4
Tropical Queensland
October (ctd.) “I say!” said the Crumpet as we stepped out of the Gold Coast airport’s terminal building into a bright blue day. “It’s jolly tropical, isn’t it?”
He was right. It was even warmer in Queensland than it had been in New South Wales. A grinning Kieran Burns—tall, burly, blond, pretty much a clone of the amiable Rob—had met us with the remark: “Ya lucky: ya just copped the end of the Dry.”
We now understood that tropical Queensland had only two seasons: “the Dry” was the Australian winter, when the state was warm and the humidity dropped, and “the Wet” covered what the rest of Australia called summer and autumn: in other words, the monsoon season. The heavy rains, sometimes accompanied by cyclones, could strike at any time over a period of about six months, more or less from November on, tho the “cyclones”, read hurricanes, usually occurred from late December through to March. Although wet it would not be cold: on the contrary, terrifically sticky and humid. Even when it wasn’t actually raining. Most of this intel had been gathered between the lines: the Australians seemed to take it all as the norm—which it was, I suppose, to them.
Kieran was driving a huge black 4x4 complete with dark tinted windows; in spite of its size it could only cram in five bodies legally, the extra space at the back being presumably for luggage—or possibly camping gear? The thing certainly looked capable of as much off-road travel as one cared to give it. So the Egg, the Crumpet, and the Bean piled into the back seat and I was given the honour of the front seat beside Kieran himself, while Bean Minor and Trelawney were instructed to follow us in a taxi. Er—yes. Would we ever see them again? Oh dear!
Oddly enough I had no idea what to chat about to a burly, blond, amiable Aussie of the Rob type—and I had a feeling that the Junior Drones vernac. would not hit the jolly old spot, sadly. Why on earth hadn’t I made Egg go in the front? Bother.
However, this turned out not to matter, as Kieran then fiddled with buttons on his space-age array of electronic whatsits and the strains of a horrible pop song nigh to deafened us. Help: was this what we were later going to have endure when he collected us for our second trip up here? Mrs Pearson’s altered schedule began to seem not such a good idea after all.
At intervals over the racket our driver bellowed such helpful intel as: “Traffic’s thick today! And: “This intersection’s always a bugger!” And: “That’s a good Macca’s!” (Er… Oh! Great big yellow M: got it.) And, finally: “Nearly there!”
“This is it!” he said cheerily as we pulled up, the noise stopped, and we were able to gather our dazed wits and look about us. Uh—where was the sea? All that was visible was ranks of shiny high-rise buildings!
We piled out dazedly.
“I say,” hissed the Bean: “thought they were by the sea?”
Well, quite!
At least one of us was then able to have a short panic, as there was no sign of the boys’ taxi, but after a few agonised moments it hove in sight and pulled up neatly behind the black monster.
“I’ll just make sure the bugger’s not rooking them,” said Kieran cheerily, striding over to it.
Uh… “I say, Egg,” I hissed: “what’s he mean? I thought that was something to do with English birds: don’t you and Henry sometimes shoot them?”
His older brother Henry being known for his terrific keenness on huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’, tho not for his prowess at any of said pursuits, the Egg replied automatically: “Miss them, in his case. –No, that’s rooks, Sister Bean,” he explained kindly. “I think he means cheating them.”
“Oh! Well, given that they don’t understand Australian money anyway—”
“Yes, quite!” he agreed with a grin.
There was a brief shouting match, Kieran was seen to attack the rear of the vehicle, and he then surfaced with two very flushed lads and their luggage in tow.
“Noddonly trying to rook them out of twice the fare—claimed it was because ’e started from the airport, the bastard—’e was gonna drive off with their bags!” he announced, apparently as cheery as ever.
“He’d only have scored a few old clothes,” said Bean Minor limply.
“That you’d of had to replace,” returned Kieran on a firm note. “Come on!”
“Hang on: is it okay to leave the car here?” ventured Egg.
“Eh? –Aw. Yeah—no, Tommo’ll park it for us. Come on!” And he led the way into the palatial lobby of the towering glass and steel palace before us. There was no-one in sight but he bellowed: “OY! TOMMO!” and after a few minutes a door next to ranks of lifts opened and there appeared not the middle-aged caretaker I was expecting, like Mr Prosser in Mum’s block of flats in London, but a youth of about his own age, equally burly and tanned, tho with short fawn bristles rather than a blond mop. Like Kieran, he was wearing a drooping, very cutaway cotton vest and baggy floral shorts, with rubber flip-flops on his feet, the only difference being that his vest was bright yellow and Kieran’s was faded blue. We would have found this extraordinary, had not half the males seen at the airport been in similar gear. The rest were a mixture of neat business suits or casual cotton slacks and shirts in about equal proportions. Okay, presumably normal for Queensland.
“Ya wanna park ’er for us?” said Kieran, holding out the keys. Tho phrased as a question it very clearly wasn’t, as Tommo accepted them and enquired: “Got the boards?”
“Nah. Thought they might be nicked in the bloody airport carpark.”
“Good one,” he returned unemotionally, going.
And with that Kieran shepherded our mystified forms into a lift and up to his mum’s flat.
