Love...Under Different Skies

by Nick Spalding

  Going home from a day with Alan Brookes who not only grabs life with two hands but strangles it until it turns blue, to a husband who doesn’t have enough energy to grab life even if it were to stand in front of him and jiggle around on the spot is quite depressing. I hate making the comparison between the two, but it’s hard not to.

  Jamie has attempted to fill his spare time by writing a book. He even read a few paragraphs of it to me the other day. I’m not sure the world needs a novel about killer robot women with enormous breasts, but I didn’t want to make his mood any worse so I just nodded and said it sounded quite well written. Which was no word of a lie. Jamie can string a sentence together—I’m just not sure he’s stringing the right ones together at the moment. Good subject matter for a book or not, writing only serves to fill a few hours of his day before he gets bored and starts surfing the Internet.

  To combat the malaise I’ve started leaving Poppy with him for a couple of days a week. I’m not too sure my daughter is particularly happy with this development. She loves her daddy, but the entertainment possibilities with him are severely limited when compared to all the fun and games she can get up to at Surf Tots. She also gets to come into the shop at lunchtimes to see me. This delights her to no end, but I can’t be sure whether that’s because she gets to spend time with her mummy or just because mummy works in a chocolate shop.

  With Jamie, poor old Pops is forced to sit and watch bad Australian cartoons, play age-restricted games on the laptop, and take long ambling walks along the beach until her feet hurt.

  “Daddy’s boring,” she said to me in the car on the way to work last week. “He doesn’t push me properly on the swings.”

  To Poppy Helen Newman this is a grievous crime. My three-year-old maniac of a child absolutely loves to be pushed as hard as is humanly possible while on a swing. Anything other than your 100 percent commitment is met with a no-nonsense frown on her little forehead and a pout that will last the rest of the day unless you buy her an ice cream.

  Nevertheless, her presence at home is keeping Jamie from permanently living in his dressing gown, so for the foreseeable future Poppy is just going to have to put up with some limp-wristed swing action.

  It also means I have to contain a certain amount of jealousy that Jamie is spending a lot more time with Poppy now than I am. But I have to suppress that feeling as much as Poppy has to put up with being a bit bored every other day. It’s all for a greater good.

  I figured the trip out to see the turtles might cheer Jamie up a bit, and for once I’m right.

  “Cool! I’ve walked past the place a few times down in the town and it looks great,” Jamie says with the first genuine excitement I’ve heard from him in a long time.

  “I know. You can feed the little sods and everything!” I exclaim happily.

  It’s generally quite rare for Jamie and me to be genuinely excited about something, so we both intend to make the most of our day on the water and take as many pictures of the aquatic little fellas as possible. Jamie doesn’t even make a comment about being a pathetic and emasculated kept man when I call the dive company to pay for the tickets.

  This is something of a miracle, as not a day has gone by recently without him making some reference to the fact that I’m earning all the money. We can’t do the weekly shop without him making at least one comment about the disparity between us, usually in a tone of voice replete with self-pity and barely concealed jealousy. I’m getting pretty damn sick of these comments, so I’m very relieved when I don’t have to hear any of them this time around. It appears his enthusiasm for turtle watching is enough to make him forget his silly neuroses for one day at least.

  “I’ll go put the camera in the waterproof case and make sure everything’s working okay,” Jamie says eagerly and skips into the bedroom to go track it down.

  I sip my cup of tea and sit back feeling decidedly pleased with myself. Not only do I get to have a lovely day out on the water, I also get to put a smile on my husband’s face for the first time in weeks. Two big fat birds with one expertly aimed stone, I’d say.

  And I do like to make him happy, Mum. He can be a very frustrating man sometimes, especially when things aren’t going his way, but he’s still the man I fell in love with and still the man who gave me the most important thing in my life, our daughter Poppy.

  Anyway, this situation won’t last much longer I’m sure. Jamie will find some work soon and this problem will go away. Once he feels like he’s contributing something again, I’ll get the old Jamie back, I’m sure of it.

