At the beginning of the fourth week, Benny received three letters. Moon heard them click through the letterbox and leapt naked out of bed. It was around 7.30, and they had already agreed Benny would phone in sick so that they might take a trip to Thetford Forest. Moon had agreed to Benny’s suggestion that he should photograph her as a memory for when she was gone. Her agreement had saddened him. It seemed to signal the possible beginning of the end.

Now she sat cross legged on his own legs, which were covered by the duvet. Even at this hour, she was wearing lipstick. A deep pink that complemented her nakedness.

“Aren’t you going to open them?”

Benny didn’t answer but just smiled. Then he looked at the envelopes. Two were from the bank, and the other had a Bournemouth postmark. This letter found the top of his bedside cabinet.

“No,” said Moon Beaver, “I want you to open that one first.”

“Oh that, it’s just from a woman I once knew.”

“I know, that’s why I want you to open it.” She smiled at his surprise. “Look, I’m no Sherlock Holmes darling, but those rounded letters are from the female hand, and Bournemouth’s a long way away for you. Just open it, I want to see what she has to say.”

Benny reached for the letter again, and slit it open clumsily with his thumb. He was tempted not to read it aloud, but realising that would be childish, with widening eyes, he said:

Dear Benny,

I must say I was surprised and delighted when your letter arrived last week, I really didn’t expect a reply at all. I haven’t told Graham, of course, as you said, it’s best that he doesn’t know. Well, he always accuses me of having affairs. I’m sick of it, so it would serve him right if we got together.

He’s off for two months now, so come down if you want.

That’s my address at the top of the letter. It’s easy to find. My son Simon likes to stay around Mum’s a lot, so don’t worry about that. I hope I read between the lines of your letter correctly. I’m getting excited just thinking about it. I reckon we’ve got a lot to catch up on. Hope to see you soon.

Susan

Moon’s body hadn’t disappeared, although a Cheshire Cat smile had spread across her face as Benny spoke. She took the letter from him now and held it to her nose.

“Mmmm, it’s perfumed, too!”

It took some time for Benny to speak.

“I put her first letter in the bin a long while before you arrived.”

“Good! Good, good, good, good, good.” Moon laughed and clapped her hands. “So I wrote it for you. Chances like that don’t come often in life, unless you’re like me, of course.”

“But how did you get hold of it?”

“Oh, I was working on the bins,” sniff, “and I just happened to see it poking out of your trash . . . Look, what does it matter? We’re going down to Bournemouth today, I’ll help you pack.”

“The hell we are. I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Open your other letters.”

“What?”

“I said, open your other letters.” She got up off the bed and entered the bathroom for a shower. Soon the hot water was retracting her goose bumps like a tongue lapping semolina. The water fell unevenly onto the floor. Some droplets disappointed, others exhausted, and some just panting, depending on which route they took. It made the plughole ride much more horrific.

Benny opened his current account bank statement to find his balance standing at 76p. The other letter contained a warning about overstepping the limit on his credit card. He was already £200 over the allowable £3,000. For a moment he panicked, then recalled the letter from Bournemouth, which now seemed more soothing than worrying. The letter somehow tied him closer to Moon. And that meant that she would be leaving him later rather than sooner.

. . .

“There is a town in Tasmania, Australia, called Queenstown. It sits within its self made environment. Once there was thick rainforest, now there are naked pink hills, like a shaved rabbit ready for intense vivisection.

“It was the discovery of alluvial gold that first brought prospectors there. Then they found copper, and the companies took over. Within twenty years of the start of the mining, the surrounding area was denuded of vegetation. In that short space of time, hundreds of timber cutters managed to cut down some three million tonnes of timber to feed the furnaces.

“By 1900, uncontrolled pollution from the copper smelters had killed all the vegetation that had not already been cut down. Because of the sulphur-impregnated soils and dead stumps, bush fires raged through the hills every summer until there was no re-growth left at all, and then the area’s heavy rainfall (the highest in the state) completed the total devastation of the surrounding hills as the original soil was simply washed into the river.”

“What’s all that got to do with me?”

“It’s companies, Benny, companies. When people obsessed with money group together, it ends in destruction. Of rainforests, of countryside, of good TV, of hearts, and of souls. You can’t let yourself be trapped, Benny. Think of me as a chain letter. I talk to you, and you pass me on, then you talk to someone else. But it’s show, not tell, and with little emotional involvement, because you have to accept things independently. And I’m going for the ultimate in individuality, too, I’ll tell you that later. But for the moment I have to know what you feel, what you believe, then it’s up to you if you want to go to Bournemouth—it has to be your decision.”

