A Tiger in Eden by Chris Flynn Read Free Book Online Page B

from the state of them and none of them planned to stay long they were just ticking the island off some list in their Lonely Planet.
    Some aul Scottish fella was arguing with a sunburnt English bint about India. She said it was shite and he was pissed off because he’d spent a couple of years there and she’d only been for a fortnight but still, she wouldn’t back down. I could see him eyeballing my tatts andnodding so I guessed he was a Prod for he starts glaring at me for support.
    Don’t be looking at me I says to him, sure the closest I ever got to the India was down the takeaway on Chichester Street. Fucking beef madras went through me like a dose of salts, so it did.
    The girl laughed, Japanese flag she goes.
    What’s that supposed to mean, I says.
    You know, she goes, white with a red hole in the middle.
    Oh aye, right enough, I goes, laughing a wee bit but thinking fuck sake what sort of thing is that for a woman to say to a man she’s just met, not exactly the romantic type, are you love? I’m sure I was no oil painting myself but both her and the aul fella looked like they could do with a good going over with a scrubbing brush. Sure they had a layer of grime on them. Such is the way of it when you’re travelling on a budget, I suppose.
    I had to sit there for two days listening to their bickering and carrying on, they didn’t even know each other and even though there was forty years between them sure you’d swear they were married or something. I told them to shut their gobs I don’t know how many times but they didn’t pay me no mind. The aul fella worried me a bit. He’d worked all over the world doing wee jobs here and there, saving enough to move on somewhere else. He reckoned he’d had a fantastic life and I wasn’t doubting it but he looked about a hundred years old, sure his skin was like a prune or something.
    I was thinking fuck me am I looking at myself in thirty years time, fuck I hope not, I better get myself sorted out before I end up like this aul cunt. The English girl had a right ugly face on her and a fair aul jiggle round the belly, she did nothing for me especially when she put her feet up on the table and started picking at her dirty toenails. She gave me a look sometimes like she wouldn’t have minded a ride but there was no way I was going there. I couldn’t wait for Olly to turn up ‘cos I knew he’d fuck the arse off of her, sure he’d do anything with a pulse.
    Took the cunt long enough getting there but I was glad to see him all the same. He just walks in one day like he’d lived there for years, some fellas have got a talent for that.
    Billy Montgomery, he shouts, fucking hell look at you man.
    Lieutenant Olivier Morel, I goes to him, where’ve you been, soldier.
    He gave me a big hug and kissed me on both cheeks which surprised me a wee bit before I’membered that these French cunts will kiss everyone that’s just the way they are.
    Who’s this beautiful lady he goes, and the English girl went beetroot. I fucking knew it, so I did. I don’t know why he bothered with half the women, he wasn’t a badlooking fella, dead tan like me of course from bumming around on the beaches except he had curly blond hair and wore wee round glasses. He had a permanent sweaty kind of look and this cheeky aul grin like where’s theparty at, let’s go out and start some trouble, sort of thing. It was hard not to like him. It’s no wonder he was into a bit of smuggling and adventuring and what have you. You couldn’t imagine a fella like that sitting behind a desk in an aul fucking office.
    Even though it was only lunchtime when he arrived we started hitting the cocktails, though I could see he was watching his money the same as me. He sat with his arm draped around my shoulders for a while and the English girl asked him loads of questions and he told her loads of lies that I backed him up on. I wasn’t used to a man being in such close proximity to me but the French are