  We were both up this morning at the crack of dawn. Standing out on the balcony and looking to the heavens I deduce that it’s going to be another warm, sunny, and thoroughly pleasant day, ideal for some frolicking with green turtles.

  By eight o’clock we’re at Diving Gold and meeting the crew who will be taking us out on the water. They are, in apparent order of boat seniority: Daffo, Wilko, Tommo, and Spud. Spud is the only one who doesn’t appear to be delighted with the nickname bestowed on him. I can only assume his surname is Murphy or O’Neil, and the other members of the crew have made the appropriate connection between the Irish and potatoes and named him accordingly. I guess O’Neilo wouldn’t come across right and would skirt very close to sounding Italian, which just wouldn’t suit Spud’s ethnic background at all.

  Daffo, Tommo, and Spud take off in a large VW van covered in pictures of turtles to prepare the boat down in the harbour, while Wilko stays behind to help us choose wet suits.

  There is a grand total of eight people on today’s excursion.

  Alongside Jamie and me are a French couple, two lads from Arbroath, and an American twosome who look well into their sixties. All appear to be fairly pleasant, although one of the Scots is very possibly mildly drunk at eight fifteen in the morning.

  Of the group, it’s the pensionable Americans who seem to have the most trouble getting their wet suits on. None of the rest of us jump into ours like we’re Jacques Cousteau’s cousin, but we don’t have the indignity of realising we’ve put it on the wrong way round. Such is the unhappy fate of the husband, who neatly pinches his elderly penis in the teeth of the zipper before Wilko realises what is happening and has the old man turn it around with the zipper running up the back as is right and proper.

  I can see Jamie suppressing a grin throughout this pantomime. He obviously doesn’t realise that the old American is basically him in thirty-five years with a Yankee twang.

  Once the wet suit fitting is over and the suits have been stored away for the trip, Wilko packs us off with a map to the docks, where our boat awaits. Diving Gold is a small operation, and the single camper van it owns has already beetled off, so we have to drive ourselves. Jamie is somewhat put out by this, but I don’t mind. I’d rather not have to force polite conversation with anyone at this time in the morning. I’d only get trapped by the American pensioner as he tells me all about how his scrotum is now a ball of fire thanks to the zipper fiasco. I don’t know what it is about getting old, but you seem to lose most of the inhibitions you carry round with you when you’re young and are quite happy to discuss your most embarrassing ailments with a complete stranger if it’ll pass twenty minutes.

  As it is, Jamie negotiates with the GPS for about three miles. It must not be in a truculent mood this morning as we arrive at the boat dock without having taken one wrong turn. Spud greets us at the gangplank and helps us onto the boat by taking our backpacks.

  Jamie and I take up temporary residence on the bench at the back of the medium-size pleasure craft that bears a slight resemblance to a modernized version of the one from Jaws, which I try not to think about.

  The docks themselves are about half a mile inland of the entrance to the broad Tweed River, which flows from the hinterland mountains, emptying into the Pacific Ocean right on the border between Queensland and New South Wales.

  “I could get used
to this,” Jamie says, lolling his head back and basking in the sun with his eyes closed.

  I have to say I agree with my husband as I look across the calm river, squinting a bit as the sunlight bounces off the gently rippling water. Then something happens that fair takes my breath away. The water is suddenly broken by the glistening back and fin of a dolphin coming up for air. Before it sinks back beneath the waves, another one is cresting, followed by another, and a fourth.

  “Jamie!” I cry and go to hit him to get his attention. I don’t turn my head while I’m doing this for fear of losing the aquatic creatures so end up whacking him in the testicles.

  “Ow! What, woman?”

  “Dolphins, Jamie!”

  “Where?”

  “There!” I point at where the first dolphin is coming up for another gasp, sending a fountain of water from his blowhole with an audible expulsion of air.