Benny dried himself with the towel and began to put on his clothes. “You want to know what I think? Well, the truth is I don’t know what I think anymore. Ever since you came I’ve been even more dissatisfied with work, but it’s a job, and I know I have to return there. I love Louise and I’ll marry her, but everything will get put back, perhaps so far back that it will never ever happen. And then about you . . . well, I don’t know, I really don’t know. I don’t have a clue as to what we mean to each other.”

Moon was still naked. She had watched Benny shower and had realised it was definitely time for both of them to go. It had been a few years since she had found someone like him. All she was doing, of course, was making friends, but that can often be the hardest thing of all.

She checked her thoughts: was “thing” the right word? Shouldn’t she be more specific? No, maybe it wasn’t the right word, but it was closer to the right than the wrong word. Speaking of words, she had virtually memorised Lonely Planet’s spiel about Queenstown. She had always felt it to be the one place where she wouldn’t want to go.

For the time being, she nodded at Benny’s answer and asked, “Well, what else?”

He buttoned his shirt. “What do you mean, ‘what else’? What do you want me to tell you?”

Her feet padded against the linoleum as she followed him into the kitchen. “I can’t ask you to tell me what I want to hear, Benny. And you mustn’t tell me what you think I want to hear. If you don’t feel like saying anymore, then let’s leave it at that.”

The doorbell rang, and she went and paid for the week’s paper delivery. She was so unconcerned about her nakedness that it would be nice to say that the paper man didn’t notice it. Yes, let’s leave it at that. Today Moon wants it that way.

Benny got some bread ready for the toaster. “All I know is that I like having you around and I want it to last longer, but I think you want me to quit my job, and I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“And what about those bills I’ve run up?”

“Oh, that’s only money. I’m not bothered about that. It’s only . . .” His words were blocked by Moon’s tongue entering his mouth. They kissed for thirty seconds or so, Benny trying to prevent his hands from touching her bottom in case he upset her. Then she ran into the bedroom, and re emerged wearing a pair of his jeans and one of his T-shirts.

“I’ve got to go, Benny. I’ve been here three weeks, that’s long enough in any one place. Now it’s up to you if you want to come with me. You’ve got £5,000 or so in your deposit account, I know, so pay off your credit card and give the rest to Friends Of The Earth. I don’t like giving money to anyone, but I guess they’re the safest bet of most. Norwich is a bit of a dull city for clothes. It took me all my effort to get your bill as high as I did, but then, I’m not very reliable. Skip breakfast, are you coming now or what?”

“Can we stop off at Thetford Forest?”

“Are you kidding me? D’you know, I once saw two grizzlies fighting in North America. I’d have taken their picture, but it took me all my time to separate them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll find out when we get there, Benny, but the flies are staying off the honey.”

Benny put the toast into the toaster. By the time it popped up, Moon was already in the car.

. . .

“Hello, you want room? I have room, big room. Have shower, toilet inside. Three hundred baht one night. Please, come this way.”

Moon and Benny ignored the hustler and continued to make their own way in Bangkok. They didn’t need to worry about missing an opportunity for a hotel. Guesthouses flanked both sides of the popular Khao San Road, their colourful facades mingling with those of travel centres, silk suit manufacturers, photo developers, and budget touristwear. Behind the entrances, hundreds of tiny rooms were crammed into back streets and narrow alleyways. For Benny it was a cultural revelation. And what was more, it was exceptionally hot.

“This is incredible,” he kept saying. “I’ve never felt so English.”

Moon just laughed and kept her eyes peeled, looking for something special.

They were walking in the middle of the road. Three wheeled tuk tuks weaved around them, touting for business. The occasional car crept slowly up the busy street. The pavements themselves were crowded with makeshift stalls, selling watches, T shirts, audio tapes, rucksacks, and Walkmans; or offering the services of fortune tellers, hair braiders, and fake-student-card providers. Restaurants spilled their pavement tables like porridge left on the hob. Everything encroached and yet nothing seemed out of place.

“You’re really travelling now, Benny.”

