Later, much later, Charlie awoke slowly.  He became aware of the room around him and unfamiliar noises: particularly the sound of insects chirruping noisily from somewhere outside.  He lay there, rested and content looking at the gauze of the mosquito net draped above him.  Light from the window poured into the room, casting sharp shadows behind whatever it fell on.  What time is it?  He sat up in bed, slid out of it and padded over to the window. 

The bedroom was at the back of a small building which overlooked one of the most beautiful sights Charlie had ever seen.  A simple garden backed onto a huge lagoon, which was littered with shipping.  Vessels of every kind were moored to jetties, landing stages or buoys, as far as he could see.  There were fishing boats, a warship, yachts and motor cruisers moored or made fast.  One cruise liner was slowly making its way to goodness knew where.  Sunlight glittered blindingly off the waters and the bright-work of the vessels making the whole scene sparkle captivatingly.

“Port of Refuge, Charlie.  It’s pretty cool, huh?”  Charlie turned.  His father stood in the doorway holding two mismatched mugs in one hand.  “Coffee?”  he asked.

“I dunno, I don’t think I’ve ever had it.  Sure, why not” Charlie said.  He was quite pleased with himself for his daring, being quite a picky eater and not very adventurous with new foods.  Who knew where this could lead to?  Sushi?  Maybe even something with too many tentacles?

He followed his father through to the living room, which, to his surprise, was crammed with books.  Puzzled, he couldn’t remember seeing them when he had turned up at the house.  They filled every shelf, there were piles of them on every surface, stacks of them by chairs, each tottering tower topped by one open volume, its pages held down with a large seashell.  He looked at one but found that what he presumed to be Latin was almost unreadable to him.  Slightly curious, he turned the cover back to read the title, De Origine Actibusque Getarum, only to find his curiosity confounded.  A desk in the corner overflowed with papers and cheap cardboard files, yet a space had been cleared for two small photo-frames.  In one was a picture of his mother, though she appeared to be much younger.  In the other, he was surprised to see himself.  He recognised the photo - his granddad had taken it on the last visit to Dungeness.  His mother must have emailed a copy.  On the far side of the room was a low counter that acted as a partition separating the living room from the kitchen.  Sitting on the counter was the source of the earthy scent of freshly brewed coffee.  His father poured coffee into the two mugs from the glass pot that he removed from the filter machine. 

“Better have plenty of sugar and cream with that if it’s your first time,” he said.  He walked over to a small fridge and removed a carton of milk.  “Sugar’s by your elbow.”

“What time is it?”  Charlie asked.

“London time or local time?” 

“Er…both?”

“It’s eleven a.m. here and eleven p.m. in the Big Smoke.” 

“That’s odd,” Charlie started.  “I could have sworn it was elevenish when you collected me.  Have I only had a nap?”

His father laughed, “No!  You haven’t just had a nap.  You’ve been out for the count for about twenty four hours!  I’ve never seen someone work so hard at sleeping.  You have quite a talent there.”

Charlie stirred his coffee.  Twenty four hours asleep?  Can you actually sleep that long?  He wasn’t sure it was a talent; it was more like a curse.  Just think of the time he’d wasted snoring? Time he could have spent getting to know his father.  He only had a few weeks before he had to return to London and to lose almost a whole day by being unconscious seemed like a massive lost opportunity.  He sipped at his coffee and almost gagged on the thick bitter brew.  It was truly disgusting!  What did adults see in it?  Politely, he put the mug down and pretended that he’d have more when it cooled down a bit.

“Well, what do you want to do today, Charlie?  I’ve cleared my flights for a while.  The Cat could do with some routine maintenance.  So, we could go fishing, hit the beach, meet some friends or cruise down to the harbour for a bite to eat.  We only need something light, like a snack, because we’ve been invited to dinner.  In fact, you are guest of honour at a traditional Tongan dinner and I can assure you that you’ll need to make some room for it.  Tongans are the kings and queens of hospitality.”  His dad looked very pleased with himself. “Have a shower, I’ve put a towel in your room and unpacked your things. Oh, and get some clothes on!  Don’t worry about what to wear, the weather’s back to normal. A tee shirt and shorts will do today.  You can look at these too,” he added as an afterthought, thrusting a handful of colourful leaflets into Charlie’s arms.

