Love...Under Different Skies (20 page)

Everything should be absolutely
fine
.

Love and miss you, Mum—as always.

Your apparently free-spirited daughter, Laura

xx

JAMIE’S BLOG

Sunday 12 November

If I were a religious man—which I’m not, otherwise this blog wouldn’t be quite so full of swearing—the phrase “the Lord giveth, and the Lord bloody well taketh away again” would be one very close to my heart at the moment.

Last month my luck finally changed for the better. I found some work! Well-paid work at that. Nothing permanent, but it was still a fortnight of copywriting that paid me as much money as I would expect to earn from two month’s hard work back home. And I got to do it from the comfort of our apartment. The best commute to work in the world is the one you take from your bedroom to your living room, wearing nothing but your pyjamas and a dressing gown.

The job was with a boat company up in Brisbane, run by the brother of the guy who owns the badly spelled Aquous hotel. He was apparently so pleased with the copy I’d written for him that he told his sibling all about it—who then offered me a gig extolling the virtues of his new speedboat range for the 2013 catalogue. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, eh?

“Baby, I’ve got an idea,” I say in a sleepy voice to Laura as we lie in each other’s arms on a balmy Gold Coast evening after my first day of work in what felt like forever.

We’d just had sex for the first time in a month. It really is amazing what a boost in your self-esteem can do for your libido.

“An idea?” she replies, idly running a finger across my chest.

“Yep. Your birthday’s coming up.”

“Yes, don’t remind me.”

“I want to do something nice for it.”

“Like what?”

“Well, this job is going to pay me quite a bit of money, so I can afford to treat you to something nice—if you can get the time off work, that is.”

“To do what?”

“I want to pay for the three of us to have a long weekend up in Cairns. We can do all the touristy stuff like go to the Great Barrier Reef and see Cape Tribulation. It’ll be my birthday present to you, if you can get the time off. I know it’s really short notice.”

“That sounds lovely, Jamie. I’ll book a few days off when I get in tomorrow.”

“Your boss won’t mind?”

Laura’s eyes narrow. “No. I’m sure he’ll be
fine
with it.”

“Fantastic. You get that sorted and I’ll arrange the flights and accommodation.”

“You sure you want to do this? It’ll be quite expensive.”

“Absolutely. Things have been pretty crappy between us, and I want to make it up to you. I really want to do this, Laura.”

“You’re quite the romantic when you want to be, Newman,” Laura says and kisses me. Things stir down below. Laura’s eyes widen. “And as horny as a sixteen-year-old as well, it seems.”

Yes indeed. Earning some cold hard cash really does return your mojo to full working order.

And so it was that family Newman boarded a plane from the Gold Coast to Cairns last Thursday, intent on a few days of sun, fun, and relaxation. Which we got. For the first thirty-six hours, anyway.

Cairns, like a microwaved cucumber, is green and hot. Up in the tropics, the city itself stews uncomfortably in thirty-degree heat most of the year, while stretching beyond it north up the coast are a series of gorgeous beaches that towns have grown around in the past few decades, mainly for the tourists that come here from all over the world.

Taking a holiday here is rather like visiting some of the incredible beach locations across Southeast Asia, without having to worry about learning a foreign language or getting a shot in your arm to protect you from a variety of waterborne diseases. The Cairns area is famous for its wildlife too, including wild saltwater crocodiles that occasionally pop up along the rivers and creeks, scaring the bejesus out of the locals and taking a bite out of the odd passing dog.

Then there’s the small matter of the Great Barrier Reef, which is trying its level best to remain beautiful despite the best efforts of mankind to kill it off as soon as possible thanks to our relaxed attitude to climate change.

We landed at the Cairns airport at lunchtime on Thursday, drove the hire car to our boutique hotel in a lovely beach resort called Palm Cove, and proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the day, apart from sit on the beach and eat Thai food.

Friday was Great Barrier Reef Day, and what a fantastic experience it was. I didn’t even mind getting up at six in the morning to catch the enormous catamaran that sailed from Cairns Harbour for some six or seven miles off the coast. We snorkelled on the reef. We sunbathed on a nearby island. We paddled in water so blue it looked like it had been touched up in Photoshop. Laura saw her turtles (at last), Poppy tickled a clown fish, and I didn’t make a fool of myself once, not even when transitioning from the catamaran to a small rubber dinghy and back again no less than
three
times. It was the best day we’ve spent in Australia so far, and I paid for every penny of it.

