and met the manager at the reception desk, tightly T-shirted, slick-haired, self-satisfied , preening, strutting, peacocking prick of a man. Wouldn’t let us in cos we didn’t have ID. So we went go back to the unit, got our passports, returned. Members? No. Then you can’t get in. But we can get signed in, can’t we? Need a member to do that. Yes, we’re meeting one inside. Yeh, but you can’t get in without being signed in. Alright, what if one of us goes in and the other waits here? Much dithering and thinking. Okay. But the one who doesn’t go in has got to stay here, at the desk. Tony goes in, I wait in the foyer, under this dickhead’s gimlet gaze. Tony comes back out with Higgy, who signs us in and is interrogated by Bruce Hitler, who eventually condescends to grant us entry into his club, on the understanding that he’ll be watching us like a hawk. Oh, he says, and points to me. You’ll be taking ya hat off, n all.
Right, that’s it. D’you really think I’m going to let myself be ordered to doff my cap to you? D’you really think that I’m so keen to get into your poxy little bar that I’ll allow myself to be humiliated like this? Fuck you and your fucking smug strutting. Fuck you and the invisible carpets you’re carrying under your arms and shite on your muscle T-shirt and your surfing tan andyour Tom Cruise teeth and your orange glow and your fucking preening and shite in the hats I can see on the heads of your patrons through the doors in that overlit and overloud Euro-pop-thumping tacky theatre of self-congratulation that you call a fucking bar. Bars are supposed to be fun. What’s going on in there is my idea of some kind of torture. Shove your fucking bar up your fucking Aussie arse and fuck off into the sea and I hope a bronze whaler rips you limb from limb you fucking idiot. I’m 12,000 miles from home. Australia’s not the best country on earth and nor is the Gold Coast the best town in that country and nor is your fucking bar the best bar in that town. Shite on you. Fuck you and your surf bar.
–Bollox to this, I say to Tony. –I’ll see yis later.
Tony comes with me to eat stir-fried beef and noodles on the promenade and then returns to the bar to fetch Higgy and I go back to the unit and watch a documentary on Palestine; Gaza Strip kids and Israeli kids are filmed meeting each other. It’s touching and makes me think that only the fact of our growing up forestalls the establishment of peace in the world. Nothing else, just that.
Still seething, I take Higgy’s swag-bag onto the balcony so as to sleep in the cool air and give the other two a break from my snoring, and myself a break from them whacking me with pillows to stop me snoring, and, truth be told, from their snoring, too. Below me, suspended between two trees, a spider dangles, its spread legs the span of saucer. Maybe, in the night, he’ll crawl up onto the balcony and bite my face as I sleep. Fucking Australia.
In the morning, I ask Tony what he thought of the surf bar.
–Shite, he says. –Full of Bet Lynch lookalikes, only with less class.
THEN
At school, the boy and his British friends teach the Australian kids about porridge mines and scouse mines and haggis hunting. He draws a diagram of the scouse mine, a cut-away sketch showing the pit-head and the sunken shaft and the subterranean lake of scouse. A Scottish friend describes how the haggis run in herds across the hills around the town where he used to live, and he makes a drawing of one, like a potato with a smiley face and a pigsnout and sticky-out ears. The Aussie kids are fascinated.
Bullying begins, an extended and vicious bullying campaign against the boy and his siblings and other British and Irish kids. Every morning in the exercise yard, whilst singing ‘Advance Australia Fair’ during assembly, the bullies outline to the boy what suffering will be visited on him throughout that day. The boy’s brother will remember the names of his
Right, that’s it. D’you really think I’m going to let myself be ordered to doff my cap to you? D’you really think that I’m so keen to get into your poxy little bar that I’ll allow myself to be humiliated like this? Fuck you and your fucking smug strutting. Fuck you and the invisible carpets you’re carrying under your arms and shite on your muscle T-shirt and your surfing tan andyour Tom Cruise teeth and your orange glow and your fucking preening and shite in the hats I can see on the heads of your patrons through the doors in that overlit and overloud Euro-pop-thumping tacky theatre of self-congratulation that you call a fucking bar. Bars are supposed to be fun. What’s going on in there is my idea of some kind of torture. Shove your fucking bar up your fucking Aussie arse and fuck off into the sea and I hope a bronze whaler rips you limb from limb you fucking idiot. I’m 12,000 miles from home. Australia’s not the best country on earth and nor is the Gold Coast the best town in that country and nor is your fucking bar the best bar in that town. Shite on you. Fuck you and your surf bar.
–Bollox to this, I say to Tony. –I’ll see yis later.
Tony comes with me to eat stir-fried beef and noodles on the promenade and then returns to the bar to fetch Higgy and I go back to the unit and watch a documentary on Palestine; Gaza Strip kids and Israeli kids are filmed meeting each other. It’s touching and makes me think that only the fact of our growing up forestalls the establishment of peace in the world. Nothing else, just that.
Still seething, I take Higgy’s swag-bag onto the balcony so as to sleep in the cool air and give the other two a break from my snoring, and myself a break from them whacking me with pillows to stop me snoring, and, truth be told, from their snoring, too. Below me, suspended between two trees, a spider dangles, its spread legs the span of saucer. Maybe, in the night, he’ll crawl up onto the balcony and bite my face as I sleep. Fucking Australia.
In the morning, I ask Tony what he thought of the surf bar.
–Shite, he says. –Full of Bet Lynch lookalikes, only with less class.
THEN
At school, the boy and his British friends teach the Australian kids about porridge mines and scouse mines and haggis hunting. He draws a diagram of the scouse mine, a cut-away sketch showing the pit-head and the sunken shaft and the subterranean lake of scouse. A Scottish friend describes how the haggis run in herds across the hills around the town where he used to live, and he makes a drawing of one, like a potato with a smiley face and a pigsnout and sticky-out ears. The Aussie kids are fascinated.
Bullying begins, an extended and vicious bullying campaign against the boy and his siblings and other British and Irish kids. Every morning in the exercise yard, whilst singing ‘Advance Australia Fair’ during assembly, the bullies outline to the boy what suffering will be visited on him throughout that day. The boy’s brother will remember the names of his
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