TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Hot Tub down the street with their sandwiches, laughing quietly under their hard hats, grinning modestly, from the airport and back to the airport apparently without meeting a soul who lived locally; it’s said the same phenomenon occurs with the Chinese presence at the docks in Felixstowe, he could try and explain this but of course didn’t allow himself. Trying not to be distracted by a fair- sized rat shooting over the path in front of him, he confirmed to himself that he was equally opposed to apologising; saying sorry and saying why were closely allied ideas, of so little use to him: when he didn’t explain and didn’t say sorry he could just be himself, with nothing to justify, nothing to add, to be wrong about, be challenged about, it made much more sense simply to note this and that, to observe how the Chinese got on with their work, as a group of them did now, inserting an eye on a giraffe by climbing a ladder; the ladder possibly even made of bamboo, subtly different in the way the sides tapered, the technical name for which he happened to know was rails, this gave it a slight curve in the form, almost a swoop from the top to the bottom, so also Chinese, and he should get a move on, ask himself nothing more, that’s how it was, the crews and the ladders and the tools, everything but the electricity itself having come on the plane from China, although a rumour said much of the animals and the more fragile equipment were now permanently stowed, in one of the storage sites along the A4, ready for much the same show the following year—what were those storage companies called, Big Yellow was one but it wasn’t the one he passed every time on this route to the hot tub, hot hot tub he was so looking forward to, in that place with the sauna behind Arlington Park Mansions. Ah, the goal, the hot tub; but to reach the goal, he told himself, he must not dwell on the goal; the only thought, word, dictate, was Onwards. In one last glance at the scene on the ladder, for a 219