Charlie showered and changed quickly.  He rejoined his father in the sitting room, looking at one of the leaflets as he walked. 

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“Swimming with whales?  There’s an idea!  I know the guy who runs that gig; he might be able to do something for us,” his dad said whilst reading over Charlie’s shoulder.

“You do?” said Charlie.

“Yeah, you kind of get to know everyone on Vava’u real quick.   It’s not a big place,” his father said.  “It can be a drag when everyone knows your business but then you get to meet some pretty cool people who stand by you when times are tough.”

“Have times been tough?”

“That’d be saying, Charlie.  Kind of a deep question, if you don’t mind me saying so,” his father didn’t sound annoyed but his answer implied something else.

“I don’t mind, but if we are to get to know each other better shouldn’t we share some of the difficult stuff too.  I bet mum told you loads about what happened to me?”  Charlie prompted, slightly irritated by his father’s evasiveness.

His father looked at him with a strange half-smile. “You know, Charlie, you kind of reminded me of your mom then.  She had a way of making it quite clear when she thought someone was being an idiot.  You’re right, of course.”   He scratched his head and swept his arm wide, gesturing at the room and the piles of books.

“I’m not a pilot by training, only by necessity.  I used to find stuff.  I was a kind of treasure hunter.  I had a talent for finding things that had been hidden for years.   The books…they’re a kind of reminder to me of my old life, my research work, and the sort of work I used to do before I had to give it up.  I keep reading and I keep researching because I want to stay sharp.

“A few years ago, I came out here to Tonga because an old friend invited me to - you’ll meet him tonight.  Anyway, when I came out here it was after a pretty rough time and I was at my lowest.  Things had gone pretty wrong for me, a trip had gone sour, a good friend had been killed, your mom and I split up and I lost my shirt in a legal case.  When my friend – George – invited me to stay, I didn’t really have anywhere else to go.

“I gradually got my life together again.  Won the Catalina in a card game…”

Charlie interrupted incredulously, “You won the Catalina in a card game!  How?  I mean, it’s such a big plane!  Who would have bet it in a card game?”

“An idiot.”

“But even so, it’s still pretty …I dunno…just big, I suppose,”  Charlie gushed.  His dad had won a plane in a card game!  How cool was that?

“It was an idiot who bet it in a game of poker, and an even bigger idiot who bet against him with nothing but a prayer in his wallet as a wager.  I got lucky that night, but I could have easily wound up in a hospital.   The guys I was playing against were pretty serious dudes.  If they had known that I was as broke as Lehman Brothers then I think they would have sent me for a midnight swim with nothing but a chum bucket for company.   I guess that was my roughest night.  I had been prepared to bet everything, my health, even my life on a wild turn of the cards.  I ignored everything good in my life when I did that.  I didn’t care a fig for the love my friends had for me.  I just wanted to win that hand of poker.”

“But you won!”  Charlie said.

“Yeah, I won.  It gave me such a scare that I won, I have never tried anything so damnfool dumb ever since.  I got lucky.  Not just because I won the game but because the guy I played against honoured the bet.  He could just have easily sent me to the bottom of the Pacific.”

“So you stopped treasure hunting and took to flying?”  Charlie asked.  He was intrigued.  His mother had hinted that his father was interesting but she had not really told him how much of a naughty boy he really was.  He was almost like…Trev.  Charlie shook himself mentally.  What was he thinking? His dad was not like Trev! That was just wishful thinking.  Trev was dead and no-one was going to replace him!  Especially not some random bloke he’d just met!  However, a little voice in his head quietly said, yes, but it can’t do any harm finding out more about him.  “You became a pilot?”  he said.

“No, I was already a pilot.  I just got something to fly is all.  When I won the Cat, I won my life back.  I took control.  George helped me and we built a business together here in Tonga.  It’s not much. All we do is ferry around a few islanders or tourists to the more far flung islands. Maybe we carry an NGO out to somewhere real remote, or some government people.”

