When writing up his notes he would lean his head on one turned fist and suddenly the thumb propping his brow ridge would skid, together with a fold of flesh, over an apparently increasing lump. The Neanderthal of the future. Perhaps this same bony ball, by some absurd series of flukes and chance, might one day be exhibited by a future Richard Leakey in silver shorts who would twirl it for the 3-D cameras and pronounce it the skull of ‘Mario’, someone who long ago crossed this wasteland looking for water, or love, or the fruit borne on plants once known as ‘trees’. In the meantime, never mind survival as a couple of skull plates; who cared about the archaeological future? On tropical mornings Prideaux thought it was enough simply to have lived beyond youth, when exclusive relationships were constantly in the air. These days nobody would ever want one with him, nor he with them. How the air cleared! How springy and untrammelled he probably felt, crossing this wasteland looking for whatever!