Somehow Moon had changed on the plane. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts that rode into her backside every time she took a step, although she did nothing to counteract this process. If Newton had seen her, he might have revised his view that every action had an equal and opposite reaction. The reactions Moon was getting multiplied way beyond their initiation. Yet, her shorts coupled with a small vest top and then topped with the rougest of red lipsticks, Moon looked more at home here than anywhere else Benny had seen her. The street was full of Moon Beaver look-alikes. Young travellers from all around the globe wearing ethnic clothing, their hair braided. He felt immediately out of place here, his senses being hammered to the nth degree, living a couple of years in a matter of minutes. “Perhaps this is what Moon means,” he thought to himself, “perhaps this is what she means when she talks of the suspension of pieces of time.”

Suddenly he realised that she was no longer with him, and, frantically turning his head around, he saw her disappearing down a side street in the wake of a young girl. LUCKY GUESTHOUSE was emblazoned over an archway leading from the street. He followed her, half running despite the heat.

“I’ll get one room,” Moon told him; and then they were following the girl again up slatted wooden steps. In a moment, a door opened, revealing a simple room with two simple beds. The girl flicked on a switch, and a ceiling fan rotated into life. She handed the key back to Moon and descended the stairs again without a second look at Benny.

He closed the door behind him and they sat down on the nearest bed. Despite the clamour around them, he felt for the first time that they were alone together. His stomach felt insecure, and he wanted to embrace her in a loving way. He realised that she was fast becoming his security blanket.

“Well, here we are, Benny,” Moon lay back on one of the beds. “It’s been a while since I’ve come here, and my, the place has changed.”

Benny looked around the room. The walls were wooden and windowless. A tiny broken mirror hung from a piece of string. Apart from the beds and a small table between them the only other items in the room were the ceiling fan and its control box with five settings.

The fan spun moist hot air between them. There was a smell of something cooking and the odour of sweet sweat. Not the rancid kind of sweat that would come after playing squash with Carl, but a sweat that seemed sexual in a rubbed-bodies kind of way. Apart from that, however, it was really too hot to do anything. Benny peeled off his T-shirt and sat white and bare in the flesh.

“Benny, Benny, Benny,” Moon repeated, smiling and laughing at the same time. “For once I feel that I’ve got you into the travel experience. Now let’s give a lesson here. Do you support a football team? I’ve heard that the Canaries are renowned for chucking their lead away two minutes from full time.”

“Well, it seems to be the case . . .” Benny began and then stopped as he realised Moon had another motive. “Are you checking to see if I’m as English as you think?”

“What I’m saying, Benny, is that any kind of allegiance is a form of racism. It’s the desire for territory that causes wars and deprivation. As we don’t know whether there is life on other planets, we are fairly safe in considering ourselves occupants of the universe. Any reduction in that territory will only lead to trouble.”

“Like jingoism, you mean?”

“Like any fight to gain something for an extension of yourself. Whether it might be about your local football team winning, or a national team, or about the winning of a war. Drawing some kind of boundary only creates boundaries; like the system of enclosure at the outset of the Agricultural Revolution. The individual is deprived. Just think of how many deaths arise from disagreements in football alone.”

“So you’re saying travel broadens the mind?”

“Kind of, Benny, although that’s just a small part of my ultimate personal mission. But you’ve got it in a nutshell so quickly that I’d say it’s almost time now to move on.”
Moon Beaver got up again and picked up her bag.

“Hey,” Benny said. “Now that I’m here I want to look around before we shoot off again.”

“Got the travel bug, eh, Benny? Well that’s good, so we’ll stay awhile. I’ve got some things to do here myself, but we’ll not be longer than a couple of weeks. Feel free to wander about. I’m now off to take a shower. The toilets are downstairs at the back, but you’ll have to squat if you want a shit. Oh, and a word of warning, sweetie, don’t throw your toilet paper in the hole. It blocks it up and you don’t want excrement all over your feet.”

Moon left, carrying some soap, and Benny lay down on the bed. He could detect his smell rising up from himself like a vapour in the air. Outside, the noises of the street were infiltrating his every thought. Chatter from the tourists, and the ratatatatatat shouts and catcalls from the citizens. He wished Louise were here and they could share these things. Somehow he got the feeling that instead of experiencing Thailand he would be following in Moon’s wake like a fishing line from a speeding speedboat.

order with

and receive 15% discount on both