A Tiger in Eden

Chris Flynn is books editor at the
Big Issue
and fiction consultant at
Australian Book Review.
The former publisher of
Torpedo
magazine, he writes for the
Age,
the
Australian,
the
Paris Review
and ABC Radio National. He was born in Belfast and lives in Melbourne, and was once a sumo-wrestling referee in a travelling fair.

atigerineden.com

1

The weird thing is, right, apart from the fact a good book can take your mind off of things like the past and that, is that I starts speaking different. I could hear myself using words I’d never said before and I was thinking fuck me, I sound all educated or something. Just goes to show you like, I always thought you could never learn nothing from books but I was telling this Scottish lad about it one night at the bar, he was a good Prod so he was, he’d seen Rangers play loads of times, and he says to me sure reading books improves your vocabulary, everyone knows that.

Fuck me, I says, I must of missed the memo.

Aye, he goes, the honeys love it too. You’ll not just be getting the superficial women, the intellectual ones’ll be chasing you too.

I liked how he was speaking. He was just a normal-looking down-to-earth fella but he had a proper aul brain on him. The ones with glasses and that, I goes, like the sexy librarian type?

Totally, he says, sure they’re way better company anyway. I can’t be bothered chasing after the bimbos no more, sure do they not do your head in, giggling and laughing and talking shite?

Aye, I suppose so, I goes, I never thought about it like that.

Tell you what, he says, take one of your good books, not some cheesy thriller but a classic maybe or something like that and go lie on the beach next to one of the smart honeys. Don’t pay her any attention but just look like you’re absorbed in the book.

I always am anyway, I says.

Aye, well there you go, easy enough then, he says. Guaranteed she’ll ask you what you’re reading and youse’ll start up a conversation.

Aye? I goes, what about when she hears me talking? Pretty obvious I’m not signed up to the Mensa like.

Even better, he goes, nothing like a dumb cunt trying to improve himself, no offence like. They’ll fucking love it, I’m telling ye.

He was a good lad, I could’ve hung around with him for ages but he was in and out in a couple of days like most of them. Duncan was his name, I got his address and he said he’d take me to a Rangers game if I was ever in Glasgow. I’d fucking love that, so I would, but the
peelers would probably pick me up in five minutes flat if I showed my face at an airport in the UK, it’s fucking bollixed, so it is. Sure you won’t catch me anywhere near the joint no more.

He was on the money about women liking the books though. And as soon as he says about the bimbos being annoying, sure I went through a period of a couple of months where I couldn’t stand the sight of them. I mean, they’re good-looking and that but as soon as they open their gobs I just want to walk away. So I found myself attracted to the quieter girls, the ones who weren’t looking for all the attention and who were on their own wee trip. The thing about Ko Phi Phi is that there’s always people coming and going so just when you think there’s no cunt worth talking to, sure the next day a couple more people will turn up.

I fell in with this wee Australian girl. Her hair was dead short and she never walked around in a bikini or nothing. She’d wear them fisherman pants and a wee loose blouse. I seen her playing the guitar down the beach one day and I walked over to get a look at her. She was singing this song and kept stopping to write something down in her black notebook. Sure all the backpackers carry them. Anyway I wandered up and she looks over at me and smiles even though she was still playing the guitar and singing. She’d a fucking lovely voice, you’d never think such a sound would come out of her. The song was beautiful, so it was, something about paradise. She finished up and says hello to me.

Hello yourself, I says, that song was amazing, so it was. Was that Bob Dylan or one of them ones?

She laughs and goes, well thanks for the compliment but no, that was one of mine.

You’re kidding me on, I goes. What was it called?

I’m still writing it actually, she says, but I was thinking of calling it ‘Lost in Paradise’. Maybe that’s a bit too sad though, what do you think?

I sat down on the sand then. There was something about the song and the title of it that made me come over all funny. It hit me hard, so it did. I could almost feel the aul waterworks coming on and truth be told it was all a bit embarrassing.

Are you all right, she says.

Aye, I goes, it’s just like I’ve been here for a while, so I know what you mean.

She nods and looks at me. I was staring down at the cover of the book I’d brought along to try and impress her. It was this mad story about a fella who wakes up one morning to find out he’s a big beetle. I felt like a right sad cunt, sitting there feeling sorry for myself.