Oh, golly. There was the sea, all right! Betty Burns’s flat’s main room had a wall of glass looking out over a long sweep of golden sand edging frothing white waves and a huge expanse of brilliant lapis lazuli sea under the wide Australian sky. Not a cloud in sight. We were on the fifteenth floor but the building was quite a bit higher than that, as were its companions, lining the beach frontage as far as the eye could see in both directions.
“Crumbs,” croaked the Crumpet. “I’d swear I was in Miami!”
Well I’d only seen photos of it, but Mr Lamont had dragged him there to its fleshpots often enough, he’d know. And it was certainly just like the photos, yes. Tho with possibly fewer palm trees.
The flat itself was obviously very modern, with simple lines and white walls, but Mrs Burns’s furniture wasn’t, quite. Well it was new, very clearly, but one would have expected something simple with clean, straight lines in this sort of building. Instead it was all distinctly curvy. Very plump sofas and easy chairs, covered in pale pink leather, several equally plump extra chairs in pale green brocade, and matching drawn-back heavy pale green brocade curtains at the sides of the wide stretches of window glass. The floor was an expanse of palest gold, very shiny wood (later revealed as bamboo, actually), dotted with not-small rugs in shades of pale pink, pale green, darker green and pale grey. Several coffee tables and matching cabinets must absolutely have been made to order: they all featured turned Queen Anne-style legs and pie-crust edgings but were coated in something pale grey and so shiny that it must have been some sort of lacquer. Crumbs. Well Mrs Burns obviously wasn’t short of the jolly old readies!
Having shouted: “OY, MUM!” and determined: “She must be in the kitchen,” Kieran had marched out, presumably in search of her, so we were able to enjoy the full effect of the big airy, white-walled room undisturbed.
Finally Trelawney ventured in a low voice: “I say, you chaps, have you ever seen pale grey furniture before?”
We all shook our heads numbly.
“No,” he agreed. He eyed the three paintings on the wall to our left dubiously but didn’t say anything further.
Kindly the Crumpet noted: “Think those come under the heading of real oil paintings, old chum.”
The Egg choked.
Well yes. They were large, all the same size, and all featured stylised flower spikes in shades of pale pink with a little, um, dark pink, I suppose, plus a few indeterminate greenish and greyish shapes. Um, Mrs Burns had a pet artist who worked to order to match one’s décor? Help.
After a few moments Betty Burns herself bustled in, beaming. So we got here at last! You must be Mel, of course: how are you, Mel dear? Now, which are your brothers? Rather limply I introduced everyone. Mrs Burns wasn’t in the least like her son in looks: she was a slender woman of medium height with short, neatly controlled black curls, and her dress was a fashionable slim-cut patterned cotton in blue and black, featuring little cap sleeves and some draping over the bust and hips. The high-heeled blue sandals toned beautifully, as did the small blue drop earrings. Um, lapis lazuli? Very likely. She twinkled at us merrily, supposed brightly that we were ready for morning tea, and set down the tray she was carrying.
Gulp. Hot tea and buttered scones? In tropical Queensland? One would have expected—well, something tropical with pineapple, at the very least!
However, Kieran having rejoined us with another trayful of cups plus two neat dishes of jam, we sat down to it, the others looking as dazed as I felt. Golly, even the jam was just like we would have had in England: strawberry or apricot!
After that Betty ascertained competently that we didn’t have our “swimmers” with us, ordered Kieran to lend the boys some of his, and led me off to her bedroom, a lamb to the S., to inspect hers, which she was sure would fit me!
…. Crumbs. Every style, cut, shape and colour of swimsuit known to Twenty-First Century Woman! Er… I really couldn’t come at those “thongs”, but mercifully Betty decreed that as I hadn’t had a Full Brazilian they were out of the question. We weren’t exactly the same size up top but apparently that didn’t matter: one expected a bikini top to be revealing (merry giggle). Help. I mean, I had known the boys most of my life, but communal swimming heretofore—what there had been of it, in the less than tropical summers we’d managed to spend in England with Egg’s family, who lived in an area with large stretches of grass, which the horses preferred to stretches of ocean—had taken place on my part in the shelter of a School-ordained one-piece bathing-suit, as unrevealing as it was possible for such a garment to be. Out of which one did not bulge, so to speak.
“Um, I really think it’d better be a one-piece, Betty,” I croaked. “I mean, I’m not used to your sun…”
Of course I’d be using sunscreen—“Slip, slop, slap!” she trilled mystifyingly—but perhaps I was right. So I was allowed to get into a relatively modest thing, well glaringly bright, slathered in a pattern of tropical blooms, one would have seen me coming two miles off, kind of thing, but as covering-up as a Queensland bathing-suit ever got. And Betty proceeded to rub sunscreen cream firmly into me. She then assumed a bikini of the most revealing sort and I had to sunscreen her back, not to say her buttocks: the thought arose, did the cheery Kieran normally perform this service for her with the phlegmatic indifference which was, it had now begun to dawn, endemic to his species? Crumbs.
Apparently one then shrouded the creamed and swimsuited female form in a huge enveloping lightweight brightly patterned tent, so we did that—phew! Well tents with what looked suspiciously like Designer Labels on them, but yes. Now, this sunhat will look just the thing with those bathers, Mel! (Um, so were “swimmers” and “bathers” used interchangeably in Australia? Must be.)