Lovely.

Then came yesterday. Thanks to which, I have decided to contact the tourist board and suggest a new strapline for the area: CAIRNS—
it’s bold, beautiful, and absolutely bastard terrifying
!

This was Laura’s birthday, so I had planned a whole day of fun exploits. First, Laura would go for some treatments at a local spa in Palm Cove while I entertained Poppy elsewhere (i.e., watching
Finding Nemo
—again). Then, after lunch we’d take a ride on the Skyrail, an enormous cable car that takes you up the mountains and into the ancient rainforest beyond. For dinner, I’d arranged a rather special meal for all of us via our hotel, which consisted of sampling some tasty Australian cuisine at a table set up on the beach. Then to conclude the birthday, we’d take a slow, relaxing walk along the beach as the sun went down, offering ample opportunity for the kind of holiday snaps that make your friends insanely jealous of you.

Sounds great, right? I thought so, too. Then came the breakfast spider…

I’m up and out of bed good and early, intending to serve Laura breakfast in bed. I only manage some toast and marmalade, but it’s the thought that counts, right? After I deliver the breakfast into my wife’s grateful mitts and wish her a very, very happy birthday with some kisses and the biggest hug I can manage, I make myself a cup of tea and saunter out onto our first-floor balcony to soak up some early morning sun. This has become something of a ritual for me down on the Gold Coast, and it’s nice to continue it up here where, if anything, the weather is even better.

Our large holiday apartment is at the end of the building next to a collection of trees, some of which have branches that droop close to my head on my left as I stand at the railing, surveying all before me with a feeling of intense smugness.

The view is wonderful. I take a sip of tea and look out onto sparkling clear-blue waters, happy locals taking their morning jog along the beach, swaying palms, singing kookaburras, and…

A
FUCKING HUGE SPIDER RIGHT NEXT TO MY HEAD
!

The tea goes into the air as I skip out of range of the crouching monstrosity. I’m not usually scared of spiders, but this bugger would terrify Jesus himself if he decided to begin the Second Coming on my hotel balcony.

It’s a good seven or eight inches across and would quite easily cover my palm if I were dumb enough to pick it up. It’s quite a colourful little bastard, with spindly brown-and-black legs, a bright yellow-and-black abdomen, and a shiny patina across its whole body that almost glints in the sun.

The spider has spun its web between two of the aforementioned hanging branches that have grown out over our veranda. Quite why it’s done this is beyond me, unless it knows something about the local fly population that I don’t. Maybe the last tenants of this particular apartment were a disgusting bunch, and the insects congregated over huge piles of rubbish, leading to my big, black friend here setting up shop in the flight path. Whatever its reasons, the spider is way too close for comfort.

Laura appears from behind me. “What time is it, honey? I don’t want to be late for my—Oh fucking hell, what the fuckity fuck is that?”

“That would be a spider, my darling wife. One of the ones they warned us about before we came here.”

“It’s bigger than my head!”

“Quite possibly.”

“Urrggh. I don’t like it! Do something, Jamie!”

“What? Put a lead on it and take it for a walk?”

“Get rid of it!”

“I would, but I don’t have a bazooka on me right now.”

“Stop messing about! It’s my birthday and I don’t want it ruined by that horrible, ugly thing.”

I look back at the spider, which shows no signs of distress at being insulted in such a manner. It must be used to this kind of treatment. “I’ll go get the mop.”

I scamper back into the kitchen to retrieve the damp mop from a kitchen cupboard and return to the balcony holding it out in front of me. My intention is to whack our multicoloured friend with it until he either dies, or at least gets pissed off enough to move to another postal code.

“Shoo!” I say effeminately, poking the mop at the spider.

“Shoo!” I repeat, waggling the mop ever closer.

All this manages to do is give the now irate arachnid something to jump onto and crawl down in order to launch his attack.

“Yaaarrggghhh!” I screech, throwing the mop in the air.