  “Fuck me,” Jamie says in awe.

  My eyes start to tear up a bit. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a dolphin, other than on TV or in a movie. It’s a rather special moment. Coming this close to the second most intelligent—and most playful—animal on the planet is quite incredible.

  “Bugger off you little sods!” I hear Daffo shout from behind me. He looks down at me and my shocked expression. “This river’s chockablock with bloody dolphins. It’s a miracle we don’t run ’em over all the time. They can be a right nuisance.”

  A nuisance? These beautiful, smart, graceful creatures…a nuisance? I’m incredulous and tell him so.

  Daffo smiles. “You get used to them, believe me. The shine wears off the apple a bit when you’ve had to smack one on the nose for the hundredth time because he won’t bugger off when you’re trying to test your new scuba gear.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. They love irritating you.” He leans over the side of the boat. “Smack your hand in the water like this. One of ’em might come over for a look.”

  I do as I’m bid and watch the water closely.

  I spend the next five minutes concentrating on this and am thus completely unaware that the rest of our gang of turtle watchers have boarded the boat and are now watching what I’m doing. They probably think the English woman has gone stark-staring nuts, slapping the Tweed River like it’s getting a harsh telling-off for being too lazy.

  I don’t care, though. I’m determined to attract a dolphin over. And yes! I see a fin break the water and come in my direction. I start to slap the water harder in excitement. I can’t believe I’m about to get up close and personal with a dolphin! I don’t care what Daffo says, these are majestic animals and the idea of touching one makes my heart hammer in my chest.

  Underneath my hand I see a grey shape rise to the surface. A pointy grey head breaks the water, and a clammy wet nose butts against my palm.

  “Bloody hell Laura, that’s amazing,” Jamie says breathlessly.

  “Jim, look, this woman’s petting a dolphin!” one of the Arbroath lads says to his compatriot.

  “Shit on toast,” Jim exclaims.

  “Ooh!” squeals the French woman. “Incroyable. Zat is amazing!”

  “Harry, get your camera out,” the American lady says, and I hear Harry rifling around in his backpack.

  “Stand back a bit Myra, I can’t get a good shot,” I hear Harry say to his wife.

  I can feel the others crowding around me, but I can’t take my eyes off my new aquatic friend. The cheeky way in which his mouth curls up at the ends makes me giggle, as does the way his eyes roll back and forth a bit, as if to suggest we’re sharing some unspoken but hilarious in-joke that only he and I understand.

  This is miraculous. Whatever else happens today, I have got my money’s worth. What a beautiful, wonderful, brilliant creature. What a—

  Phwoooosshhh!

  A healthy dose of Tweed River and dolphin snot hits me square in the face.

  Little sod!

  I jerk my head backwards, connecting with the lens of Harry’s camera. The old man stumbles back, caught by Jim before he has a chance to fall to the deck and fracture a hip.

  Nursing the back of my head with one hand, I wipe dolphin booger from my eyes and look back down at my waterborne assailant, who nods his head at me, rolls onto one side, waves a cheeky flipper that must be the equivalent of the middle finger, and sinks back beneath the waves to join his friends.

  “See?” Daffo says. “A right bloody nuisance.”

  I’ve finished cleaning myself up by the time the boat sets off from the docks. Jamie, who knows which side his bread is buttered, chooses not to comment. Jim and his Scots pal can’t look me in the face without grinning. Harry and his wife are studying his camera lens for signs of damage, so I’m spared their attention for the time being.

  “Zat was unfortunate,” the French woman says and introduces herself as Sandrine. “He seemed like such a nice animal before zat ’appened.”

  “That’s the problem with the smart ones,” Jamie says sagely. “The more clever they are, the more likely they are to take the piss out of you.”

  “Yes indeed,” she agrees. “An octopus hit my ’usband in the penis last month off ze coast of Cannes.”

  This is greeted with stony silence. Frenchy realises she may have provided too much information and makes her apologies to go to the restroom.