“NGO?  What’s an NGO?” 

“Non Government Organisation.  Like a charity, or something to do with the UN.  You know what the UN is, don’t you?” his dad replied.

“Yeah, the United Nations.” 

“The UN’s a big deal round here.  None of these little island nations can really exist without it.  They’re all poor and depend on tourism or UN money to keep going.  Keeps me busy enough, anyway.  So that’s what I do nowadays:  island hopping with a side order of archaeological research.  Occasionally, I write a letter to some publication, keep my name in there, but most of the time they don’t publish it.  I’m a kind of bad memory for some people, an embarrassing one.”

“I don’t think you’re embarrassing, and neither does mum.”  Charlie said.

“No?  Well, that’s good.  I don’t either,” his dad grinned.  “Well, now you know a bit more about me.  Isn’t it time we did this properly?”  He held out his hand, “I’m pleased to meet you, Charlie Buttons.”

Charlie took his hand in his and squeezed it as they both shook.  “I’m pleased to meet you too, Rick Bravo.”

 What followed was an amazing day for Charlie.  They didn’t go swimming with whales, but they did explore Port of Refuge together, skimming over the shallow waters in a small wooden boat that belonged to Rick.  Charlie, still found it difficult to process his father’s name.  It sounded odd, false, to him.  It was almost like some cheesy, TV action-hero’s name from some show made during the days when everyone had big hair and bad clothes.  However, it was the name that Rick went by so who was he to judge with a name like Charlie Buttons?  His mum must have had too much gas and air in the hospital, when he was born, for that name to have been chosen on purpose.

The motor chugged happily as they pootled amongst the other boats, trying to find the most luxurious yachts, or find the boat most likely to sink, or the one they thought was the fastest.  The waters were crystal clear and Charlie couldn’t get tired of gazing through them at the bottom of the lagoon.  Small, silvery fish would dart here and there; fan corals waved lazily in the current: a ray might make a sudden dash from one spot to another, spooked by the shadow of the boat, and then bury itself into the sandy bottom with a few lazy flicks of its wings.  It was a hypnotic sight. 

They stopped off at the harbour front and entered a popular internet café, The Surf Shack, for hot dogs and two Cokes, which they eventually received after waiting a fantastically long time.  Charlie didn’t mind.  He was seeing something quite incredible.  People of every nation, as well as local Tongans, thronged the café.  He could hear a dozen different languages being spoken around him just from the table he shared with his dad.  Europeans, South Americans, Polynesians and Asians seemed to rub shoulders quite happily at the café as they munched on well known local delicacies like margarita pizzas or cheeseburgers.

After lunch they strolled along the harbour front.  Rick bought Charlie a sunhat to wear - an item that he had forgotten to bring - as well as a bucket of bait from a shop that seemed to sell everything from sewing needles and cassava to anchor rope and frozen suckling pigs.  It was a somewhat ramshackle affair with the goods displayed in a higgledy-piggledy way.

“Going fishing, Rick?” A big, Polynesian man of about forty years, wearing a red tee-shirt and three quarter length shorts, smiled, took Rick’s money and put it into a cash box under the counter.  “Be lucky, now!  You need it!  There’s not a lot of fishing happening in the harbour today,” he laughed good naturedly.

“Yeah, Toni.  I’m taking my boy with me.  He’s just arrived from England.  Charlie, meet Toni.  Toni meet Charlie,” said Rick.  “He’s good people.”

 “Malei, Charlie!  Welcome to Tonga!”  Toni said cheerily. “Enjoy your stay!”  He turned to Rick, “You got a nice boy there, Rick.  Don’t get him mixed up in anything too foolish, now.” 

“Hey, Toni!  C’mon, now!  Would I ever do that?  What do you take me for?”  Rick retorted, equally cheery but with a slight edge to his voice.

 “Rick, I take you for all the money I can get!”  Toni laughed, his belly wobbling.

