“I really never intended to write about my own disturbing experience with that imposter of a travel agency, Propitious Peregrinations. But then I read the account by Max Maartinesz of his adventures, and I felt it imperative that people should know what can happen to you, when, no doubt innocently, perhaps, as in my own case, out of sheer curiosity, you step into the middle of something that can prove to be quite overwhelming. I mean that in every sense of the word.”
“It was interesting to me that the rest houses differed so much the one from the other. Had there been a star system to reflect their quality, if that is the right word, similar to the one that we have in Europe, those that I had visited might appear in guidebooks as follows:
Ambepussa ✩✩✩
Anuradhapura ✩✩✩✩✩
Vavuniya ✩”
Lillian Selby is a librarian. She works at the Manchester Central Library. She lives alone in a small maisonnette in Rusholme, which has been her home since she was an undergraduate at university. Her life is quiet, ordered, mostly solitary, quite mundane.
Gillian Lewis is another personality entirely, albeit she and Lillian do have much in common.
But back to Lillian. Since almost forever, she has been pretty much completely sedentary and now feels the need finally to travel, having put by a little nest egg, and being at a moment in her life where, as they say, a change might be as good as a rest.
It is not, as Lillian finds herself having to fill the utterly unfamiliar shoes of Gillian, facing hostile environments at every turn. Well, to be fair, some good things happen too, you know, like friendship, and even love.
As Tom Lehrer famously wrote in his 1951 song Lobachevsky: Who deserves the credit? And who deserves the blame? In this instance, it is Propitious Peregrinations ® that must, in Lillian's view, assume full responsibility. This account of her (mis)adventures is her effort to warn all who may be tempted to follow in her own faltering footsteps. Beware!
“Once we were ready, Terry and I quickly found a taxi, a quaint old black Morris Minor. The driver was so short that his hand, the sole form of warning to other drivers, as the indicator lights did not work, was barely visible. How anyone could see him indicating a left turn, by making a circular movement with his right index finger, was for me a complete mystery.”
“Do not ever cross, or even upset, a librarian. They will not become visibly enraged. They will not shout and scream and stamp their feet. They will quietly get even.”
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