Tony Parsons - Catching the Sun

They were selling dreams.

‘Come on, mate,’ Jesse shouted. ‘We’re going home.’

I looked up but he wasn’t talking to me. Jesse slid from his stool and took the hand of the gibbon.

The creature adjusted its cowboy hat and fell into step beside him, its free arm trailing, and there was much wailing and moaning among the bar girls as the pair of them disappeared through the curtain that covered the door.

The mamma-san spoke sharply to the girls. You didn’t need any Thai to know she was telling them that Jesse had won the gibbon fair and square and they should get back to work. One of the girls wiped her eyes with her fingers and started packing away the Connect Four. I headed for the door.

Out on the street Jesse and the gibbon were already settled in the back of a tuk-tuk . The gibbon stared straight ahead with its depthless black eyes, unsentimental about leaving its place of work, although holding on to its hat as if fearing it might blow away on the ride home. I called Jesse’s name but he didn’t hear me, and the tuk-tuk puttered off down the Bangla Road, trailing smoke.

Back inside the bar Farren and Baxter were shaking hands.

‘We’re going to clean up!’ Baxter bawled over the song they were playing and when he stood up to embrace Farren his sturdy legs overturned a table of glass and beer and overpriced fruit juice.

It was ‘Highway To Hell’ by AC/DC.

I recognized it now.

It felt very early when I left them to it in the bar, but by the time I got back to Nai Yang it seemed very late, as though everyone around here had gone to sleep hours ago.

The lights were off in the Botans’ house. In our place there was a light left on for me. I wheeled the Royal Enfield into the shed as quietly as I could and stood there in the moonlight, smelling the clean air, just a hint of sulphur from the mangroves, and hearing the insect-drone of the traffic.

Our house was still unfamiliar to me and in the darkness I held out a hand to guide myself, the hard wood of the wall panels cool and smooth and somehow comforting against the palm of my hand. In the bedroom I undressed quickly in the darkness. When I curled up against Tess she murmured and pressed herself against me and I buried my face in her hair.

‘Good day?’ I said softly.

‘They’re all good days,’ said Tess. ‘How about you? Is everyone really friendly? Did you meet anyone you like?’

‘There’s an English kid called Jesse. He’s full of himself but I like him.’

I didn’t tell her about the gibbon and I didn’t tell her about the Australian who tried to strangle my boss and I didn’t tell her about the little Muslim girl on a motorbike. Because I wanted it to be true – for all of the days to be good days. But it felt like there was a lot I couldn’t tell Tess if I wanted her to keep her smile. And I wanted that more than anything.

‘You need to talk to Farren about our visas,’ she said, more asleep than awake now. ‘Your work permit. All of the paperwork. We need to get that sorted.’

‘Tess?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Close your eyes, angel.’

Soon I felt her slip into sleep but I stayed awake for a long time, curled up against her, my face in her hair, listening to the distant buzz of the motorbikes out there in the wide wild night.

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