  “Good grief, that’s a weird thing to happen to someone,” I say to Jamie. “I wonder what he did to the octopus to make it that angry.”

  “The dude’s French, do you need anything else?”

  “That’s a bit unfair. It must have hurt. I wonder what he did about it.”

  “Threw his hands up and surrendered, I would imagine. The French tend to do that when confronted with physical violence. The octopus has probably been made president by now.”

  The boat chugs up the river at a fairly slow pace, giving Wilko and Tommo a chance to take us all through the safety briefing. They explain how to use the snorkels, when to put on and take off our life jackets, and demonstrate the universally approved sign for being in distress.

  “You throw your hands around over your head and scream “Help, I’m fucking drowning!” says Wilko to a chorus of slightly nervous laughter.

  The briefing successfully concluded, Daffo announces over the mic that he’s going to speed up the boat, and we’re suddenly off like a rocket, spearing towards the river’s entrance with the breeze and salty spray providing much-needed relief from the baking heat.

  “This thing’s a lot faster than it looks!” Harry exclaims with exuberance.

  He’s right. We’re clipping along at a speed I’m unaccustomed to in a boat. I was quite happy with the leisurely pace we were setting previously, but there are turtles to see and a limited time to do it in. I grip the seat behind me and try to grin and bear it.

  Grinning and bearing changes to clenching and suffering as we hit the Tweed’s mouth. Our life jackets go on as a precaution at this point, given that the river has suddenly gone from flat as a pancake to a seething cauldron of crashing waves and rushing whitecaps.

  “This is what it’s like when the river hits the sea!” Wilko shouts at all of us by way of explanation. “Don’t worry. We’ll be out beyond it in a few minutes.”

  This is just as well. I’ve always been pretty good on boats, but this roller coaster is bad enough for my breakfast to be considering a glorious reentry to the world. Wilko is as good as his word, though, and very soon we’re out into the ocean proper and chugging along on waves that are half the size and much more manageable.

  “There’s the island where the reef is,” Jamie points out. “The turtles should be right there.”

  I spy the tiny grass-covered rock a mile distant and fix my gaze on it. This helps settle my stomach, so much so that I’m quite happy to munch on one of the cinnamon doughnuts Spud has produced from the bo
at’s galley.

  Daffo decreases speed back to a gentle chug when we’re about a hundred yards off the island’s rocky edge and swings her round so she’s broadside.

  “Okay ladies and gents, this is our mooring point for today,” he says over the mic. “If you’d like to climb into your wet suits and get your snorkelling gear, we’ll jump in the water and see if we can spot some turtles.”

  I don’t need to be told twice. I have the image of a turtle being fed firmly in my mind. I can’t wait to jump in the crystal clear water and float around the gorgeous multicoloured reef as promised by Diving Gold’s website. I’m the first to be ready and am standing at the rear of the boat with my flippers on before poor old Harry has had a chance to trap his scrotum in his zipper again.

  “Right then, you ready?” Wilko says from my side.

  “Yes!” I cry excitedly.

  “In you go, then.”

  I take a deep breath, hold the snorkel mask as I have been told, and take a step out into the unknown…

  If you look at the Gold Coast on a map, you’ll note it’s far nearer to the equator than Antarctica. Nobody’s told the sea that though. It’s bloody cold. So cold that I’m very glad I elected to have a nice thick wet suit on over my swimmers. I come up for air spluttering, with my eyes goggling in the snorkelling mask. Jamie is still standing on the side of the boat. He gives me a thumbs-up and jumps in. I get a face full of salty seawater when his head pops back out right next to me.

  “Cold!” he wails.

  “Yes, I’d noticed!”

  Jim and the other Scottish lad are next to follow. I never did find out his name, so I’ll just have to call him Drunky.

  Neither seem too bothered by the frigid water. But then they are Scottish and there could be icebergs floating by and they’d probably be fine.