Catching the Sun. Tony Parsons

Catching the Sun - Tony  Parsons


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      TONY PARSONS

       Catching the Sun

       For Yuriko and Jasmine In sunshine and in shadow

      ‘… it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.’

      Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

      ‘Do good – get good. Do bad – get bad.’

      Thai proverb

      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       Part One: Swimming With Elephants

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Part Two: Beach Dog

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Part Three: The Young Man and the Sea Gypsy

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Part Four: Song of the Gibbons

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Author’s Note

       Read on for one of Tony’s short stories from Departures

       About the Author

       Praise for Tony Parsons

       By the same author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

PART ONE

      1

      On the first day we watched the elephants come from the sea.

      ‘Look!’ Keeva cried. ‘Look at the sea!’

      I sat up but I could see nothing. Just my daughter – Keeva, nine years old, stick thin, pointing out at a sea so calm it looked like a lake made of glass.

      Tess, my wife, stirred beside me and sat up. She had been sleeping, worn out by a night in the air and coming seven thousand miles. We both watched Keeva, down where the sand met the water, excitedly waving her arms in the air.

      I could actually see the heat. We were on the beach at Nai Yang, just after breakfast, and the air was already starting to shimmer and bend. I thought – If it’s this hot so early in the day, what will it be like later?

      Keeva was jumping up and down by now.

      ‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘You must see it! Oh, oh, oh!’

      Our boy, Rory, was between me and Tess, on his stomach, a wet and battered copy of My Family and Other Animals on his lap. He looked up at his twin sister, adjusting his glasses, impatiently shaking his head. Then his jaw dropped open.

      ‘Oh,’ he gasped.

      Tess laughed, and stood up, brushing the sand from her legs, and all the exhaustion of the journey seemed to vanish with her smile.

      ‘Can’t you see them?’ she asked me, taking Rory by the hand as they began walking down to the sea.

      Then it was suddenly there for me too, this thing poking out of the water, a gnarled tube


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