Page 29 - Exile-ebook

28 AN EXILE OF THE MIND MELTING TONES OF THE PACIFIC 29

Photo: SeapixOnline.com/Tony Millatt.

The age of bulletproof comic-book heroes. Arriving in Tahiti on the Rangitane.

was summoned to the police station few hours of solitary to digest this
under a grey stone archway and into delinquency and a solemn promise
its daunting shadows. The metal door given to get rid of the death-trap,
of the lock-up clanked behind me. declared unsafe and hazardous to
Police officers stared incredulously traffic and pedestrian, I was booted
at the offending tandem propped out into the glare of day.
against the station wall. The remaining school years
A report of missing boys had boondoggled along with forgettable
police scouring the countryside ease. Encouraged to find ways of
for an oversized tandem pedalled educating myself, I read avidly early
by two undersized ‘runaways’. Not classics not taught in class. School
something a sharp-eyed bobby meals suffering the squeeze of
would easily miss. Our planned two- rationing, inherited from wartime,
week journey misinterpreted by our fared no better. Ravenous boys sat
The condemned pre-war tandem. dear mother as ‘two days’. With a at long benches with a teacher at the