Are you travelling by yourself, she asks me.

Aye, I says, almost a year now.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, she goes.

You’re all right, I says, recovering myself a bit, thinking what the fuck’s wrong with you Billy, pull yourself together in front of the wee girl. What about yourself, I says, just you and the guitar is it?

Yeah, she goes, I’m on holidays from uni and I just
had to get away from people.

Aye, I know that feeling, I says. I wish I could play the guitar but I’m not musical at all.

Are you any good with words, she goes, I’m stuck for a rhyme here.

Sure I wouldn’t have a clue, I says, I never went to school much.

And yet you’re reading Kafka, she goes, pointing it out with the wee guitar pick.

Aye, I like the story, but to be honest some of the words are beyond me. I should of paid more attention in aul Mr Clough’s English class, then maybe I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Her face lit up then all sudden like. Hold on, she goes, I’m going to try that, and she sings back a wee bit of the song only the last line was
I wouldn’t be in this predicament.
I couldn’t believe it. She pumps her fist then and scribbles the words down in her book.

Yes! she goes, that’s perfect! You don’t mind if I use that line, do you?

No bother, I goes, just talk to my agent about the royalties.

We were like two peas in a pod after that, me and her. I didn’t even try it on with her or nothing. I was kind of intimidated by her, I suppose. She was staying in the next resort along the beach, if you could call it that. It was just a bunch of aul huts. Her name was Tanya and she was hanging around for a couple of weeks with no big plans, like a short-term version of myself, that’s
probably why I liked her.

Loads of the locals in these wee islands in the south are Muslims. It’s close to Malaysia I suppose and they’re all Muslim down there, sure. I’d never met any before but Tanya says to me there’s not that much difference between their bible and ours, not that I believe in all that anyway so I couldn’t care less. I tell you one thing, the aul beef massaman the Thai Muslims make is cracker, so it is. If that’s what you get when you go to Mecca, sign me up, I says, though when Tanya told me the women have to cover up and that I said I was only joking. That’s why she never wandered around in her bikini or topless like some of the backpackers. They were disrespecting the locals, she says. Now I like a bit of aul tit so I argued with her but she goes, imagine if Catholics started marching down your street and sitting in your front garden would you not say something? She was wise by this stage to me being from Belfast, sure she picked it straightaway. Obviously I kept most of it close to my chest but she knew loads about the situation back home, more than me nearly.

Course, I says, I don’t want no Fenians, I mean Catholics, parading around in my street, shoving their aul rituals and that in my face.

Well then, she says, how do you think the Muslims feel being brought up that women shouldn’t expose themselves and then here all these bimbos are flapping their tits around? I’m not saying I agree with Islam, she goes, I think a woman should have a right to do and
wear what she wants, but still, you have to respect what others believe.

I was troubled by what she was saying. I could see the sense in it but it made me think maybe we were doing the wrong thing by the Fenians back home. Sure we’re always marching down Catholic streets on the Glorious Twelfth, rubbing their noses in it, saying these are our traditional marching grounds.

I didn’t want to think about it too much to be honest but one day soon after, me and Tanya was sitting having a bite of lunch under the trees outside her hut when I said something that got me into a fight. The huts were owned by a family and they would cook for you whenever you wanted. It’s the same arrangement all over the place. Anyway, they were dead Muslim and they loved our Tanya. So we were sitting minding our own business and I could see these two girls playing frisbee with this lad on the beach. I could hear from their squealing that they were English. They’re playing away and then one of the girls takes her bikini top off. She had quite big tits and I was thinking what’s she taking that off for, sure she’s running around all over the place trying to catch the frisbee and they were bouncing up and down like nobody’s business. Showing off for the man, no doubt. Tanya just shakes her head. I was trying not to look but then they finished up their game and comes wandering up to where we were sitting, right into the wee shelter where you sit down to have something to eat. Sure I couldn’t believe it, the English girl didn’t even bother
putting her bikini top back on. She sees me and she starts smiling and sticking her tits out as if we couldn’t already see them. I looked round and there’s the Muslim father covering his face and the mother trying to grab the kids, their eyes like dinner plates of course. It was fucking disgraceful, so it was.