Blessed

Oh, think twice. It’s just another day in paradise’.

The wafting sounds of Phil Collins’ hit from a few years ago were cutting into the mid-day sun as Bobby made his way down to the beach to while away another few hours of his well-earned holiday.

Although just 23 years of age, Bobby sometimes felt much older. He had been working full-time since he left school seven years earlier and in that time had applied himself to such a degree in that he already felt on the verge of burnout. It wasn’t a good feeling, and so pretty much at the insistence of his boss and his entire network of family and friends, he had finally treated himself to a month-long vacation from his job as a data analyst in the City and had taken himself off to the other side of the world.

This was how he had managed to end up on the tropical island of Bali all alone with nothing to do and all day to do it in. 

Paradise indeed.

He had arrived in the main tourist hotspot of Kuta a few days ago with the general plan of just staying a day or two before moving on somewhere more scenic, and while he thought he might still do that later on, for now, he was just happy enough to sleep in late every morning before taking himself down to the beach for a few hours of sunbathing and then heading back to his nice but in no way luxurious hotel to get ready for another night on the town.

He had pretty much fallen in love with Kuta and so was in no immediate hurry to move on. In fact, the only problem he seemed to have with the place was the incessant number of hawkers it seemed to attract. On his very first day, Bobby had been assailed by a host of men and women trying to persuade him to buy anything and everything from clothes to sunglasses to fake jewellery to counterfeit bags, and although he quickly learnt if he just smiled, shook his head and kept walking, it was enough to deter most of the hawkers on the street, on the beach it was a different matter.

On the beach, hawkers were on the constant lookout for travellers who were on their own. The hawkers would sidle up to them as they sat on the beach and then proceed to make seemingly pleasant small talk for a few minutes before honing in for the kill. They just would not take ‘no’ for an answer and, Bobby had discovered the hard way, they were more than prepared to sit it out and wait two or three hours if that was what it took to make a sale. 

Bobby hoped he could avoid the hawkers today as all he really wanted to do was to get some shut-eye and sleep off the remains of his hangover. 

He reached the gateway that led onto the beach and surveyed the scene before him. To his left stretched out a great empty expanse of sand as far as the eye could see. There were precious few people in that section of the beach, and Bobby figured if he went in that direction he might be safe from the hawkers as they perhaps wouldn’t fancy traipsing up an empty beach for such potential slim pickings.

On the other hand, though, he would stick out like a sore thumb and that in itself might encourage some to try their luck with him.

He looked right and saw that section of the beach was more densely populated. He wondered whether there could be safety in numbers but he was also concerned that with more people about the hawkers would fancy their chances more.

Decisions, decisions. Which way should he go? 

Bobby made his mind up.

…………………..

“Dad,” yelled Cassy. “I’m off now. See you later”.

Bobby was peeling some potatoes at the kitchen sink and so decided not to answer. Not that he didn’t love his vibrant, funny and sassy 20-year-old daughter, or had any objection to her going out with her friends, it’s just that he thought that it would be rather undignified for someone his age to have to shout loud enough to be heard at the other end of the house.

As the front door closed, Bobby turned to his wife, Claire, and grinned ruefully.

“Where did she say she is going?” he asked his long-suffering spouse.

Claire shook her head. “Not sure. Something about meeting up with her old school friends in town, I think,” she replied.

Claire and Bobby had been married twenty-four years and Cassy was their middle child. Her older sister, Hannah, had already flown the nest and was living with her boyfriend in Chelmsford, and although Claire and Bobby had been worried that at just twenty-two Hannah was too young to be settling down, she had been determined and there had been no stopping her.

The girls’ younger brother, Stan, was very much the baby of the family and had been something of a slightly late surprise addition to the family when he had rocked up just seven years earlier. 

Not that Claire and Bobby had minded, of course. After all, they led rather comfortable lives and certainly had no financial worries or problems, with Bobby being a respected and successful business owner for almost thirty years now, while Claire had her own florist business which was also doing very well.

They smiled at each other and continued preparing their Sunday lunch together. Yes, life had been pretty good to them, Bobby mused, as he thought back over the years they had been together and how they had met.

Bobby had just come back from an extended vacation abroad and although he had embarked on it in a state of near-exhaustion as a result of pushing himself too hard over the years, he had returned to England feeling refreshed, revitalised and ready for a change in direction. 

