On the plane to Istanbul, Keith wrote a postcard.
Dear Uncle Derek and Aunty Joyce,
Please thank your friend the travel agent for fixing up the cheap tickets. When Dad found out how much the full-price ones were I thought he was going to change his mind. I could tell from your faces you thought he was too. Love to Bradley and Diana and Mum hopes Bradley’s rash from the blow-up bed has cleared up.
Love, Keith.
At Istanbul Airport he wrote another.
Dear Nan and Grandad,
Thanks for the tropical shirt. I’m saving it to wear when we land in Australia. I’ll also wear it when we’ve got rich and you come out for a visit. Nan, I’ve checked up and you can’t get cholera or typhoid in Australia, or Yangzte Fever, so don’t worry. Mum and Dad are well, but Dad is in a bit of a bad mood. He says seven and a half hours is too long to wait between planes. I think he just can’t wait to get to Australia.
Love, Keith.
He wrote two more on the plane to Karachi.
Dear Mr Naylor,
Mum asked me to drop you a line to say thanks for having us to tea last Tuesday and she’s very glad the fire didn’t damage your wallpaper. It’s a small world. Dad is sitting next to a German salesman who sells wallpaper. He’s been telling Dad all about it for over three hours.
Your ex-neighbour, Keith Shipley.
PS. Thankfully you were wrong about taking off in planes. We’ve done it twice now and none of our ear drums have exploded.
Dear Owen,
Please cancel all milk deliveries to our place, if you haven’t already.
Yours sincerely, Keith Shipley.
And another two at Karachi Airport.
Dear Mrs Lambert,
Guess what? We’re in Pakistan and we’ve got upset tummies too. I reckon it’s the sandwiches we bought when they said our next flight was delayed ten hours. Was the plane delayed on your trip to Africa? Please tell the class they’re very welcome to visit us in Australia at any time and that goes for you too but I’d stick to biscuits at the airports.
Yours faithfully, Keith Shipley, Indian subcontinent.
Dear Mr Crouch,
I’ve just been talking to a cleaner who used to live in Bristol till he was deported and he says they’re short of good science teachers here in Pakistan. Bear in mind that the language might be a problem. Dad spent ten minutes trying to tell the guard at the security gate he was only going to Australia cause Mum wanted to. The guard thought he was talking about radial tyres.
Your ex-student, K. Shipley.
PS. I’m sure Dad was only joking.
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.