Living Upside Down. John Hickman

His stomach’s sticking out over his belt. He looks overweight.”

      “He doesn’t look wealthy by British standards but he can at least afford to eat well.”

      “With a gut that size it’s unlikely he could out work me physically,” Roger adds optimistically.

      “Unless he’s an Einstein in disguise hosing non-existent crap off his driveway?” Sue offers sceptically.

      “As long as if he’s asked what he does on his day off, he doesn’t answer ‘celebrate Christmas,’ you might be right.”

      Sue continues, “The sky’s a deep clear blue, look, see up there, a couple of brilliant white wisps of cloud, you can even see shadows on the driveway, from what look like trees.”

      Sue is turning her head sideways to change the rotation of the image. “The grass is green, the other shrubs and flowers all look healthy. Huh, I just realised, he’s hosing a concrete driveway, oh, and look right down the bottom here, you can see the road, it’s black bitumen, not dirt.”

      Sue’s eyes are alive and dancing as she devours every minute detail of the photo. The whole scenario captured in a nanosecond by some passing photographer of the time.

      They remain enthusiastic but worry creases their faces without word from Australia House.

      Sue is convinced, pressing her white-knuckled fists to her mouth. “You’ve blown it. Oh, why did you have to go against their wishes?”

      Roger is pacing back and forth like a caged animal. He turns. Her eyes are glazed, as if she is elsewhere. He knows that look well. He has seen it in the mirror often enough after the failure of the family business. Four years of his life working twenty-four seven for food and keep without wages only to be kicked out by the receiver’s liquidators with nowhere else to go, except more of the same.

      “I hate many things, Sue, but most of all I hate waiting for something to happen. This is like all retch and no vomit.”

      “You’ve been giving this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”

      “Yes, but only once a day,” he smiles, “just all day long.”

      The postman knocks on their front door with another package too large for the letter slot.

      “Hello,” he says cheerily to Sue, “I see you’re going to Australia then.”

      The age old ritual of the Postie knowing everything about everybody is how Sue and Roger first learned going Down Under.

      The package contains, amongst the obligatory government paraphernalia and crapola, four air tickets to Brisbane, departing 13 March, 1971 on a BOAC charter flight from Heathrow.

      Sue starts doing crazy little dance steps. She looks as excited as a small child waiting for Santa Claus.

      “Say something.”

      “Wow!”

      “Say something else.”

      “I’m gobsmacked. You know what this means.”

      “No. What does it mean?”

      “This means the staff at Australia House decided to wait until after James’s first birthday.”

      “Why the hell would they do that?”

      “Because he’ll have a seat to himself on the plane.” Excitement crackles off Sue like static electricity, “Don’t you see? That qualifies us for an additional luggage allowance.”

      Roger is amazed. “I don’t believe they did it on purpose, but, I’ll go with it. We’re now well and truly government sponsored migrants, then.”

      That night Roger snores like a contented hippo about to give birth. Snoring and grunting in brute slumber, instead of dreaming about Seal Flipper Pie, Roger is dreaming of when nothing goes right, try going left.

      Thanks to the postman spreading their unbridled news, Sue is approached by local women wanting to buy items they might not be able to take with them.

      For the next week, Coxwell swarms with villagers, who are agog. Nothing this exciting has happened since 1942 when Annie Bancroft, a chambermaid at the Maid’s Head Hotel in Norwich, was bludgeoned to death.

      “Look at all this stuff,” Sue’s surveying their contents strewn over the lounge room, “looks like the inside of King Tut’s tomb.”

      “Pity it’s not as valuable.”

      Their neighbour Doreen is first to put dibs on their late model Silver Cross pram.

      Roger is on his hands and knees busily cleaning the wheel rims level with Sue’s thighs.

      “I hope you know what you’re doing down there, Roger,” Doreen says coyly.

      “That’s just what Sue always says,” Roger offers with an awkward side look at Sue.

      Cecilia is hot on Doreen’s heels wanting children’s toys. Her friend put dibs on pots, pans, and glassware. Someone suggests Roger buy a mower so he can sell it to them, cheap.

      They are making new friends from everywhere.

      The downside to their move is the Australian Government does not consider Fred a suitable candidate for Down Under. The high costs involved in Fred becoming an Aussie canine include six months in quarantine.

      Roger shakes his head, “That and his live freight passage make the costs of taking him highly prohibitive.”

      Their decision has nothing to do with Fred chewing shoes or digging up the vegetable garden next door.

      “Maybe we should get professional advice?” Sue suggests.

      Dr Doolittle, their local veterinarian, is about as pet friendly as Hyde Park. The decor hints at old fashioned values and efficiency. The view from the surgery window is not great: a variety of angles, gables, ridges and tiles of the old high street are splattered in bird poo.

      The vet and Fred are in raptures over each other every visit.

      Dr Doolittle frowns. “I’m of the opinion that Fred should be put down!”

      Sue is horrified.

      “I have trouble accepting that,” Roger replies evenly.

      “Well Roger, the cost of taking Fred with you would bankrupt most people. Do you have time to sell him or give him away? No. Well, I’ve stated the obvious really.”

      Dr Doolittle cups Fred’s face in his hands and speaks in that chirpiest of voices that people use when talking to animals or babies.

      Back home their mood is glum.

      Sue is mournful, “If we had a goldfish, then that has to be killed, too.”

      “It’s one thing to take Fred down to the vet surgery to lose his manhood,” Roger explains gloomily, “but now this! I can’t understand why a family doesn’t want to take him for free.”

      “We’ll ask around again, and see if we can find another family for Fred.”

      Chapter 4

      MOVING ON…

      At work Roger needs to broach the subject of leaving with his boss. He wants to give plenty of extra notice but he is working himself up into a nervous knot about the whole thing. He reasons getting a good reference will be important Down Under. He decides to bounce the idea off his colleague in London.

      “Give them too much notice and they’ll sack you,” his London colleague advises. “Try and avoid being sacrificed on the altar of his ambition. He’s a prick.”

      “I feel like a damned tomcat waking up to the reality of his neutering,” Roger replies, “Either way shit will happen.”

      “You’ve been reading too many