Jumbos on the jumbo
Anthony Blond
MALARIA by Susan Hillmore Cape, £10, pp. 134 Malaria is a jewelled horror of a book, whose cover, a putrescent peony on a shiny black ground, indicates the gloom within, an apocalyptic vision of what might happen to a paradise island in the Indian Ocean if everything, but everything, went wrong.
`Mannar' has been overwhelmed by ter- rorists whose inhumanity to man and beast is chronicled in purple prose for a Grand Guignol caricature of, I suppose, Sri Lanka. I recognise the fat cats from Colombo swirling their giant beakers of Chivas Regal and warm soda water — no ice because the generator has been blown up — complaining of the students whose universities have been suppressed, the equally fat manager of the coir factory exacting sexual favours from his slender workers, and the drunken driver, Sid, grinding the Land-Rover permanently in third gear, shouting at bullock carts and running over dogs, but I have not seen half- alive elephants having their tusks sawn off, the author's horridest vision.
Sir Alexander Haye, television figure and zoologist, has been commissioned, com- plete with film crew, to flush the last baby elephant out of Mannar for London Zoo. He enlists his twin brother Max, who has built a fantastic island castle on Mannar, to escort mother and baby to the airport where they are to be greeted by the Presi- dent and more television crews. The moth- er elephant breaks from her chains and trumpets up the runway to try to prevent the departure of her baby. What a scene, what a movie!
Sick with malaria and appalled by the fate of the elephants, Max crawls back to his dream house and shoots himself. Sir Alexander and his wife, Olivia, crisp and cool as a Riesling and something of a bitch, discover his rotting body. Alexander too is disgusted with his life and muses on the notion of retiring to the country, but Olivia screeches:
If you think I am going to spend the rest of my life with you in some provincial back- water, making hedgerow bloody jam and fill- ing lavender bags, entertaining dons' wives to sherry just because you have had your con- science rattled by a few dead elephants ... Max's sanctuary is invaded by refugees
from the pillaged mainland and Sir Alexan- der and his lady eventually escape with a few trembling rich to the (relative) safety of Blighty.
A scary read and an antidote to special offers in Tesco and clips of the Queen Mum.
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