We emerged, draped and sunhatted, to find the sitting-room decorated by tall lads in an amazing assortment of baggy floral shorts. Okay, those were Queensland swimmers slash bathers for the male side. Yes Mum (tolerantly bored), they were all wearing sunscreen. Well, put your shirts on, dears! Sheepishly the Junior Drones assumed large floral Australian-Hawaiian shirts worthy in colour and pattern of Scott Pearson himself. (Possibly genetic, but more likely just the local custom.) Kieran had anticipated the order, he was already in one. Betty and I then had to grab large beach bags, the boys were checked to see that they all had beach towels, Kieran looking tolerantly bored meanwhile, he was reminded to bring the sun umbrella, and finally off we went. Um, without the sun umbrella?
Oh! Once downstairs in the lobby we diverted through a door and a passage leading to the rear, where Kieran unlocked a large cupboard with a number on it and produced a giant folded sun umbrella therefrom. And we headed on beachwards. The building was right on the shoreline—the term “climate change” coming vividly to mind at this point—and a shallow flight of steps gave onto the huge beach. It wasn’t busy: only a scattering of people on the sands, a few more visible in the sea, and another scattering intrepidly coasting in on the frothing waves.
The immense umbrella’s vicious spike was shoved firmly into the sand by Kieran, Betty spread her towel under it and ordered me to follow suit, and we sat down. Kieran was staring around, possibly surveying the surf?
Not quite. “There ’e is, the bugger, I knew ’e was gonna stick the boards in and go in! Come on, youse mob!” With this he headed for the water at a trot.
“I think we’re supposed to follow him,” Crumpy produced dubiously.
“It’s that Tommo. I don’t know who Kieran imagines ’ud wanna pinch the boards, they’ve all got their own,” noted Betty. “Have you ever surfed before, dears?”
“No,” they croaked.
“No, well don’t expect that pair to teach you, all they ever think about’s themselves,” she stated—rather unfairly, after all Kieran had volunteered to drive us umpteen miles. Er… or possibly had been volunteered? The thought did spring to M. Gulp.
“We could give it a go,” offered the Bean.
“It’s harder than it looks, Michael dear. I’d just have a nice swim, if I was you! But don’t go out too far, dears, it is the Pacific, you know!” she said brightly.
This was followed up by a mystifying injunction to always swim between the flags on an Aussie beach, but as we couldn’t see any flags it was decided they must not be out today. But it was usually a safe beach anyway!
Rather uncertainly we removed the colourful outer integument and headed for the water.
“Sight for sore eyes, Sister Bean!” said the Egg with a laugh.
I winced. “Yes? You should have seen the other ones she offered me!”
Promptly he and Crumpy went into sniggering fits. The Bean merely reddened and glared at me—him all over—and Bean Minor and Trelawney, both of whom of course regarded me as an Older Woman, with in the minor legume’s case the extra non-inducement of being his sister, merely reddened and looked fixedly at the sea.
“Um, you won’t go out too far, will you?” I said to Egg and Crumpy as the others dashed into the breaking waves.
“No, don’t worry, Sister Bean, we won’t let you drown!” the egregious spongy comestible replied cheerfully.
Well thanks, Crumpet, that had been the thought behind the utterance, but really!
“Foot in M., Crumpy, old man,” grinned Egg. “We’ll be right here, Mel, as long as you want.”
“Thanks, Egg. Trying to swim in waves is even harder than in swimming-pools.”
“So that terrifyingly macho sports teacher at Merrifield didn’t manage to improve your performance in your last year?” he asked. –Our last dip together had been the summer hols. preceding that final year, in a pool somewhere in or near Bexhill-on-Sea.
“No, Egg,” I sighed. “I won that round.”
“Right!” He laughed, and firmly took my hand. “Come on, won’t do to let the side down in front of the Aussies, you know!”
“Hah, hah.” But I allowed myself to be led into the waters of the wide Pacific. If one looked at the map, it took up a bally great slice of the Globe or as it were, Entire World. And on the shores of Australia, that was dashed well what it felt like!
Well it was rather rough, the waves weren’t terrifically high but were rather tumbling and frothy. But it wasn’t cold, thank God—we had paddled in the sea during that aforementioned visit to England’s South Coast in midsummer but that was as far in as we’d been tempted to go. No well: invigorating, really, just about summed up the water on Queensland’s Gold Coast that day. But I wasn’t sorry to give up and go and lie down under the sun umbrella with Betty. Her idea of visiting the beach seemed to be to stay under the umbrella, from time to time sipping from a liquid poured from a thermos lurking in her beach bag. Um… pinkish?
“Mainly watermelon juice, dear,” she explained. “Well with just a smidgin of gin to brighten it up, after all the sun’s over the yard-arm, isn’t it?”—Merry giggle.—“Like some?”
Why not? So after my extremities had been patted dry and adorned with more sunscreen Betty poured into a second plastic cup and we lay back sipping chilled watermelon juice and gin, now and then nibbling on a salted macadamia nut also produced from the beach bag. Queensland natives, were they, Betty? Really? They were lovely! Yes, but the prices were extortionate, most of the crop was exported, of course, it was outrageous, really. Er… Oh well: it didn’t seem to stop her buying them, did it? Happily I accepted another nut—well a few, then—and lay back, nibbling and sipping…
The boys eventually resurfaced, panting and grinning, were firmly made to assume their shirts and more sunscreen, and were awarded Coke from the beach bag. Um… Young lads didn’t merit gin and juice? (Actually Egg, Crumpy and Bean are all a year older than me, well strictly speaking eleven months in Bean’s case.) Oh well, jolly good!
