Peripheral Vision by Paddy O'Reilly Read Free Book Online

the road screaming?’
    â€˜Why don’t you strip and lie down on the bitumen and I’ll flag someone down like you’re injured.’
    We decided to walk back to town, stay the night and take the bus the next day. The next afternoon when the bus rolled up we congratulated ourselves on our wise decision, but I was aware that the bus was too tall for its width, like an over-decorated cake that could easily topple over. The inside of the bus smelled like people had been living in there. Down the side of my seat I found a used tissue and a ticket stub for the Reading Cinemas in Townsville.
    â€˜Yuck. Don’t touch that,’ Josie said. She batted at my hand with her pen until I dropped the tissue. ‘That person might have had TB.’
    An old man hacking away in the back of the bus sounded like he did have TB. The driver put Johnny Cash on the sound system. Josie was scribbling into a notebook.
    â€˜ J & M’s Travel Diary, Day One. We are losers and couldn’t hitch a ride even when we showed our cleavage ,’ Josie read out.
    Why am I here? I wondered.
    At seven in the evening the bus spilled us into the dark wet air of Cairns. The driver hauled our packs from the belly of the bus. As the other passengers drifted away or opened up maps and started peering at street signs, Josie and I punched each other in the arm to wake ourselves up.
    Around us were palm trees and assorted tropical plants breathing out steam. After we had changed our clothes in the nearest cafe toilet, we sat outdoors on plastic chairs in yellow light, inhaling the exhaust fumes and briny air.
    â€˜There are no pancakes on this menu,’ Josie said to the waiter, a beanpole fired up with some kind of health mania, who bounced on the balls of his feet with his pen poised. ‘I can’t tell you how disappointing this is.’
    â€˜We could make you up a cinnamon buckwheat hotcake. It’s pretty tasty and filling.’
    Josie turned to me, her bare white thighs squeaking on the plastic chair. ‘I want to go home.’
    â€˜She’ll have the hotcake,’ I said in my usual straight-guy role, ‘and I’ll have a mango smoothie.’
    Josie already had her pen and diary out. I peered over her shoulder while she scratched away.
    J & M’s Travel Diary, Day Two. Cairns smells like a muck of sea, rotten fruit and dried cum. The people here have not yet discovered pancakes.
    â€˜What’s with the diary? You’re a writer now?’
    â€˜Yep. I grew tired of my free and easy retail-assistant life.’
    Inside the hostel was a lounge filled with lounging backpackers wearing singlets, shorts and thongs.
    â€˜We brought the wrong uniform,’ Josie said.
    I couldn’t see what she meant. Both Josie and I were wearing singlets, shorts and thongs.
    Josie sighed. ‘I wanted to find a different crowd. These people look like the ones we left at home.’
    â€˜No they don’t. They look like exciting overseas travellers. They look like carefree young men and women looking for adventure.’
    â€˜Citizens of the globe. Happy wayfarers. Pioneers.’
    â€˜Or gap-year kids.’
    â€˜It’s true. They’re middle-class gap-year layabouts. I think we’re too old for this. Twenty-six is ancient.’
    â€˜We should be in motels with fenced swimming pools.’
    â€˜A guide with a flag.’
    â€˜Hourly rest stops and emergency wheelchairs.’
    â€˜Have you got photo ID?’ the girl behind the counter asked. ‘I need to make copies.’ She sounded resigned like the receptionist at the dentist, dealing with clients who have arrived miserable. I had thought that everyone in the tropics would be welcoming and have sweet breath. They would exude pineapple fragrance and optimism.
    â€˜People in the tropics should be happy,’ I whispered to Josie as the girl hunched over the grey copy machine and stabbed buttons.
    â€˜I’m sure