On the plane to Colombo he wrote another.
Dear Dennis,
My parents have stopped talking to each other just like yours did on holiday in Dorset. They haven’t hit each other with any chairs yet though. This is because they know Australia will be wonderful once we get there. Tell Sally Prescott that in Australia all Mums and Dads are happy.
Keith.
And another on the plane to Jakarta.
Dear Rami,
All the airports we’ve been to on this trip have had armed soldiers guarding them. I think this is to stop all the local people crowding onto the planes to get to Australia. Sorry I didn’t hang around the other day but it’s very hard saying goodbye to people who are in the middle of kicking the seats out of a bus shelter.
Keith.
He wrote the last one on the plane to Cairns.
Dear Uncle Derek and Aunty Joyce,
Please tell your friend the travel agent that five different airlines is a bit too much for older people. I’m fine, but 73 hours is a long trip when you’re over 30. I’m sure Mum and Dad would send their love if they were awake.
Love, Keith.
Then the pilot announced that they had just commenced flying over the continent of Australia.
Keith forgot his stomach, which felt like a knotted hosepipe. He forgot his mouth, which felt like a bath that hadn’t been wiped out for months. He forgot his eyes, which felt like tinned peaches in bowls of cornflakes.
Australia.
He peered out the window.
Far below he could see browns and greens and the flash of sun on water.
He turned to Mum and Dad, to shake them and hug them and let them see for themselves. But their sleeping faces looked so exhausted he decided not to wake them up.
Plenty of time for grinning and hugging each other when they were on the ground.
At Orchid Cove.
For about the ten thousandth time since the woman at Australia House had told him what the tropical beach on her wall was called, Keith said the words quietly to himself.
Orchid Cove.
He had a sudden urge to do some cartwheels up the aisle of the plane.
Instead he went into one of the plane toilets and changed into Nan and Grandpa’s tropical shirt. It was green and purple with scenes of tourist attractions in Hawaii on it.
Who cares, thought Keith happily. It’s tropical. He smeared some toothpaste on his nose.
As he walked back to his seat he noticed that for the first time some of the other passengers were smiling.
He smiled back.
Australia, he thought. What other country could cheer up a planeload of misery guts at sixty thousand feet?
Keith didn’t notice the heat until they were on the airport bus into Cairns.
He was staring out the window, marvelling at how bright the shops and houses were even though he was wearing the sunglasses he’d bought in Lewisham.
‘I think,’ said Dad, ‘we should try and find a shop here in Cairns.’
Keith’s stomach gave a lurch. Cairns looked like a nice place, much cleaner and brighter than London, but he’d only counted four palm trees since they’d left the airport and the only stretch of sand he’d seen was in a builder’s yard. And Orchid Cove was only one more bus ride away.
‘Dad,’ he said desperately, ‘look at all the fish and chip shops and hamburger places and pizza parlours and takeaway Chinese restaurants.’
As he spoke he prayed they’d pass some. They did, a row of shops with at least one of each.
‘Keith’s right, love,’ said Mum. ‘Let’s go and have a look at Orchid Cove.’
The bus turned a corner and they passed another fish and chip shop.
‘Alright,’ said Dad.
Keith’s pulse slowed down. He realised he was dripping with sweat.
And the bus was air-conditioned.
The bus to Orchid Cove wasn’t air-conditioned.
Keith decided it was like sitting in a warm bath that was over your head but you could still breathe.
He liked it.
But it did make you feel very sleepy.
He watched the suburbs of Cairns slipping past the window, then fields of green stuff that were higher than the bus. Giant shallots, he thought sleepily.
He had a vision of an Australian salad. Lettuce leaves as big as bedspreads. Tomatoes as big as bubble cars. Cucumbers as big as tube trains.
Then someone was shaking his shoulder.
Keith opened his eyes.
It was Mum.
The light outside the bus had changed. It wasn’t bright anymore, it was dull, but glowing at the same time.
