Chapter Four

 January 2003

I'm on the Oz Experience bus waiting to leave Sydney. The Doors' People Are Strange is playing through the speakers. All these strangers on the bus, I seem to see them through a gauzy veil that I am trapped behind.

    I still smell of Nick.

    What I thought happened can't have happened. He was nice afterwards. He talked to me. He brought me water. He drove me home. I kissed him. It can't have happened. 

    But I was unconcs-

    I push the thought out of my mind. It. Didn't. Happen. I was just the kind of slut who had sex with two men in one night. 

    The bus takes us through rural areas. We watch a sheep being sheared. We learn to crack whips and throw boomerangs. I can't get the boomerang to come back. On Wednesday evening we arrive in Byron Bay. The bus driver announces the name of a pub for everyone to meet up in later.

    As I wait for my backpack to be unloaded an older couple from the bus, maybe late thirties, approach me. They say they're going to a quieter pub and invite me to join them because they think I would prefer somewhere quieter too. I thank them but I know I'll go where everyone else is going. I am grateful for their kindness but ashamed at having been seen.

    Later as I wait my turn at the bar I wonder if I will be able to break through the gauze and speak to other people. A girl says hi to me, she recognises me from the bus. She collars another girl who seems to be on her own. We make awkward conversation. Where we're from. How long we've been in Australia. 

    'Hello.' 

    I turn and see a man smiling at me. 'Hello.'

    He asks my name and I ask him his.

    'Nick.' 

    My skin prickles with cold. But this Nick is not like the other Nick. He is shorter, thinner, with light brown hair and blue eyes. He's from Melbourne, staying here with relatives. He thinks I'm beautiful.

    'If I go and come back later, will you still be here?' he says.

    'Yes,' I say.

    The girls I was talking to have disappeared somewhere into the crowd. I sit on a bench. A man sits next to me. He is large and dark. English isn't his first language. He edges closer to me as he speaks. His bare foot is almost touching my trainer. His friends call to him and he turns, speaking in his own language.

    Nick is on the other side of me. 'You're still here.'

    'Yes.'

    He kisses me. 

    Somehow we move from the bench.

    'Why do you like me?' I say.

    He moves closer, pushing me against the wall. 'Because you're absolutely beautiful.' We kiss.

    'Let's go to the beach.' he says.

    'How old are you?' I say as we walk down the road.

    'I'm twenty-one. How old are you?'

    'Twenty-two.'

    He looks me up and down, his brow slightly creased. 

    On the beach he stares at the sky. 'Look how beautiful the stars are.'

    I see the Southern Cross and the sparkling constellations I can not name. 'The sky's different here from at home,' I say.

    He holds my hand and there is magic in the night.

    It carries us down the beach far from any people. We run naked into the sea and splash each other with cool water. We lie in the sand. It's rough against my skin. It mingles with my hair. His touch is soothing.

    Afterwards he kisses me outside my hostel.

    'It was beautiful meeting you,' he says.

    The next day I walk along the beach to the lighthouse and watch dolphins swim in the perfect blue sea. I imagine shedding my human skin and leaping in to join them in their graceful dance.

People Are Strange

Chapter Five