“This is the life,” I sighed, leaning back blissfully, half-closing my eyes against the blue and letting the warmth seep into my bones.
“I’ll say!” the innocent chaps agreed, knocking back the Coke.
Oh well!
As we mustn’t get too much sun on our first day and it was lunchtime anyway we retired to the flat, changed out of our damp things and had it.
Gosh. One could have characterised it as just salads but as the Bean remarked admiringly: “I say, Betty, this is an absolute feast!”
“Hear, hear!” the Junior Drones chorused. –Kieran just sat there stolidly eating.
There was no one pièce de résistance because they were all irresistible! Later we had a vote amongst ourselves, the two younger boys almost coming to blows over the choice between the rice salad with what we’d have called shrimps but the Aussies called prawns, mixed with cubes of melon, both orange and pale green, and intriguingly flavoured with chopped fresh coriander, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the very thin slices of cold beef mixed with cold noodles, halved cherry tomatoes, small cubes of cucumber and radish, and drizzled with a dressing consisting mainly, or so Bean Minor’s palate determined, of grainy mustard, olive oil and, not lemon juice, no: lime juice. Not out of a Rose’s bottle, Crumpy, no: fresh limes—des citrons verts! No, the nuts in it weren’t cashews, Bean, but actually he’d never had them before, he admitted, so I was able to supply: “Macadamias, I think. They’re native to Queensland. Betty and I had some on the beach. –All right, look them up, Bean, but they’re not native to Hawaii, I’ll give you six to four on Betty being right!” Hah, hah, I won.
There were two lettuce salads, too, well sort of. One was a mixture of several colourful varieties of lettuce plus pink cubes of watermelon, thinly grated strands of raw beetroot, a little thinly grated carrot, and soybean sprouts, the result a visual poem in shades of green and pink-to-maroon (the lettuce as well), with highlights of orange and white. Its dressing was not a vinaigrette as one might have expected, but fortunately the minor legume didn’t remark on this at table. More lime juice with olive oil.
The second lettuce mixture included green lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, plus bottled roasted sweet red peppers, cubes of fetta cheese, and lots of pretty little sprays of green leaves. –Pea sprouts, lots of the supermarkets had them these days! Betty revealed happily. Plus small triangles of toasted flatbread. There was a light dressing of olive oil and lime juice, yes, but as well the big platter was decorated with spoonfuls of a thick yoghurt drizzled with something dark reddish. Cautious tasting had found it to be extraordinary: a thick sort of syrup, both sweet and sour, really tangy! –Pomegranate molasses, you could get it lots of places these days. Crumbs. Well I voted for that salad, no question, but the others thought it was too much.
After lunch Betty thought we could have a rest, dashed good idea!
The boys wanted to go back to the beach in the afternoon but that was vetoed: too much sun for your first day, it’ll be much hotter out there now. Kieran will take you out his in father’s boat, if you like. Their faces brightened but mine didn’t.
The Crumpet put a supporting arm round me, what time Egg explained: “Mel’s not much good in boats, I’m afraid, Betty.”
“That’s all right dear, they won’t go far, just up and down the beach. It’s not rough today, you’ll be all right. Don’t worry, Bruce’s man will be in charge of it, no way would he let Kieran drive it by himself!”
“Steer it, Mum,” Kieran corrected in a bored voice. “Well okay, but I gotta warn you: ole Danno’s a pain in the ar—”
“Kieran!”
“Well he is, Mum. Thinks he knows it all.”
“He’s not the only one,” she returned drily. “Just be sure to cover up, dears, and slap on a hat!” –Merry giggle. And just in case, we’d better wear swimmers underneath.
The boat proved to be a large motor launch and “old Danno” proved to be a genial ancient character, very friendly and kind. In fact he was more or less a nautical version of dear old Sid, the head lad. Egg made sure he knew I wasn’t a good sailor, and sure enough, we just chugged gently up and down the beach. After they’d all had a good go at steering of course the boys all stripped off and dived in, but I just sat under a nice stripy awning and chatted to Danno. By the time he made them come on board again it was really getting quite late, so he steered in towards shore and dropped anchor. (Never “the anchor”. Apparently.) The lads all leapt off and swam the remaining distance, oh dash it! Danno had a little blow-up dinghy that he’d fetched us in, but would he bother setting it up again just for me?
“I can’t swim all that way, Danno,” I bleated.
“I’ll take you in, pet!” he said cheerfully. “Take your dress off—I’ll bring all your things over later.”
Well actually it was Betty’s dress but I took it off. And very shrinkingly followed Danno down his little ladder.
“Come on, lie back and I’ll grab you, tow you in. –Did surf lifesaving for years, don’t worry.”
Well I don’t know how I did it but I let go of the bally ladder…
Golly, next thing I knew he was swimming backwards with me and I wasn’t sinking at all!
In the shallows he got up, grinning, hauled me up and swung me onto his shoulder, help! “Here we go!” And he splashed in to the beach.
“I didn’t think you were that bad of a swimmer, Mel,” Kieran greeted me.
“Shuddup, ya nong,” snarled good old Danno. “Not everybody’s lived by the beach all their lives. –Grew up in France, didn’t you, love?” –I’d revealed as much during our chat on the boat while the others were in the water.