Keith staggered off the bus behind Mum and Dad. The bus driver dragged their suitcases out of the luggage compartment, climbed back in, and the bus roared away down the narrow road.
Keith saw why the light was different. The sky was glowing with pink and gold and purple and a colour that made his tired eyes open wide.
Tropical Mango.
Across the road, tall and dark against the sunset, a row of slender trunks hung over a sandy beach, fronds gently swaying.
Palm trees.
Keith walked slowly over and stood under the palm trees on the warm sand and watched the waves breaking, pink and frothy like the strawberry milkshake he’d had a couple of hours earlier.
A warm breeze blew against his face. He took a deep breath and smelled more wonderful tropical smells than he’d ever smelled before. Even including the time Bradley dropped the iron onto Aunty Joyce’s bottles of perfume.
Keith felt two arms slide around his shoulders. He looked up. Mum and Dad were standing close to him, their faces aglow with huge smiles.
Paradise.
9
Keith opened his eyes and didn’t know where he was.
Above his head was a curved metal ceiling with rivets in it.
Then he remembered.
Van Number Six, Orchid Cove Caravan Park, Orchid Cove, Paradise.
Over in the other bed Mum and Dad were still asleep. Keith looked at his watch. Six-thirty Australian time. He pulled the curtain aside. Sunlight spilled onto his bed.
Fantastic, he thought.
He lay back for a bit and just enjoyed having sunlight on his bed at six-thirty in the morning. Then he got down to business.
OK. Plan for the day. Explore paradise, then when Mum and Dad wake up, take them on the grand tour.
Nice one.
He slipped out of bed and put on his tropical shirt and his new shorts, the ones Mum had made him on Aunty Joyce’s Swedish sewing machine. He put his shoes on with no socks. Then he put some toothpaste on his nose and stepped quietly out of the caravan.
The air was clean and warm and smelt like air freshener only much better.
In the lush green forest at the back of the caravan park Keith could see flashes of colour as red and blue birds swooped among the trees. They looked like West Ham practising diving headers.
He walked to the beach. It was even better than the night before.
In the morning sun the sand was a brilliant white and the sea was a sparkling turquoise. The sky was a deep blue and the fronds of the palm trees shone emerald green.
Perfect, thought Keith. Just like the poster in Australia House.
Except for the girl fishing.
He stood and watched as the girl down near the water’s edge swung her big rod and cast her line out over the waves.
I wonder if fishing’s easy to learn, he thought. Be handy, me popping down here before breakfast each morning and catching all the fish for the shop.
She didn’t look any older than him.
He went closer for a better look, down onto the wet sand where the girl was standing.
She turned and stared at him. Her eyes were almost as pale as her hair and her face was very brown.
Keith noticed pink patches where the brown was peeling off her nose and wondered if he should offer her some toothpaste.
He decided n
ot to.
‘Hello, I’m Keith.’
‘G’day, I’m Tracy.’
‘Caught anything?’
‘Bit of a cough last winter. Better now but.’
She grinned at him.
Keith grinned back. Here they were, only met two seconds ago and she was cracking jokes already. What a place.
The water looked cool and tempting. Keith kicked off his shoes and stepped in up to his ankles.
‘Wouldn’t if I was you,’ said Tracy.
‘Why not?’ said Keith.
‘Stingers.’
Keith looked at her blankly.
Stingers?
‘Sea wasps,’ said Tracy.
Sea wasps?
Keith knew all about wasps, he’d had plenty attack his jam sandwiches on picnics, and he knew they couldn’t live underwater because he and Dennis Baldwin had tried to teach one to swim once. Must be another joke.
‘Box jellyfish,’ said Tracy slowly and more loudly. She held out a pair of green tights to Keith. ‘Put these on if you want to go for a paddle. Won’t stop them stinging you but at least the buggers won’t kill you.’
Kill?
Keith stepped quickly out of the water.