He had given up his job as a data analyst in the City and had instead thought outside the box a little. He had trained as a driving instructor and then taken a loan out and established his own driving school at the age of just 25. It had quickly grown and now he had branches all over Essex and he employed more than seventy instructors. 

One of his very first students all those years ago had been Claire and they had just clicked right from the start and both of them had known they would be together for the duration. 

As Bobby continued to cast his mind back over the wealth of memories they both shared, he realised that this was at least partly why the two of them were happy to let Hannah follow her heart; after all, it had done them no harm over the years.

That holiday all those years ago had been the making of Bobby, he considered now. He had taken the time out to really relax and think about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and although he would never be afraid of hard work, he knew he didn’t want to slave away for someone else for the rest of his life. 

He had visited many places on his journey back then but the place his mind kept coming back to was Bali. There he had seen how hard people had to hustle to make a living sometimes, and although at the time he had been annoyed by the persistence of the hawkers he had encountered on the beach, he had come to understand their reasoning and way of thinking.

It was while he was sitting on an empty expanse of sand on Kuta beach one day watching the hawkers far away in the distance plying their trades, that he had determined he was going to work hard but was also going to make sure he enjoyed his life.

He smiled at Claire again. Yes, they were blessed.

……………………..

Tuti was exasperated with her husband.

‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked rhetorically, ‘and you still have to ask me what they are saying on TV’.

Tuti rolled her eyes and tutted, but she wasn’t really angry. In fact, she thought that now - just as they approached the middle years of their lives - she and Bobby were happier and more settled than ever before.

Bobby grinned at her sheepishly. 

“I can understand if people are talking slowly,’ he countered, ‘but that’s just the problem. These guys on TV will insist on blabbering away quicker than I can keep up’.

She had a point, Bobby conceded to himself. After almost three decades of living in Indonesia, his proficiency in the local language was far short of what it should be. He had tried to study it when he first moved over permanently from England, and he had made some progress, but then he had seemed to stall and hit a block as far as any further progress went. 

Not that it particularly mattered though, because Tuti did most of the talking for the pair of them when they were out and Bobby rarely if ever needed to use it in his office. It would be useful though, he thought if he could understand a little more of what was happening in the local media, but that lack of comprehension was a small inconvenience in the overall scheme of things.

Tuti and Bobby grinned at each other and continued staring at the TV screen with differing levels of comprehension. Their lives together were happy, simple and uncomplicated now they were in their mid-fifties but things had not always been that way. The early years together had been a struggle as they came to terms with things such as the cultural differences and legal red tape that had threatened to put a dampener on their plans to be together.

They had met on the beach in Kuta, Bali way back when Tuti had been a student at a local university and Bobby had been travelling around on an extended holiday. Tuti often took a walk on the beach in those days when she was trying to clear her head from the rigours and stresses of studying, and the day she met Bobby had been no different to dozens of others.

She had been walking along the crowded section of the beach with her best friend, Dian, when they spotted a pale figure sitting on the beach seemingly being hassled by a group of hawkers. Tuti and Dian had looked at each other and after a quick chat decided to try and rescue the poor chap who was clearly suffering from the over-zealousness of the hawkers but was too polite to do anything much about it.

Ignoring the hawkers, the two young women spoke to the strange man who they soon discovered was from England and was named Bobby. As the three of them chatted amiably on the sands, the hawkers got the message and slowly started to drift away. Tuti was taken by the shy yet engaging nature of the young Englishman before her and - picking up on this - Dian declared she was off to get a drink and would see Tuti later.

The two young people then spent most of the next two hours chatting away as if they had known each other for years. Tuti asked him why he had chosen to sit in the busy section of the beach if he had wanted to be left alone and Bobby had to admit he had no answer to that.

They then spent most of the next month together before Bobby had to go back to England but they both knew that something had just clicked right from the start and they would be together for the duration.

They had kept in touch by letter and the occasional (very expensive) phone call before meeting again two years later when Bobby came back to Indonesia for another visit, this time specifically to see Tuti, and it was then that they started making plans to marry and be together forever. 

Their wedding had taken place a further twelve months later and then the first of their three children had arrived another twelve months down the line. 

The struggles they had faced as Bobby came to terms with life in Asia had been immense but they had overcome them and now the chain of English Language schools they owned and operated were sufficiently successful to afford them a very comfortable lifestyle.

Bobby smiled at Tuti again. Yes, they were blessed.