And De Fun Don't Done Read Free Page A

most of the time and he was glad he’d tossed the two Cherry Ripes in his bag. The stopover in Fiji for fuel took close to an hour and a half, and another half-hour out of Nadi one of the rear toilets blocked up, leaving you with two giant Henry the thirds to stare at if you had to use that particular brasco. Les was in a non-smoking section but a team of hard-core smokers, just a few seats behind, managed to smoke enough cigarettes for everybody else on the plane, so there was a continuous wafting of smoke coming from the rear all the way to Los Angeles. Fair enough, he had plenty of room due to the empty seats alongside. But two mongrel kids behind him cried, put on tantrums and tried to kick the back of Norton’s seat to pieces till they ended up falling asleep two hours out of Fiji and about ten minutes before Les was going to choke the pair of them along with their empty-headed parents. So much for the flying fuckin’ kangaroo, mused Norton,in between dozing off and reading snatches of P.J. O’Rourke. At least the drinks were free. Norton was just about to put his Walkman on and see what he had when his journey took a sudden and dramatic turn.
    There wasn’t a bomb on the plane and they didn’t get hijacked by Muslim terrorists. A head flight attendant came up, introduced himself as Greg, said he was a friend of Tommy Butterworth’s and did Les remember him. He was about thirty-five, with dark hair and a moustache. Les stared up at him for a moment. It was a party about a year ago. Greg had fallen over, cutting his hand pretty bad, and everybody at the party was either too drunk or out of it so Les ran him up to St Vincents. Les had bumped into Greg around the traps now and again after that and always joked about how his drinking hand was.
    Greg suggested that if Les didn’t want to watch the movie he could come up the front and have a few drinks; which probably meant he could drown himself in it if he wanted. This sounded like an absolutely splendid idea to Norton. The movie wasn’t all that hot and it was a good chance to stretch his legs. So before long Les found himself in a galley towards the front of the plane with a couple of off-duty flight attendants who were friends of Tommy’s, nibbling little snacks and munchies and all pouring Jackies and Coke down their throats and exchanging drunken jokes and stories like they were expecting the plane to crash at any moment. Subsequently Norton was able to sway back to his seat reasonably drunk and crash out for the remainder of the trip. So after a few hours’ sleep, a Farmer’s Omelette, coffee and a bit of a clean up Les was too dazed and puzzled to know whether he was jet lagged, hungover or what when they began circling the smog- shrouded, freeway-jammed wastelands of greater Los Angeles around 1.00 p.m. California time. The only thing Les did know, but couldn’t quite come to grips with when they touched down and he adjusted his watch, was that it looked bloody hot outside and it was still Thursday afternoon. Doesn’t time crawl when you’re having fun? he mused, rubbing the stubble on his face.
    They all started to file off the plane to the polite smiles of the flight attendants when, after winter in Sydney, Les noticed a burst of heat coming from outside. Then Les noticed something else. As they started walking up the ramps and corridors everybody seemed to start walking faster, and faster, and faster. Norton got swept along with the mob and by the time they went along one corridor and into another they’d almost broken into a sprint. What the fuck’s going on? thought Norton. Was there an earthquake warning? Is there an impending riot? No one said anything getting off the plane. They scorched up another corridor; Les screeched round a corner, almost blowing the sole off one jogging shoe, and into a huge enclosed area where he stopped dead in his tracks. The only thing he could compare it to was