Tracy pointed towards the palm trees. ‘It’s got all about ’em over there.’
Keith saw Tracy was pointing to a sign on a wooden pole.
Keith recognised it as the sign he hadn’t been able to read in the Australia House poster.
He walked into the shade of the palm trees and read the sign. Blimey, he thought, she’s right. Box jellyfish. Waters around North Queensland coast. Sting fatal.
Keith felt panic starting in his stomach.
Killer jellyfish?
In paradise?
What would Mum and Dad say when they found out he’d brought them twelve thousand miles on five different airlines to a place with killer jellyfish?
He forced himself to calm down.
OK, so they wouldn’t be able to swim in the sea. No big deal. They could still lie on the white sand under the swaying palm fronds.
He looked at the palm tree he was standing under. Around the base of the fronds, high above him, he saw a cluster of big round greeny-brown things. It took him a moment to work out what they were.
Coconuts.
Suddenly he felt fine again. What were a few killer jellyfish compared to being able to lie back in the shade, drinking from a fresh coconut?
‘Wouldn’t stay under there too long,’ yelled Tracy.
Why not? thought Keith.
‘Split your skull open if one of ’em falls on you.’
Keith looked at the palm tree. It must be a hundred years old, how was it going to fall on him? Then he realised Tracy meant the coconuts.
Keith looked down the beach at her and wondered if she was only nine and big for her age. Nine year olds panicked about things like coconuts falling on you.
Tracy was yelling at him again, pointing across the road.
‘Look over there.’
Keith turned and looked.
Across the road was a high fence and behind it Keith could see the top of what looked like a hotel. Just inside the fence was another row of palm trees. Two men up ladders were cutting the coconuts off and throwing them down.
Must be the coconut harvest, thought Keith.
‘Go and ask them what they’re doing,’ yelled Tracy.
Keith went over, feeling a bit of a wally, but curious.
‘What are you doing?’ he called up.
‘We’re missile experts,’ said one of the men with a grin, ‘removing dangerous missiles. Bit of a breeze and these mongrels’d drop on your head and crack your skull open.’
As he spoke he accidentally knocked one of the coconuts with his arm. It hurtled down and smacked into the road near Keith.
The man looked down, alarmed. ‘Jeez, sorry,’ he said. ‘You’d better shift away a bit.’
Keith looked at the coconut at his feet. It wasn’t even cracked. Then he saw the dent in the tarmac where the coconut had hit the road.
Killer coconuts and killer jellyfish.
Keith had a sudden urge to run back to the caravan and crawl back into bed and pretend none of this had happened.
Instead he walked back down the beach to Tracy, who he decided was definitely the same age as him.
‘Heard one drop,’ said Tracy. ‘Thought you’d copped it for a sec.’
‘Tracy,’ said Keith, ‘is there any other dangerous stuff around here?’
Tracy squinted out to sea.
‘Not really,’ she said.
Keith felt relief seep through him.
‘There’s the stonefish of course,’ said Tracy, ‘but they only kill you if you tread on them. Little buggers lie on the bottom looking like rocks.’
Keith looked down to see if he was standing on any rocks.
‘And the pufferfish,’ continued Tracy, ‘but you’ve got to actually eat a bit of one before you die.’
Think positive, thought Keith.
‘What about rivers? Are there any good rivers for swimming in?’
‘Some beauties,’ said Tracy. ‘The crocs come from miles around to swim in ’em.’
Crocs, thought Keith. Must be a local expression for old people.
‘Tourist got eaten by a crocodile only last month,’ said Tracy.
Keith wished he hadn’t mentioned rivers.
Then he remembered the forest, cool and green and alive with exotic birds.
‘Just as well there’s the forest,’ he said. ‘Bet it’s paradise in there for a picnic.’
‘Top spot on a hot day,’ said Tracy. ‘Cooler than an esky in there.’
Keith started to plan the picnic he’d take Mum and Dad on at lunch time.
