Living Upside Down. John Hickman

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СКАЧАТЬ is thoughtful. “I’m not sure what to do? We don’t want to upset our chances.”

      “They say Eastern States. Brisbane, my Love, is Eastern. Actually, you can’t get any further east than that, or you’ll be in…the drink.

      Look, we shouldn’t get frustrated by these Australian rules one, two, or three. They say east but don’t mention Brisbane. How’s about we hedge our bets.”

      “How?”

      “I’ll attach a hand written entry; ‘Sirs, we respectfully request we be considered for Brisbane—please, blah, blah, blah!’”

      They send their missive away. Days slowly trudged into weeks.

      Now they wait for the powers-that-be to sprinkle their pixie dust.

      In the meantime buoyed by a non-response, which they find strangely encouraging they try to find out something, anything about Brisbane at the Norwich library. It is the largest in their area and Brainy greets them as old friends.

      “Based on what we need to know today, I’d say these are good for lining budgie cages,” Roger retorts smoothing the newspaper with the palm of his hand.

      “Admittedly, they’re old newspapers,” Brainy agrees with a wry smile, “but Brisbane is rarely mentioned. I deduce therefore that Brisbane must be a very plain and uninteresting place. There’s quite a bit about Canberra and Melbourne, though. Sydney gets a few mentions.”

      After a while Brainy finds them a book that shows a small part of the Gold Coast in South East Queensland. On the map, it looks slightly more than an afternoon’s drive from Perth but on closer inspection Brainy suggests they might require taking a picnic lunch.

      Sue who finally has her hands on the book is excited. “Look there’s a recent photograph. Oh, this is so much better than those black and white drawings of Captain Cook.”

      Whoever had written the segment about the Gold Coast included a single colour photograph.

      “A novel change from etchings of convicts in chains,” Brainy agrees amiably. Nodding like a Pekinese doll on the dashboard, he loans them the book.

      At home, they do more than peruse. They study that photograph of a man hosing down the drive-way to a house.

      Without question that photograph was never intended to provide the hours of in-depth investigation that Sue and Roger devote to it. The expression ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ comes to mind. Roger briefly scans the image looking for something of interest, like a woman’s cleavage or a dog doing something despicable in the background.

      Sue dissects the picture with a considering look as if conducting an autopsy. “Other than being referred to as banana benders it clearly states: A fastidious Queenslander. That’s a bit unfair; it’s as if Queen-Z-landers are not overly popular with others in Australia. Why call him fastidious just because he likes hosing down his driveway?”

      “A good point, if it is his driveway. Unless of course you don’t like Queen-Z-landers anyway.”

      “The hosing down looks more like some sort of relaxation ritual. There are no obvious signs necessitating a clean down.”

      “There’s a big timber house,” Roger chimes in. “Means it can’t be that cold, otherwise it would be brick. Wouldn’t it?”

      “Not necessarily; colder places do have timber homes. At least he has reticulated water and apparently plenty of it.” Sue observes with excitement. “Look, he’s using a hose draped from what looks like a car wheel mounted on the side of his house.”

      “Maybe he can’t afford a proper one, but it’s not a novelty him having the means to splash water around. There can’t be any shortage of water. Just makes you wonder sometimes how close an anthropologist’s deductions are…”

      “He’s dressed in shorts, so we can assume he’s not freezing his nuts off.”

      “Nor is the water icing up on contact with the ground and look, he’s barefooted.”

      “He’s not starving either. His stomach’s sticking out over his belt. He looks overweight.”

      “He doesn’t look wealthy by British standards but he can at least afford to eat well.”

      “With a gut that size it’s unlikely he could out work me physically,” Roger adds optimistically.

      “Unless he’s an Einstein in disguise hosing non-existent crap off his driveway?” Sue offers sceptically.

      “As long as if he’s asked what he does on his day off, he doesn’t answer ‘celebrate Christmas,’ you might be right.”

      Sue continues, “The sky’s a deep clear blue, look, see up there, a couple of brilliant white wisps of cloud, you can even see shadows on the driveway, from what look like trees.”

      Sue is turning her head sideways to change the rotation of the image. “The grass is green, the other shrubs and flowers all look healthy. Huh, I just realised, he’s hosing a concrete driveway, oh, and look right down the bottom here, you can see the road, it’s black bitumen, not dirt.”

      Sue’s eyes are alive and dancing as she devours every minute detail of the photo. The whole scenario captured in a nanosecond by some passing photographer of the time.

      They remain enthusiastic but worry creases their faces without word from Australia House.

      Sue is convinced, pressing her white-knuckled fists to her mouth. “You’ve blown it. Oh, why did you have to go against their wishes?”

      Roger is pacing back and forth like a caged animal. He turns. Her eyes are glazed, as if she is elsewhere. He knows that look well. He has seen it in the mirror often enough after the failure of the family business. Four years of his life working twenty-four seven for food and keep without wages only to be kicked out by the receiver’s liquidators with nowhere else to go, except more of the same.

      “I hate many things, Sue, but most of all I hate waiting for something to happen. This is like all retch and no vomit.”

      “You’ve been giving this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”

      “Yes, but only once a day,” he smiles, “just all day long.”

      The postman knocks on their front door with another package too large for the letter slot.

      “Hello,” he says cheerily to Sue, “I see you’re going to Australia then.”

      The age old ritual of the Postie knowing everything about everybody is how Sue and Roger first learned going Down Under.

      The package contains, amongst the obligatory government paraphernalia and crapola, four air tickets to Brisbane, departing 13 March, 1971 on a BOAC charter flight from Heathrow.

      Sue starts doing crazy little dance steps. She looks as excited as a small child waiting for Santa Claus.

      “Say something.”

      “Wow!”

      “Say СКАЧАТЬ