A Bright Moon for Fools Read Online Free PDF

They were a young couple. The man was spindly, with glasses and rather bad skin about the
nose. The woman was plump, in an ill-fitting top that allowed a girdle of flesh to hang over her jeans. They were holding hands and looking out the window, stiff with hope that he wouldn’t
talk to them. Christmas thought this a pleasant scene.
    “I say,” he began, “terrific.” The couple turned to him as he nodded to the window, “Mountains. Cloudy. Terrific. Mountains, aren’t they?”
Jesus
,
he thought,
I really am pissed
. The couple smiled awkwardly and looked back at the terrific cloudy mountains wishing they were stranded on one, or indeed anywhere but next to this ageing
beast.
    “Going to Caracas?” asked Christmas.
    “This is a plane to Caracas, yes,” replied the boyfriend with a heavy accent that Christmas couldn’t place.
    “Been there before?”
    “No.”
    “Is it easy to get a taxi at the airport?”
    “I don’t know. We’ve never been there.”
    “You know I remember once when I was your age, down near Malaga with my wife, there was this taxi chap down there – what was his name? Kamal? Was it Kamal? Kermit? Anyway – had
a terrific drug problem. Sold everything in his flat except this huge old fridge. Hid in the bloody thing for two weeks. Absolutely paranoid. Was convinced that the police surveillance X-ray mind
reading frequencies or what have you couldn’t penetrate through the metal lining in the fridge ...” and he was off. He talked and drank and drank and talked “... and then did you
hear about that chap from Oxford? Invited four hundred people from the phone book whose last name ended in ‘bottom’ and then didn’t show up so they all had to introduce
themselves, ‘I’m Mrs Higginsbottom. I’m Mr Ramsbottom. We’re the Bottoms ...” Christmas was guffawing loudly. The stewardess asked him to lower his voice. Then she
refused to serve him another drink and told him he should try to sleep. He told her to go away. The terrific cloudy mountains seeped into his brain. At one point he could remember telling the girl
next to him not to slouch. He tried to put a hand on her shoulder to help her with this correction when the boyfriend knocked it away.
    “Hey, just chill out, OK? Relax.” It was a bad thing to say to Christmas. Nothing infuriated him more than being told to ‘chill out’ or ‘relax’ by someone
other than a doctor holding a defibrillator.
    “Oh, I see ... dreadfully ... I should relax, should I? I should ‘chill out’, should I? That’s what I should do, is it? That’s your professional opinion, is
it?”
    “Look,” started the girl, “why don’t you just—”
    “And what
is
your profession, young lady?”
    “I’m a sports therapist.”
    “And what’s this then?” laughed Christmas. He had two inches of her flab between thumb and finger. “Eh? What the devil is all this?”
    Threats ensued. His stewardess appeared with back-up and Christmas noted with surprise that she had completely lost her friendly demeanour. There was some admonishment, some arrangement he was
dimly aware of. The alcohol began to rub him out. Another interaction with more senior members of the crew came next, but Christmas would always remain unsure of what exactly transpired. He did
have a memory of being in the toilet and laughing. When he awoke they were one hour away from Caracas and his trousers were on the wrong way round. The seats next to him were empty. He passed out
again. When he came to the whole plane was empty. They were on the ground.
    He took his Panama from the overhead locker and gathered his things while being watched by the crew. “
Adios
,” he smiled to his stewardess on the way out. She didn’t
reply. So, with head high and breath bad, Christmas walked through the airport, past the U-bend of passengers nervous for their luggage, towards the taxi drivers and moneychangers. He showed his
passport, nodded to the soldiers and strode out