‘But you wouldn’t actually sit down in there,’ said Tracy. ‘Mossies’d have their own picnic if you did. Plus there’s the poisonous spiders and poisonous snakes. Great spot for a bushwalk but.’
Tracy then told Keith the story of her uncle’s cousin’s brother who’d been bitten by a snake in a phonebox near a canefield and who’d been dead before he could ring for an ambulance.
Keith walked slowly back to the caravan.
‘It’ll be OK,’ he said to himself.
It made him feel better so he said it again. A couple of hundred times.
Mum and Dad didn’t have to know.
The important thing was to keep them cheerful so they could get a shop going and it could be a big success and they could all be happy.
All I’ve got to do, he decided, is keep them off the beach, out of rivers and out of the rainforest.
And away from Tracy.
In the caravan Dad was making toast.
‘Did you see Mum on your walk?’ he asked.
Keith felt his stomach drop into the familiar bowl of cold batter.
Mum had already gone out.
She probably knew everything by now. At this very moment she was probably down on the beach listening to Tracy describe how a giant squid had eaten someone’s grandfather.
Then Keith had a worse thought.
What if she’d gone for a paddle in a river?
He heard someone coming up the steps.
He couldn’t look.
Who would it be? The police? A wheelchair salesman?
He looked.
It was Mum, with a big smile on her face.
‘Guess what?’ she said. ‘I’ve found us a shop.’
10
It was the best-looking shop Keith had ever seen.
It was more of a cottage than a shop, with a gleaming galvanised iron roof and fresh cream paint on the wooden walls and coloured plastic strips hanging in the doorway.
And it was a good ten yards from the nearest palm tree.
All it needs, thought Keith happily, is a sign on the front.
Paradise Fish Bar.
‘Good position,’ said Mum, pointing to the other shops nearby. ‘General store, chemist, hardware, swimwear
boutique and cake shop. Good assortment of customers and no direct competition.’
Dad looked up and down the dusty main street of Orchid Cove, then over the road at the beach.
For an awful moment Keith thought Dad had heard about the jellyfish.
‘Should be some trade from the petrol station down on the corner’ said Dad.
Keith stopped holding his breath.
See, he said to himself, it’s going to be alright.
Mum led them in through the coloured plastic strips.
Keith looked around. The shop was dark and cool inside, and empty except for dusty shop fittings. Leaning against a wall were some old posters for something called a Chiko Roll.
‘The woman who owns it retired last month,’ said Mum. ‘Sold all her stock and put the place up for rent.’
‘What about equipment?’ asked Dad.
‘Fridge,’ said Mum, pointing to a fridge. ‘Sink,’ she said, pointing to a sink. She pulled aside a pile of cardboard boxes. ‘Fryer,’ she said, pointing to a fryer. She gave Dad a grin. ‘We’re in business. We can be open in a week.’
Dad looked at her. ‘What about the paperwork?’
‘The place is still registered as a takeaway food shop,’ said Mum. ‘Mrs Mclntyre is happy for us to leave things as they are for now and when the renewal comes up we can change it over then.’
Dad looked doubtful.
‘Look,’ said Mum, ‘if we’re going to make a new life here, there’s going to be lots of paperwork to sort out later on. First we’ve got to make the shop a success, right?’
‘Right,’ said Keith loudly.
Mum smiled and slipped her arm around Keith and gave him a squeeze.
They both looked at Dad, who was staring at the fryer with a gloomy face.
‘Probably hasn’t been serviced for ten years,’ he said.
Don’t think about that stuff, thought Keith. Don’t. He’d given up telepathy but this was an emergency.
Mum grabbed Dad and turned him towards the window.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing across the road at the sea sparkling through the palm fronds. ‘Does this look like the sort of place where fryers break down?’
Dad stared at the sea for a good minute.
If a jellyfish jumps out of the water now we’ve had it, thought Keith.
Then Dad turned back to them and rubbed his hands together.