No Comebacks

The Australian nodded, taking the information in. 'Where you from?' he asked.

Murgatroyd misunderstood. He thought the man said, 'Who are you from.'

'From the Midland,' he said.

The Australian tilted the can to his lips and drained it. He burped. 'Who's he?' he asked.

'That's Higgins,' said Murgatroyd. 'From head office.'

The Australian smiled happily. He blinked several times to focus his gaze. 'I like it,' he said, 'Murgatroyd of the Midland, and Higgins from Head Office.'

By this time Paul Jones had spotted the Australian and come round from behind the desk. He took the tall man's elbow and guided him back down the hall. 'Now, now, Mr Foster, if you'll just return to the bar so I can get our new guests comfortably settled in ...'

Foster allowed himself to be propelled gently but firmly back down the hall. As he left he waved a friendly hand towards the reception. 'Good on yer, Murgatroyd,' he called.

Paul Jones rejoined them.

'That man,' said Mrs Murgatroyd with icy disapproval, 'was drunk.'

'He is on holiday, my dear,' said Murgatroyd.

'That's no excuse,' said Mrs Murgatroyd. 'Who is he?'

'Harry Foster,' said Jones, 'from Perth.'

'He doesn't talk like a Scotsman,' said Mrs Murgatroyd.

'Perth, Australia,' said Jones. 'Allow me to show you to your rooms.'

Murgatroyd gazed in delight from the balcony of the first-floor twin-bedded room. Below him a brief lawn ran down to a band of glittering white sand over which palm trees scattered shifting shoals of shadows as the breeze moved them. A dozen round straw-thatched paillots gave firmer protection. The warm lagoon, milky where it had stirred up the sand, lapped the edge of the beach. Farther out it turned translucent green and farther still it looked blue. Five hundred yards across the lagoon he could make out the creaming reef.

A young man, mahogany beneath a thatch of straw hair, was windsurfing a hundred yards out. Poised on his tiny board, he caught a puff of wind, leaned out against the pull of the sail and went skittering across the surface of the water with effortless ease. Two small brown children, black-haired and -eyed, splashed each other, screaming in the shallows. A middle-aged European, round-bellied, glittering sea-drops, trudged out of the water in frogman's flippers, trailing his face mask and snorkel.

'Christ,' he called in a South African accent to a woman in the shade, 'there's so many fish down there, it's unbelievable.'

To Murgatroyd's right, up by the main building, men and women in wraparound pareus were heading to the pool bar for an iced drink before lunch.

'Let's go for a swim,' said Murgatroyd.

'We'd be there all the sooner if you'd help me with the unpacking,' said his wife.

'Let's leave that. We only need our swim things till after lunch.'

'Certainly not,' said Mrs Murgatroyd. 'I'm not having you going to lunch looking like a native. Here are your shorts and shirt.'

In two days Murgatroyd had got into the rhythm of holiday life in the tropics, or as much as was allowed him. He rose early, as he always did anyway, but instead of being greeted as usual by the prospect through the curtains of rain-slick pavements, he sat on the balcony and watched the sun ride up from the Indian Ocean out beyond the reef, making the dark, quiet water glitter suddenly like shattered glass. At seven he went for a morning swim, leaving Edna Murgatroyd propped up in bed in her curlers, complaining of the slowness of breakfast service, which was in fact extremely fast.

He spent an hour in the warm water, swimming once nearly two hundred yards out and surprising himself with his daring. He was not a strong swimmer, but he was becoming a much better one. Fortunately his wife did not witness the exploit, for she was convinced sharks and barracuda infested the lagoon and nothing would persuade her that these predators could not cross the reef and that the lagoon was as safe as the pool.

He began to take his breakfast on the terrace by the pool, joining the other holidaymakers in selecting melon, mangoes and pawpaw with his cereal and forsaking eggs and bacon, even though these were available. Most of the men by this hour wore swim trunks and beach shirts, and the women light cotton shifts or wraparounds over their bikinis. Murgatroyd stuck with his knee-length drill shorts and tennis shirts brought out from England. His wife joined him beneath 'their' thatch roof on the beach just before ten to begin a day-long series of demands for soft drinks and applications of sun oil, although she hardly ever exposed herself to the sun's rays.

Occasionally she would lower her pink bulk into the hotel pool which encircled the pool bar on its shaded island, her permanent wave protected by a frilly bathing cap, and swim slowly for several yards before climbing out again.

Higgins, being alone, was soon involved with another group of much younger English people and they hardly saw him. He saw himself as something of a swinger and equipped himself from the hotel boutique with a wide-brimmed straw hat such as he had once seen Hemingway wearing in a photograph. He too spent the day in trunks and shirt, appearing like the others for dinner in pastel slacks and safari shirt with breast pockets and epaulettes. After dinner he frequented the casino or the disco. Murgatroyd wondered what they were like.

Harry Foster unfortunately had not kept his sense of humour to himself. To the South Africans, Australians and British who made up the bulk of the clientele, Murgatroyd of the Midland became quite well known, though Higgins contrived to lose the Head Office tag by assimilating. Unwittingly, Murgatroyd became quite popular. As he padded onto the breakfast terrace in long shorts and plimsoles he evoked quite a few smiles and cheery greetings of 'Morning, Murgatroyd.'

Occasionally he