoulders, while the long fingers with which she clutched the hand-rail were tipped with nails of brilliant crimson. Her shoes were an ethereal matrix of white straps with, I noticed thrillingly, sticks on the underside, although they made negotiating the steps a careful process. Her dress billowed lightly, muscular calves undulating as her foot touched the dusty ground, so blessing the village, its denizens and the mountains around us for all eternity.
    She stared at the first few houses that marked the outer tendrils of the village and pushed her glasses up. Faces flinched from the dazzle of her eyes. ‘Mike?’ she said in a rich, throaty voice.
    â€˜What?’ said the man she’d called Mike.
    â€˜You’ve got to be joking.’
    â€˜Joke? Moi?’ he said, dabbing at his cheeks.
    â€˜So where is this, exactly?’ she asked, pulling a cigarette from her handbag.
    â€˜Push something. I don’t know. Pushmepullyou.’ But his attention had been taken by someone nearby. ‘Hey,’ he said, pointing.
    People drew back nervously as his finger lanced a gap through the crowd leaving Malek Bister in the middle. Malek looked helplessly at the retreating villagers and said in a quavering voice, ‘I don’t know. Who is this man? I’ve never seen him before.’
    â€˜Malek,’ said Mike, walking towards him, ‘how are you? What’s going on?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Malek, creasing his face into the imitation of a grin. ‘Yes indeed. Ha ha.’
    â€˜So where’s the hotel, I mean, you got a car for us? What’s happening?’
    â€˜Ah…’ said Malek, flapping at his pockets for a cigar. ‘Yes. Indeed. Well, that’s… that’s very…’
    â€˜It was a crap drive,’ said Mike. ‘So we’re all a bit knackered. We had people sitting on top of us. Fat gits and everything. Even the girls.’
    Malek spotted the cigar he’d dropped and bent to pick it up.
    As if to show how it could be done beautifully, the black-haired woman blew a silver stream of smoke into the air. ‘So where’s the rest of it?’ she said.
    â€˜The rest of what?’ said Mike.
    â€˜This place. Pushme whatsit.’
    â€˜Well, it’s a mountain resort, isn’t it?’ said Mike. ‘So I guess it’s over that bit of mountain, round that bit of mountain, over the other side of that bloody great heap of mountains over there. This is the outskirts. Okay? What do you get on the outskirts? The bus station. What do you get in a bus station? Buses.’
    â€˜One bus,’ she said.
    â€˜So they’re out and about,’ said Mike.
    â€˜And who’s this?’ she said, nodding at Malek.
    â€˜He’s the bloke I told you about,’ said Mike.
    â€˜Mr Bister,’ said Malek trying to light his cigar with shaking hands. ‘At your service.’
    â€˜You’re kidding me,’ she said, looking at Mike.
    But before I had a chance to ponder why she continued to suppose jocularity in a man whose demeanour suggested anything but, another gasp rippled out from the rapidly gathering crowd of villagers. A second lady had emerged even more startling than the first with hair so fiery red that I wondered, for a moment, if it wasn’t in fact on fire. It was pushed up in ragged tufts through a tattered band of yellow cloth. Large rings of jade and silver undulated from her ears. Her blue jeans were so tight that movement would have seemed impossible had she not descended in