Living Upside Down. John Hickman

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      Sighing and rolling his eyes at the lost chance to celebrate something he was dedicated to birthing he comments to the closed door, “That’s below the belt, Sue. Is nothing, nowhere, sacred?”

      With nothing to read and nature proving fickle he reluctantly picks up the brochure.

      What he sees is an overview of climate in Australia produced like a textbook on the run. In the north, it is described as tropical.

      Roger ponders his Rodin’s Thinker pose. Tropical?

      His mind ticks over; maybe a bit too hot and sticky for his pale Saxon flesh.

      I could go a bit of that tropical warmth right now, he thinks, as ice is forming on the insides of his nostrils.

      In the south being the opposite of north, he observes it is cold.

      It is now so cold in the library that Shackleton would not have left a Husky dog outside for long. He is now so cold the poor bastard cannot feel his own testicles. Maybe his turtle is frozen? Perhaps a new archaeological find in the making?

      Looking at the brochure, his attention catches their coastline about half way up the Australian continent on the left hand side. Their summertime is the same as British wintertime because of the reversal of the hemispheres, he understands that, but, from what he is reading, it is warm to hot by British standards.

      With his usual optimism and unclear lateral thinking, Roger suddenly becomes somewhat hooked on the idea of not spending about one third of their disposable income on coal heating.

       Could it be that simple?

      Finishing up with a smile, he even waves farewell to the turtle as the water swirls it away to its watery grave.

      “Amazing how once in a while having a shit can be such a wonderfully revealing experience,” he murmurs as he almost collides with Sue, busy with additional odour neutralisers, her face a picture of concentration.

      “You know, Sue…, according to these statistics a family could live in say, Perth, wherever that is, and never need to buy coal for heating.”

      “Wow! You’re sounding wonderfully positive today.” Sue brightens.

      Sue looks as if she is about to crawl out of her skin from excitement.

      “You’re right,” Roger beams, “optimism is beginning to infiltrate every cell of my body.”

      In a devil-may-care moment, brim full of new found knowledge about fuck-all but temperatures Down Under, they race out and buy thermometers.

      Placing these at strategic distances, in and around their cooker, they plan to get the edge over the highbrow meaning of the statistics.

      “You mean we’ll feel for ourselves what sub tropical temperatures Down Under really feel like?” Sue asks.

      “Exactly.”

      After a while Roger announces shrilly, “It is very hot.”

      “Your hand is almost inside the oven,” Sue says defensively.

      “Trouble is Australia’s in Celsius and our thermometers are in Fahrenheit,” Roger groans staring at their appliances with an air of hopelessness.

      After attempting to do their school day conversions in their heads, and with limited success, they decide rather than go completely bonkers — to take a short cut.

      “How’s about anything above our thirty-two Fahrenheit is a bonus?” Sue gushes.

      Roger toys with this thought for a while before dismissing it. “Here we’re used to a life threatening ten above at peak of day, so a move is looking good, but what about the children?”

      Sue’s smile brightens. “I think it best we take them with us, don’t you?”

      “Yes. I meant how’d you think they’ll cope?”

      “Why? They’re children; they’ll adapt well, probably better than we cope. Your legs are white and skinny. You’ll look like a flamingo.”

      “Presupposing we are to leave this land of our birth. Admittedly a land of benighted fools and spoon fed unremarkable people who’ve been born into unearned privilege,” Roger pauses to collect his breath, and further supposing that I’m even employable in Australia.”

      Sue is hanging on his every word. In her mind’s eye, she is already visualising a life Down Under as a panacea for most of their ills.

      Anything to get out of this mind numbing, grey, lifeless, British climate and the extra distance between them and Roger’s bank guarantees might not be a bad thing.

      “And further surmising other costs measure up similar to here,” Roger continues counting again on his fingers, “whatever is left to spend after taxation could mean we’d be one third better off financially than we are now.”

      “Simply by moving to the other side of the world and living upside down,” Sue prompts gently.

      “Yes.”

      “Their ‘ten pound assisted passage’ is a big pull, but still no mention of Fred.” Roger ignores Fred. “It’s a no-brainer, Sue. Money-wise I’ll never be accepted here as anything above lower middle class, because I wear the wrong School tie. Can Down Under be worse?”

      Sue perks up. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it? Do you think we’ll be forbidden to walk on the grass in their parks, like we are here? Will we have to keep Fred on a lead?”

      “I have no idea what to expect. Do they even have green grass in Australia? Or even parks, or dogs?”

      “Maybe now is the time to try and find out?”

      The following afternoon they visit their local librarian. He explains, “The name Australia is derived from the Latin Australis meaning of the South. Matthew Flinders was the first person to circumnavigate the continent when the only inhabitants were Aborigines, and he referred to them in his book.”

      “Aborigines? What about the Aborigines?” Sue asks.

      “Well, from what’s in the library, they invented the boomerang, which in aboriginal probably means, ‘Don’t stand there’, but they don’t appear to have come up with much else in the past 40,000 years, or so. According to newspaper articles, they only recently got the right to vote, which means they’ve certainly been disadvantaged. Maybe you should take an interest in the Aboriginal culture?” the librarian suggests.

      “What like join in their rain dance on a Friday evening?” Roger asks tongue in cheek.

      “Why not?” Sue smiles, but it does not reach her eyes. “Great idea — weather permitting.”

      “If Aborigines spend much of their time outside, sitting under trees, you do realise something very important?”

      “What?” Sue and the librarian ask in unison.

      “Everyone СКАЧАТЬ