Catching the Sun

Catching the Sun
Tony Parsons

Just how badly do you want to find paradise?When Tom Finn is almost jailed for confronting two burglars in his own home, this taxi driver takes his young family to live on the tropical island of Phuket, Thailand.Phuket is all the Finn family dreamed of – a tropical paradise where the children swim with elephants, the gibbons sing love songs in the jungle, the Andaman Sea is like turquoise glass and this young family is free to grow.But both man-made disaster and the unleashed forces of nature shatter this tropical idyll for Tom Finn's family.CATCHING THE SUN is a gripping, moving story of a family who go in search of Paradise – and end up discovering themselves.

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 (#u0a265d45-a81d-51e5-b413-7e4709f47392)

Dedication (#u3ea9c945-8a0c-58df-9947-4734e185a626)

Epigraph (#u1b401cb3-d3dd-5413-8caf-8899cd1442ed)

Part One: Swimming With Elephants (#udc2a4551-6cb7-5267-97f0-c3d674a1ca7b)

Chapter 1 (#u63af0d23-c0b1-5e06-bcd7-f4fa5cc82537)

Chapter 2 (#u95cde6bf-37cb-5168-9ecc-f5cce6c6bf5e)

Chapter 3 (#u30aeb2ea-8bff-526a-9fe3-81f2466a396e)

Chapter 4 (#uffb61bb4-f5d8-56a5-bfa0-3392368258f2)

Chapter 5 (#u86b276f1-d800-5e38-a54f-e0434e4ae8e5)

Chapter 6 (#ua8ad015f-dba0-5694-a4d3-dbb8cc0c8ce1)

Chapter 7 (#uca370df7-d1b3-5398-b648-746c2e751172)

Chapter 8 (#ue99535a0-f566-53d2-ab68-ae83df728813)

Chapter 9 (#uf0d6125d-d2e9-5e33-a866-ef87170c7420)

Chapter 10 (#u39f38e7b-e021-54b4-aace-a8a701c6bee1)

Part Two: Beach Dog (#ubb55c629-96c6-5f6b-ab00-a8f4a338da78)

Chapter 11 (#u36ad7407-8f3b-5b10-a588-811e746bdc08)

Chapter 12 (#u0136e165-39b3-5289-aa3d-ce564214116a)

Chapter 13 (#u1d8a592b-c684-5ecc-8a25-a7400ba9e9b9)

Chapter 14 (#u6186ff29-de3c-5064-981b-f7b76af661ea)

Chapter 15 (#u55a35923-5c10-567e-ba10-3b91981d85bd)

Chapter 16 (#uf15ab01a-7339-5ce1-b818-41375f6fe56e)

Chapter 17 (#u10b8a9dd-762e-5124-81c0-4ab1e3baec32)

Chapter 18 (#u6f4d60fe-f496-53de-a707-e497242278a0)

Part Three: The Young Man and the Sea Gypsy (#ue606c461-b331-50c3-8794-751d643212bf)

Chapter 19 (#u5197cbc4-b4d8-51c7-ab72-a3e4e7eaf552)

Chapter 20 (#u5f57c4c0-5b52-59b8-b381-493e8045a2eb)

Chapter 21 (#u0619d4df-c94d-5672-982e-a7a252d73acd)

Chapter 22 (#ua384efa0-57d1-5257-8a16-53c7a894aa14)

Chapter 23 (#u3929cda3-a9df-53a1-b1f0-b89243888a3d)

Chapter 24 (#u1f20d609-c502-5986-9469-341b10d91040)

Chapter 25 (#u67a0c206-c6fd-5811-8a6a-cfb5e68fa395)

Chapter 26 (#u04c6a0a4-1841-5e76-818e-acd5460a4b49)

Part Four: Song of the Gibbons (#u2c3069dd-7671-56bb-a243-5c06b1cb4581)

Chapter 27 (#u3cb01b22-78be-5de4-9564-ded7e42be265)

Chapter 28 (#u29d4c94c-d48a-5109-a2e8-45e3478aba79)

Chapter 29 (#u92ec3660-e8ed-52c9-bf93-382e3e33f06a)

Chapter 30 (#ue1918502-d394-5494-8d6d-cfaa7659b166)

Chapter 31 (#u79f874e8-b2b4-55c6-bb9f-a9ba3b8b1503)

Chapter 32 (#uf0b4903e-773e-569b-8c2f-1253ada6a7ad)

Author’s Note (#udfbfb168-decc-5a3d-9a92-0133ecba1913)

Read on for one of Tony’s short stories from Departures (#u108a9b1e-a255-5aa9-ac15-c1edba931daa)

About the Author (#u7ac7efd5-c6ad-5937-b6bf-9fbe6519a8a0)

Praise for Tony Parsons (#ua71b3f6b-aa75-5cae-8392-58a6a8250e71)

By the same author (#u07f8f7a7-4cc8-5ed2-a3b2-8d673ef9358e)

Copyright (#u2b03c7bf-42e1-59ed-8bf2-c8fdae56d078)

About the Publisher (#ua42a586b-36d7-5177-a4dd-4bd9bb195f84)

PART ONE

1

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

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