Wicked Game

  November 2002 It's a warm summer night. Above the white sails of the opera house the full moon is circled by a bright halo. Its reflection is hazy in the dark sea. We are here for my flatmate, James's Birthday. A group of backpackers in our best clothes, more suited to seedy nightclubs than an evening watching a classical orchestra. Inside we are uncertain how to act. James closes his eyes to appreciate the music. Henry falls asleep. I stare hard at the musicians, watching their individual movements come together to create this huge swell of music. I've been in Sydney for two months and it feels like home. I love the Botanic Gardens that curve around the bay and the trees hanging with sleeping bats. I love the way I can never find Darling Harbour when I'm looking for it but sometimes I'll turn a corner and there it is. I'm on my second job since I've arrived. After a month in a call centre I now work for a mail order company assembling cheap toys in a fact...

January 2004 The walls shift. A face looms from the pattern of mould in the corner. My mind weaves between shadows. I don't know where I am. My body is soaked in some one else's sweat. I am crushed by his weight, torn apart by the pain that thrusts through me. I don't know how I got here. Something turns in my stomach. I open my eyes. I'm not in that room. I got out. I left Sydney, left Australia. I touch the wall, feel the rough lumps of polyfilla that I know as well as I know my own scars. It's a year later and I'm back in England, in my childhood bedroom. Inside me the baby kicks. I put my hands on my stomach. Soon it will be over. A dim light illuminates the animal print curtains. Outside is a broken world of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and men. I can't keep this baby safe. I can't keep this baby. I don't know how I got here. Rape Crisis Chapter One