Page 55 of To Hell With It

I needed to keep her talking because it was massively helping to distract me from the fact that I was actually on the plane.

‘I’m going to visit my sister in Kuala Lumpur. She moved there to marry a fisherman fifty years ago.’

‘Oh wow.’

‘She died there too.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I go every year if I can; she’s buried there. I usually try and make the festival in the village.’

I couldn’t imagine Bunty at a festival, dancing around to neon lights and getting drunk.

‘It’s more of a communal gathering where everyone gets involved with the food preparations, peeling, chopping, cleaning up,’ she said as if she’d read my thoughts.

‘It sounds great.’

‘What about you, where are you off to on your travels?’

‘I’m going to New Zealand.’

‘Aotearoa,’ Bunty said but her eyes glazed over like she was somewhere else.

‘No, New Zealand,’ I repeated.

‘It means New Zealand.’ She smiled and then she was back with me again. ‘Have you been before?’

‘No.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘A town called Te Puke, it’s in the North Island,’ I said, like I knew what I was talking about.

‘Ah, near Mount Maunganui?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Go to Omanu Beach if you get a chance, dear.’

‘Where?’

‘Omanu Beach, it’s not far from Te Puke. I lived there.’

I wondered if it was the same beach Jack said he’d take me to for a picnic and to watch the dolphins.

‘You lived on a beach?’

‘In a car park, I camped in one for a whole month, in a van.’

‘Wow, did you do it on your own?’

‘Yes, but I met plenty of great people there. I used to go for a run on the beach every morning, then I’d do ten minutes of yoga afterwards and finish off with a swim in the sea. I’d wash my hair once a week in the cold shower that was in the toilet block in the car park – all before six in the morning because I had to get to the kiwi-fruit orchards for seven-thirty. I loved it. Go if you get the chance and give the sea a kiss from me.’

‘Give the sea a kiss?’

‘Ha.’ Bunty chuckled. ‘It’s what my sister and I used to say to each other when we’d go to the beach as girls back home in Ireland. We always told each other togive the sea a kissif one of us was going without the other. It meantswim naked.’

‘Naked?’

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