“Yes, mostly. Grannie’s place is right in the country, a long way from the sea.”
“Well, vive la France!” the old man declared, lowering me carefully to the ground.
Egg was trying not to laugh. “I’d say vive la différence!” he choked ecstatically. “Wish I’d had a camera handy!”
I awarded him a glare. “That’s right: vive la différence! –Thank you so much, Danno!”
“No worries!”
… “No worries!” grinned the cheery Darren Peddie who was Mr Lamont’s travel agent’s completely reliable chap next day, as Egg thanked him politely for arranging the Cairns trip for us. And with that we were led off for coffee, since there was plenty of time before our forty-minute flight over the Great Barrier Reef was due to take off.
‘You oughta persuade yer dad to come out,” he advised Crumpy over the coffee.
“He’d like to. Maybe at Christmas. Tho I’m not absolutely sure where we’ll be by then.”
“Aren’t we all going to stay with Mr Lewisham in South Australia?” ventured Trelawney.
“You are, but does that include me?”
“Yes; he said the more the merrier,” Bean explained, “and there’s plenty of room.”
“If he can’t take us, don’t worry, Crumpy, Dad’s got racing contacts in South Australia,” said Egg comfortably. “But that’s a long way from here, I’m afraid, Mr Peddie.”
“Shit, call me Darren, Alan! Yeah—no, it’s not the best time of year to come up here anyway,” he admitted. “Now lessee. I’ve got all the tickets for the Great Barrier flight—well thought I’d come with you, there was a spare seat going!” He grinned. “And ya get a better price anyway if ya can book the whole flight. And I’ve booked you in at a real nice place for lunch—all the ladies like it, Mel,” he assured me. “Then you do the boat trip with Locky Grahame—he’s totally reliable, there won’t be no fooling around and he’ll make sure ya go to the best spots to see a turtle and all that.”
“Um, beautiful corals?” I ventured.
‘Yeah, ’course! Ya can’t miss ’em! Loads of tropical fish, too: some of them are real pretty. And the seaweed: you’d be surprised. Always looks dead boring when it washes up, eh?” He grinned, and shook his head. “Nothink like it!” he assured us proudly. “One lady I took over there—that was with Locky, too—she said it was like a wonderful underwater garden: you’d swear someone had planted it!” –Complacent chuckle.
Crumbs. Okay, I’d look forward to that, then.
… And one could only hope that this small plane that was due to fly us over the great marine structure wouldn’t swoop. Because my tummy was quite sure not to swoop in concert with it, so to speak.
… “There she is!” cried our pilot.
He meant the Great Barrier Reef. We all had our eyes glued to the windows anyway, but yes, there it was, with the sea below us a mixture of deep lapis lazuli blue and startling, unexpected swathes of turquoise, edged in white frills. And on we flew…
“Wow! That is abso-bally-lutely amazing!” breathed the Crumpet as the plane flew higher to give us a panoramic view and we saw the astonishing structure, dotted here and there with tiny islands and smaller islets, stretching darkly out under the water forever, right to the horizon.
“I’ll say!” the Egg agreed. “One had read that it’s huge, of course—no, well I for one had no idea!” he admitted with a laugh.
“Yeah, she’s pretty big,” Darren Peddie agreed complacently.
“And—and it’s all built by the corals?” Bean Minor ventured.
“That’s what they say,” Trelawney agreed dubiously.
“Too right!” Darren confirmed. “Like, there’ll be a bit of sand washed onto it here and there, help to build it up, ya see—well in a moment he’ll show ya Green Island, that’s a bit of all right. Now, keep yer eyes peeled, ya might spot a turtle or rays, or even a shark or two. Uh—reef sharks, Mel: pretty harmless,” he added comfortingly to the lady in the group. Okay, if he said so, but I was very glad I wasn’t about to do any of the diving stuff that was also on offer.
Well it was all completely marvellous and more than lived up to its advertising and we thanked both the pilot and Darren most sincerely, getting double “No worries!” and merry laughs in return.
“Okay, Mel?” asked Crumpy kindly. “Not queasy?”
“No, I’m fine thanks, Crumpy. He didn’t swoop at all, did he?”
“No, very smooth flight: knows his job, eh? I say, the Reef’s tremendous, isn’t it? Dashed sobering in a way, don’t you think?”
Well all who know and love the Crumpet have to admit he’s not the brightest coin in the piggy bank, and his aesthetic appreciation is approx. zero, but this time he’d whanged the bally old nail on the bonce.
“You’re right. To think it can be seen from space!”
“Right. Sort of overawes one, mm?”
Yes, it did. If only I could ring my darling John and tell him about it right now!
“What’s up?” he said in alarm, as I blinked furiously.
“Nothing… Do you think John’s all right, Crumpy?” I found myself asking in a small voice, not having intended to say any such thing, bother!
He gave me a comforting squeeze. “Sure to be! Those MOD chaps know their stuff, don’t they? Squirrelled chaps safely away before, he told you that himself, eh?”
“Mm…”
“Come on, nice hot cup of coffee—or maybe, given this heat, nice cold glass of spring water with lime, eh?”
“Yes, it is hot. Golly, I think the plane must have had air conditioning.”
“Mm. Everything does seem to, here, doesn’t it? –Come on, Darren seems to be rounding us up!”
