Beyond the Strandline
Page 6
Chapter 5
“Unleash the Dogs of War”
Nigel’s grandfather had left him £4,850 as an aliquot share of his legacy. Nigel thought carefully about such issues as whether he should use it as a basis for growing up his fortune by shrewdly investing in the stockmarket, or whether he should put it towards a deposit on a property of some sort. A brief and faintly depressing look around the online property pages as touted by the estate agencies quickly brought him to realise that all he had was peanuts! Enough to have a decent holiday on.
So he asked Christobel if she would come with him on a vacation to Australia-New Zealand (he had done the rounds of the travel agencies and collected an impressive array of glossy brochures) and her agreement was implicitly accepted within the details of a prolonged following discussion as to where would be the best places to go and when it would be practicable. Chris was a junior-trained reception class teacher which had the advantage of a long summer break – available as long as they got on with it lest they miss the window of opportunity before the clampdown of the next autumn term. Nigel was a qualified electrician and generally preferred to work ‘on the tools’ with one or other of the larger construction companies and so could be available to fit in with her timetable.
So they booked a flight to Brisbane for when her school term ended on 20th July with no real plans other than that they would use backpacker hostels wherever they could to keep their costs down.
They fell in love with Australia and their cousins, the Australians. They used the trip to explore as far South as Sydney and as far north as Cairns, made friendships and contacts and cemented their own relationship. Even though it was winter in Queensland, cool and dark by 6pm, they found the Sunshine Coast temperatures to be not so different from home in Southeast England and had little trouble in adapting.
It was the long dark nights that impressed most of all. They had bought a small tent and sleeping bags and lay out gazing at the incredibly brilliant starry panorama of the celestial sky until they felt the cool. Most nights they made love in the open, lying on a blanket just above the strandline and safe from the blue jellyfish that had washed up there. Afterwards trying to work out whether they could see the Southern Cross and crying out with delight whenever a shooting star streaked overhead. Sometimes they made a driftwood fire and brewed a Dixie of coffee, cooked sausages and burgers with hunks of bread torn from a baguette. Fruit was plentiful and inexpensive and Christobel discovered a passion for avocados and passion fruit that would bring back evocative memories of their time there for the rest of her life. Snuggled up against Nigel’s firm, muscular body, warm and safe in his arms, tastes and flavours such as she had never before enjoyed, delighting her palate with every bite. Her happiness was replete. She was deeply, profoundly in love. She wished this time could last forever and for the time it seemed as though it would.
Their nights were tranquil, the sound of the breaking swell from the Coral Sea lulling them to sleep. The weather had been remarkably kind but it was a change to prolonged down-pouring of rain that eventually finished off their vacation and it was time for their reluctant return to England, work and an ominous autumn term.
They had only been home a few days and it was still the toils of the scorchingly dry summer that decided them. Christobel handed in her term’s notice and they started to plan their future and a return to Australia. This time they would go on a ‘Young Person’s’ 24 month visa with a view towards eventually emigrating.
The English weather had broken before their departure date and so they were the happier for departing into summer time in the southern Hemisphere.