“Muuurrggghhh!” Laura then cries as the spider is catapulted from the mop handle onto the front of her dressing gown, just below her face. “Get it off, get it off, get it off!” she begs me.

I do the only thing I can—I pick up the mop and smack her with it. This results in the spider being successfully dislodged—and Laura receiving a face full of damp mop that had last been used yesterday evening to clean up Poppy’s spilt chocolate milk.

Our arachnid adversary decides that this whole situation is for the dogs, and scuttles over the side of the balcony and out of our lives as swiftly as it entered it. I spend the next five minutes apologising to my wife while trying to ignore the smell of sour milk emanating from her body. As the start to a day goes, this one has not been the most successful.

The shower Laura took was much longer than normal—understandably so, I guess. She went off happily to the spa for the morning, leaving Poppy and me with
Nemo
, after which we went and ran around on the beach until we both felt sick. By the time I’d recovered from entertaining my hyperactive daughter, Laura had returned with a blissful look on her face.

“Good, was it?” I ask her.

“You have no idea, Jamie.”

I’m sure I don’t. Spa treatments and men go together about as well as alcohol and working heavy machinery.

“We’re going up high Mummy!” Poppy says happily to her mother over lunch. I’d shown Pops pictures of the Skyrail last night, and she’d been beside herself with excitement ever since.

“Yes we are, Poppet,” Laura agrees. “Nice and high above the trees, where there are no spiders and dirty mops.” She shudders involuntarily.

“Let’s go then,” I say, before Laura can berate me for throwing an angry gigantic arachnid at her.

We drive the few miles to the Skyrail station, park, and make our way inside.

I’m stunned to see that there are hardly any queues between us and getting to a cable car. For a Saturday morning the place doesn’t seem all that busy. Of course I’m used to tourist attractions in the UK, where you can’t move for Japanese tourists and Beefeaters 90 percent of the time. Up here in the remote tropics of Queensland,
busy
doesn’t quite mean the same as it does at the entrance to every tourist attraction in London on a Saturday morning in the height of summer.

The cableway is a pretty serious feat of engineering. It takes you up the side of the mountains, skimming above the canopy of thick rainforest that covers the entire range. Once you’ve gone over the summit, you descend under the canopy to a waypoint before travelling all the way to the main station at the other end of the line in the rainforest village of Kuranda, which sits atop the mountain plateau—and does a roaring trade in didgeridoos, hats hung with corks, and overpriced sandwiches.

Laura is all smiles and Poppy is virtually beside herself with excitement by the time the cable car door closes behind us. I’m slightly more apprehensive as it’s just occurred to me for the first time that I’m now trapped in a small glass-and-metal bubble suspended from a wire and about to travel several hundred feet up the side of a mountain.

In my desire to create the most fun-filled day for Laura’s birthday that I could, I may have neglected to actually think about the nuts and bolts of this particular activity. It’s nuts and bolts that weigh most heavily on my mind as the small six-seat gondola starts to move up and out of the station towards the tree line. I’m really hoping that they are very strong nuts and bolts, built by efficient people in the Western world who have sanitary working conditions and a professional attitude about their jobs.

Poppy giggles with pleasure as we get higher and higher, passing through the trees and into the open air. My knuckles tighten on the seat, and I do that thing everyone does when they’re nervous—I grin like a maniac and go stiffer than a day-old corpse.

“You okay, Jamie?” Laura asks me as we rattle over the first pylon and start to ascend on an even sharper incline.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” I lie through gritted teeth. “How about you?”

“It’s lovely. Just look at the view.”

This is something I’m happy to do as gazing at the horizon means I’m not looking down at the ever-increasing space between us and Mother Earth. Poppy has no such qualms, has her nose pressed right up against the gondola’s glass wall, and is peering down into the canopy below us.

“Look Mummy!” she squeals and points a finger. “Look at the birds!”

“Shall we see how many we can count?” Laura suggests to Poppy’s absolute delight.

I’d be delighted right now if this excursion were soon coming to an end, but I have well over an hour of this shit to put up with before we reach Kuranda. There are stops along the way, thank God, but it’s still over sixty minutes of watching the green world slide by beneath us as the gondola clatters and rattles its way over the pylons set at regular intervals towards our destination. And, of course, we’ve still got to come back.