And off we went, visions of the wonderful reef and the blue, blue water and startling turquoise shallows still dancing in my head… Well, impossible to describe it, really, but it was the sort of experience that stays with one for a lifetime.
“There she is!” cried Mr Grahame, first name now determined to be Lachlan, hence “Lachie”, not Locky, after all.
Well yes, the Reef was in sight, all right. We were now all shrouded in sunhats and long-sleeved lightweight cotton garments, supplied firmly by Betty before we left—Nonsense, dears! It’s nothing!—and jolly glad we were to have them, too. It was very hot out on the water, tho there was a lovely little breeze. And it wasn’t, thank God, choppy at all.
The boat was smaller than we’d all been expecting, only room for our group, and it gradually dawned that the reliable Lachie, who must have been nearly as old as old Danno, was semi-retired and some sort of family connection of Darren Peddie’s. Um… old pal of an uncle’s? Something like that. Well as the Egg noted later with a laugh, it was the way commerce wagged the world over: mutual back-scratching, so to speak! As to whether the taxman would ever get a sniff of the money for this trip— Well dear Clive Lamont had paid for it all from his end, of course, but what we’d witnessed was an actual cash exchange between Darren and Lachie.
Of which Mr Lamont, who loathed the taxman and all his works, would thoroughly have approved! According to him Britain should jolly well turn itself into a Tax Haven! Look at (various worldwide examples of places which had done so). Um, yes, well one place mentioned was Singapore, which I hadn’t specifically known was, but if he said so, but it was full of very hardworking Chinese with a tradition of putting their backs into it and taking hardships on the way up for granted, whereas Britain wasn’t. Never mind the rallying round, all pulling together of World War II which still got relentlessly cited by the media and the politicians. Sitting back and complaining in between queuing for the dole, doing the Pools and backing the gee-gees was more your average British citizen’s line these days. The Aussies, we’d now discovered thanks to Master Kieran Burns, had an expressive phrase for it: “whingeing Poms”. A whinger being a complainer, QED.
Well I must say it was lovely to be out in the sunshine with the smell of the sea in our nostrils, far, far away from all of Europe and especially from Britain and the idiots who had voted for Brexit and landed themselves predictably in the poo. Not to say to be on the other side of the world from Grannie and her refusal to come into anything smacking even faintly of the twentieth century let alone the twenty-first. Tho if only poor downtrodden little Oncle Patrice, her brother-in-law and totally under her thumb, could have come out…
“What’s up?” said Crumpy in my ear.
I jumped. “Oh—nothing really, Crumpy. I was just thinking of poor old Oncle Patrice and wishing he could have come with us. When he goes to the château to work—he’s nominally the estate manager,” I reminded him—“he’s bullied by Grannie, and when he’s at home he’s bullied by Tante Élisabeth.”
“Um, ye-es… Um, actually Alysse and I were talking about something of the sort one day, and she thinks some chaps must have a gene that um, wants that.” He swallowed hard.
“What?”
“Mm. Well needs it rather more than wants, I should say, but um, yes.”
I thought about it. Golly. “I see what you mean, but it’s an extreme case all the same, Crumpy: he’s not happy, poor little man.”
“No. How old is the old bat, anyway?”
Meaning dashed Grannie, of course. I sighed. “She must be eighty-six by now. She married in her thirties, and Mum was a late baby, she was thirty-nine when she had her. Uncle Jimmy’s five years older.”
“Well realistically she can’t last much longer, surely?”
No, well, we’d been telling ourselves that for some time. But I looked at his round, plain and at the moment rather heat-flushed kind face, and managed to smile. “No. And I don’t think that Tante Élisabeth cares much what Oncle Patrice does so long as it’s nothing beyond the Pale.”
“Okay: nice holiday with Dad in Bermuda?” he suggested brightly.
I choked. Over the past umpteen years the senior Lamont’s customary companions in that salubrious and not-cheap resort of the lolly-loaded had been a succession of dim bimbos at least half his age.
“Yeah!” said Crunpy with a laugh. “It’d do him good! –No, well: just relaxing in the sun, eh?”
“Yes, absolutely.” I looked around us and smiled. “It’s blissful, isn’t it?’
“Good word for it. –I say, look over there: is that a turtle?”
We peered. The others all copied us. Kindly Lachie steered that way.
It really was! A real live giant turtle swimming along minding its own business. Gosh.
“Better than jolly old D. Attenborough any old day!” the Crumpet decided fervently.
“Yeah, ’course,” Lachie agreed. “Good eating, too.”
What?
“Uh—well, protected nowadays, of course,” he said uneasily to our expressions. “But they are traditional Aboriginal food. The Abos up Cape York still eat ’em.”
We were utterly silenced.
After quite some time the Egg produced: “I suppose it is a Stone Age culture.”
“Yeah, they didn’t have no iron tools or like that,” Lachie agreed calmly. “’Course the whole of WA and the Red Centre’s chock full of iron—reason it’s red—but yeah. Probably too busy just trying to scrape up enough tucker to survive, out in them parts,” he added kindly.
Er—yes. We had all taken a vow, cowardly tho it might have seemed, not to get into any discussion of racial questions in Australia. We looked studiously at the sea…
Fortunately a couple of stingrays then appeared and Lachie was able to launch into the not-quite-as controversial saga of one, Steve Irwin. The which demonstrated the validity of the adage “Yer never know”. Okay, the pellucid waters of the Great Barrier Reef were populated not only by harmless edible giant turtles but by deadly sharks and deadlier stingrays!