As they walked back to the boat with Charlie carrying the bait, he asked, “What did Toni mean?  What did he mean about me getting mixed up in anything?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rick replied wearily as he ran a hand through his hair.  “I suppose that on the island I can be thought of being a little eccentric.  After all, I fly a sea-plane and used to dig up archaeological treasures.  On an island like Vava’u, which is pretty tiny, that gives me celebrity status, and not a terribly reputable status.  I live alone, and don’t seem to have a family.  That makes me mysterious.  On Tonga everything revolves around the family.  I don’t have one.  It kind of sets me apart.”

Charlie nodded.  He understood the part about reputation.  After all, he didn’t have the best one either and he sympathised with his father having to endure society passing judgement on him. 

“You shouldn’t mind Toni,” Rick said.  “He means well and I would trust him with my life.  He’s part of a family that I’m pretty close to.  I’ve kind of got used to people’s sidelong stares at me and it doesn’t bother me.  I’ve been here so long because I like it.  Tonga, Vava’u, they’re crazy places full of people who live on tiny islands, that are thousands of miles from anywhere and  they all know each other’s business. It can drive you mad but just when you think it’s going to, something amazing happens and those very same people are extending an incredibly generous helping hand.  I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, to be honest.”

They reached the jetty where Rick’s boat was moored and climbed back in.  Charlie untied the mooring line, whilst Rick turned his attention to the engine. After a couple of pulls on the starter cord the two stroke motor kicked into life and they chuntered out to a quiet spot to enjoy an hour or two of fishing.  Rick kept a couple of simple rods in the boat and after a grisly bit of work sorting through the bait and putting it on the hooks, they cast their lines into the water.

As they waited they chatted quietly.  Cautiously, they probed each other with questions.  Any residual nervousness that Charlie had about whether he would like his father receded as the afternoon progressed.  The mystery man in the cargo shorts and loud Hawaiian shirt opposite emerged as a friendly and easy going character who was easy to talk to and interesting to listen to. As the afternoon wore on they talked less and simply relaxed in each other’s company.  Charlie had only ever been fishing once before and that was with his mad, old granddad.  It had been an unusual undertaking, one that seemed to consist mostly of boredom, cold, wet discomfort and a lot of watching his grandfather tear at fishing lines caught in trees, whilst swearing colourfully.  He had since found out that this was not the typical fishing experience.  Thankfully, this afternoon’s was exactly what he imagined fishing could be - relaxing.

The line on his rod went taut and his rod bent sharply down in a tight curve.

“Dad!”  he shrieked.

“Careful, Charlie!  You’ve got him already, just bring him in slooowly!”  His father scooted across the boat and sat by him, hardly rocking it at all.  “Just reel him in carefully.”

Little by little, Charlie wound the reel in as the rod flexed in his hands, pulled this way and that by the fish at the end of the line. 

“Let a bit of line out if he pulls too much, Charlie, and then bring him back in again,”  Rick advised quietly, firmly.

Charlie fought the fish, and the fish fought back.  He was totally taken up with the struggle.  His hands ached from the strain of gripping the rod so tightly and sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them.  How long’s this going to last?  He could feel his resilience seeping away as the fight went on.  How could he keep it up?

“I can see him, Charlie!”  Rick shouted excitedly, “and he’s a biggie!”

At last, just as he was about to give up, the fish seemed to stop struggling quite as hard.  He reeled in the line.  Turn by turn, the fish came closer to the boat.  Charlie could see it twisting this way and that at the end of the line, breaking the surface now and again.  All of a sudden, his father whooped, reached down over the side of the boat and twisted his hand into the line, almost swamping the boat in the process.

“Wow!”  Rick stood up, swaying easily with the movement of the boat in the waves.  “Now that’s a nice snapper you’ve caught, Charlie.”  He held up a blunt-nosed silvery fish, just under half a metre long, that twisted in his fingers, which themselves were hooked into the fish’s gills.

“Wow!”  Charlie echoed weakly.  He had won.  He had beaten the fish.  He could feel his heart hammering away in his chest and he could not believe just how sweaty he had become in such a short space of time.  Breathing heavily, he looked up at his father and smiled, “Wow!”

“Charlie, you may have just found yourself some friends tonight.  The best way to make a friend on this island is to bring them some food, and you have caught a mighty fish with which to do so!” 

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