… And also, we discovered as the right cove was found, by a kaleidoscope of colourful tropical fish, all shapes and sizes, some little darting flashes, others bigger, frilled and furbelowed and unbelievably decorative, all going about their fishy business not caring about the humans peering down at them through the bottom of a glass-bottomed boat or hanging perilously over the side in the case of certain males.
“Like it, Mel?” asked Lachie on a smug note.
“Like it! Lachie, it’s a—a water wonderland!”
“Yep!” he agreed smugly.
We piled onto the plane for Sydney at the end of a long day with our heads still full of the wonders of the enormous reef: the bluest of seas with those amazing turquoise patches, the extraordinary tropical fish living their own lives in their gigantic underwater aquarium, the coloured corals in innumerable intricate shapes and sizes, and all the softly moving seaweed, making it not a series of stills but a scene of continual gentle animation…
“Wakey, wakey, Mel!”
“Bi’ tur’le,” I muttered.
“‘We called him turtle because he taught us!’ Wake up, Mel, we’re here!”
“Is that you, Egg? Is this Australia?”
“Uh—it’s Sydney, Mel dear. We’ve just been to the Great Barrier Reef, remember?”
I sat up straight, blinking. “Oh—it’s a real plane. Gosh, what’s the time?”
“Well bally late actually. Thought they might feed us but I think this was only a hop, skip and jump to the locals!”
“Um, we had a lovely lunch with Darren, I remember that… But I didn’t eat much because of the boat. Did we have dinner?”
“No, it was dark by the time old Lachie got us back to shore, remember?”
“Oh yes, so it was. They don’t seem to have any twilight, do they, or have I got it wrong?”
“No, that’s right, old thing: virtually no twilight in the Tropics.”
“It’s taken just under three hours,” said the Crumpet helpfully, leaning forward from Egg’s other side.
“Oh dear, and we’ve still got to get through Customs.”
“Uh—no, old girl,” he replied, very disconcerted. “’Tis the same country, y’know.”
“Yes, tho given Darren’s mention of ‘exporting’ their Queensland limes to New South Wales, one might be forgiven for assuming otherwise!” grinned Egg.
The Bean leaned forward from across the aisle. “I noticed that: dashed odd, eh? Tho I s’pose not if you compare the distances. I mean, I tried looking up a few flights across Europe out of London for comparison, and it’s incredible. London to Moscow is just under four hours: barely an hour longer than this flight! Everything else I looked up was miles less than that, even: London to Berlin was just under two hours, and London to Barcelona was two hours and a quarter!”
Crumpy gulped. “Bean, old man, do you mean it’s actually quicker to fly from London to the far south of Spain than it is to go between New South Wales and Queensland?”
“Well between Sydney and Cairns: yes, considerably.”
“Crumbs.”
“Yes, and actually they have strict quarantine regulations in New South Wales for fruit imported from Queensland.”
We looked weakly at our resident horticulturalist. Surely he’d got that wrong!
“It’s because of the fruit flies, largely,” he said calmly. “When they’re prevalent they stop all cars at the border to check that they’re not carrying fruit.”
Fruit flies? It was a different world!
Well I don’t know about the boys, but I staggered off the plane feeling even more dazed than I was when I woke up.
… “Melly-sand Fullarton-Browne! It is you! What in God’s name are you doing here?”
Okay, I wasn’t just dazed, I was asleep and this was a bally nightmare! Melissa Canning-Foulkes? It couldn’t be! I grabbed Egg’s arm fiercely. The ghastly female had last been seen on our final day at Merrifield School loftily dishing out frilly cushions and such-like from her study to favoured toadies. And given that she was the brainless bimbo par excellence not to say one of the world’s greatest snobs, I had fervently hoped never to set eyes on her again. She could not be standing in the airport concourse at Sydney in a putridly draped fashionable creation and incredible high-heeled shoes, wielding the sort of handbag that from time to time Mum had conned out of besotted wealthy admirers. Surely?
“Melissa?” I croaked. “What are you?”
She gave an all-too vividly remembered toss of the over-styled and now lightened as well as carefully streaked and tinted long locks. “Rufus is with the High Commission, of course.”
Er… Rufus? Their names had been Legion, but I didn’t think that had been one of them. Okay, maybe I should have kept up with the goss.’ faithfully purveyed to the Merrifield faithful by that egregious Hearty, bouncing Babs Rowntree, in her frightful so-called “Alumnae Newsletter”, but my email address believes it’s spam.
Egg pressed my hand firmly against his side. “Isn’t that in Canberra?”
I actually saw the female register (a) his Australian-Hawaiian shirt and baggy shorts, (b) his good looks and (c) his nice accent. Fearsome batting of the over-mascara-ed eyelashes followed as night the day.
“Well yes, but we just nipped over for the show at the Opera House.” –Leering smile.
To my astonishment the Bean came up closely on my other side looking pugnacious and said to Egg: “Isn’t that the thing you claimed was aural dreck, old man?”
“Well yes, aural and oral!” he replied with a laugh.
Melissa was now very red under the layers of make-up. “I see your taste in men hasn’t changed, Melly-sand.”
What? Hadn't it been her, bust and all, that had flirted desperately with John the last time he picked me up from School? Or maybe the time before—anyway, her.
“So what are you doing in Australia?” she pursued, ignoring the pair of them.
“Just on holiday,” lied Egg firmly.
“Yes,” I agreed faintly. Oh, God. Like all her kind Melissa was a terrible gossip, and what was the betting she avidly read the blasted Alumnae thing and would be only too eager to send it snippets of news? The thing went to Old Girls all over England and anywhere else the hotly-pursued life-partners they’d snared might have taken them.
Crumpy had been dumbfounded by the sight of her but now he found his tongue. “Come on, chaps, better go and find our ride.”
“Yes,” I agreed faintly. “Goodbye, Melissa. Um, I hope you enjoy Canberra.” And with this, Bean taking my other arm, I was marched firmly away between him and Egg.
“Now don’t bawl,” my sibling ordered firmly as we reached terra firma, I mean the outer doors.
“No,” I said, sniffing. “It was awful, Bean!”
“Yes, one of the worst of the cows, eh? Never mind, who’s going to listen to a word she says?”
“Everyone who reads Babs Rowntree’s putrid Alumnae Newsletter, you idiot!” I wailed, bursting into tears.
“Come on, Mel,” said the Egg firmly, putting an arm round me. “That won’t include crazed Middle-Eastern terrorists. And Sydney’s a big place, and we’re not registered at any hotel: they could look till the moon turned blue and never find you.”
“Um, no,” I admitted, sniffing hard. “I s’pose not… Oh dear. And it was such a lovely day!”
“Yes, of course it was. –For God’s sake see if you can spot Rob, chaps,” he ordered the others.
“We’re trying,” said Bean Minor weakly. “He did say he’d be by the door, did he?”
“Yes. Try outside, Tommy.”
He and Trelawney duly tried, were successful, and we all bundled into the Pearson people-carrier.
“What in Hell’s up with you?” asked the tactless Rob, as I snuffled miserably into my hanky.
“Bumped into a frightful bitch of a girl from her old school,” said Bean heavily.
“Shit, I wouldn’t let that worry ya, Mel! Come on, we’ll grab a burger, eh? Whaddabout a thickshake? You’ll like that!”
I managed to smile weakly. He meant well. “Mm. Thank you, Rob.”
Well at least this time it was a McDonald’s, so we were spared the beetroot slices. Curiously, tho the contents of the buns tasted like any McDonald’s burgers, the buns themselves had cold bottoms. Er… Okay, it was an air-conditioned and refrigerated lifestyle here, so presumably they refrigerated their McDonald’s burger buns. I have to admit, tho, that the thickshake was yummy!
Egg and Crumpy both gave me a goodnight peck on the cheek when we finally got home to the Pearsons’ luxurious guesthouse.
“Sleep tight, and try to dream of lovely coral undersea gardens, Mel,” said the Egg kindly.
“Mm, with pretty tropical fish with waving fins,” agreed Crumpy. “Tell you what, you could plan a tropical aquarium for when you and John set up house together!”
He meant well, dear old Crumpet, but I could see Egg trying not to wince.
“Mm, lovely,” I agreed valiantly. And off I went to bed.
Well I did dream about a lovely coral undersea garden but unfortunately it was being threatened by a great big turtle bomber wearing a turtle-neck sweater!
What? I woke up all hot and bothered.
Absolute rubbish, turtles were the mildest creatures! Uh—had that been some sort of dashed ninja turtle? Help, I didn’t think the bally media had brainwashed me to that extent!
I felt better after a pee and a drink of water. I dropped off again and this time all I dreamed about was darling John trying to catch a beautiful tropical fish with his fly fishing rod. (He does do fly fishing—feet of clay, yes. Also golf. Well no-one’s perfect.)
I woke up again to daylight and crashing noises from the direction of the kitchen.
Um, what were we supposed to do next? Egg had to check on the horses, yes, and— Oh. Today was a rest day but tomorrow Kieran was due to collect us for another couple of days with Betty and/or a trip up to Bundaberg, where they made the rum. Well it’d be lovely to see Betty again, but somehow I didn’t feel I could face yet more travelling and—and exposure. Safe and peaceful tho the Gold Coast beach had seemed.
… “All right, Mel,” said the Egg kindly. “The trip up to the bally rum factory is a chaps’ thing anyway. You and I will stay with the horses.”
“And with Sid.”
The old head lad had been discovered in the kitchen, where they weren’t having breakfast, they were having elevenses, morning stables being long since over, gulp!
“That’s right, love. I’ll keep an eye on you,” he agreed, putting a warm, wiry arm round my shoulders. “You can wear your yellow cap, no-one’ll know you! And there’s no way anyone can know you’re up here with the horses.”
No, that was true. “You’re right, Sid,” I agreed gratefully. “I’ll just avoid… exposure.”
He, Egg and Crumpy exchanged glances, but no-one commented on my unfortunate choice of phrase, they just agreed firmly: “That’s right!”
I did cheer up over the elevenses, with the prospect of just staying buried in the hills somewhere out of Sydney with darling old Sid and the horses, and admitted: “Mind you, I’m not sorry we went to the Great Barrier Reef. I never imagined it could be so beautiful.”
“No: no-one could,” the Crumpet agreed simply.
Which said it all, really.
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