Chapter Nine
March 2003
The evening we arrive in Cairns everyone from the bus meets up in a pub for pizza. This is the first time I've eaten a proper meal since I left Sydney.
I sit on a table with a group of strangers. We go round the table introducing ourselves. A woman who says she's from she'll say Wembley because people know it, but not Wembley. Someone from Birmingham. A man in a blue shirt from east London. Our eyes meet. He will be the father of my child. I push the thought out of my mind. He is overweight with an oafish face. I do not want him.
After we've eaten we drink and dance. Somehow I lose people and I'm standing on my own by the wall. Perhaps I should leave. I don't remember the way back to my hostel. I am afraid of wandering the dark streets of a strange city alone.
I need a man to take me home with him.
I see the man in the blue shirt. He is talking to a woman I recognise from the bus. She is clearly not interested in him, I can tell from her folded arms, her expressionless face.
He looks like the kind of man who would take advantage of a lost drunk girl.
I walk up to him and say, 'Hello.'
He and the woman both say 'Hello,' to me. The woman looks relieved. We go through the same introductions again. His name is Steve. He's twenty seven.
Another man comes up to the woman. She hugs him. I think how much better looking than Steve he is. I watch the man and woman walk off together.
'He'll hug anyone,' Steve says.
It's just us two talking now. We talk about the east coast, about our old jobs at home. He worked in banking. I did data entry in a bank.
Then he asks the question I've been waiting for him to ask.
'So, who's the lucky guy then?'
'There isn't one.'
'Really? I thought you would have a boyfriend.'
'No.'
He smiles. It's an ugly smile that looms over me but it's an I'm going to kiss you smile.
I'm not going to go home alone.
I smile at him.
He kisses me.
We are spinning on the dancefloor, his arms round my neck. The Counting Crows cover of Big Yellow Taxi is playing. I look into Steve's eyes and it feels like The Counting Crows are asking me personally why I want to give it all away.
A hand grips my arm, pulls me away from Steve. It's Brandon
'Amy, do you know this guy?' he says.
'I do now.'
'He's an asshole.' He spits out the words.
'Yeah, I thought so.' I laugh.
Brandon lets go of my arm. I go back to Steve. He smiles. I don't think he heard what Brandon said.
Steve and I are sitting opposite each other. He tells me he wants to make mad passionate love to me.
'You don't think I'm too skinny?' I say. 'Too small?' I indicate my chest.
'No.' His voice is slurry with alcohol. 'I like your pretty little tits and I like your pretty little face and like your big blue eyes and I like everything about you.'
He lunges at my neck. His teeth clamp into my skin. It feels like he's trying to eat me alive. I want to cry out with pain. I dig my nails into him.
He stops biting me. 'But I don't like that.' He pushes my hand off.
I touch my neck.
'Oh. Did I hurt you?' he says.
I nod.
We are on a bench outside, kissing. He pulls away and looks at me
'I must be so lucky.' He grins. 'Because you are gorgeous. And you must be so unlucky because I'm not.'
'Never mind.'
He laughs. 'Never mind.'
I wasn't joking.
We kiss.
A man shouts out of his car window. 'Get a room.' He stops the car. 'Seriously.' He starts telling us where we could get a room.
We are running around on the esplanade. He bends down, pretending he's going to rugby tackle me.
'You are evil,' I say.
'Oh, yes I'm evil.' He kisses me.
We are in his hostel, locked in the bathroom. We are on the floor, kissing, pulling each other's clothes off.
I remember my premonition, He will be the father of my child. I don't want to risk that coming true.
'Do you have a condom?' I say.
'We don't need a condom,' he says. 'It's just kissing and touching.'
Then a minute later he is pulling my legs apart, coming down on top of me with an oddly triumphant look on his face.
I am afraid. Of pregnancy. Of him.
'No.' It feels like it's too late to say it.
'But you want to,' he says.
'No.'
He stops. He looks away and sighs.
We dress in silence. We go to his dorm. We get into his bed fully clothed.
I lie awake thinking that maybe he is a nice person after all. He stopped when I said no. I think of that man at university nearly three years ago who just didn't seem to hear my 'no' however many times I said it. Of Adam who forced me as my senses slipped away. Of Nick who didn't care that I was unconscious.
Maybe I should have slept with Steve.
I sleep briefly, uncomfortably and wake early in the morning. The men who share Steve's dorm are getting up. They stare at me curiously as I kneel by Steve's bed and try to wake him.
'I'm going now.' I tap his arm.
He stirs. 'Yeah, bye,' he mutters. He doesn't open his eyes.
I tap his arm again. As he turns his head away an image jolts in my mind. The man I saw air guitaring yesterday. The man I thought was a wanker. That was Steve. I stop trying to wake him.
It's not too hard to find my hostel in the morning light. I shower and look in the mirror. My neck is bruised with purple tooth marks. It still hurts. My hair is long and thick. I brush it over my neck.
I have one day in Cairns before I go to Cape Tribulation.
This city feels predatory. Men stare at me. A group of teenaged boys comes towards me on the pavement. They gawk and whisper as we get nearer to each other.
'No, you haven't fucked her,' one of them says as I pass them.
A man reaches out and strokes my face.
I sit on a bench on the esplanade. An old man sits next to me. We watch the sea gulls. He speaks in an accent that sounds Italian. The sea gulls here, he says, are vicious, not like the sea gulls in his country. He asks my name.
'Amy,' I say. 'I have to go.' I stand up.
'I hope you don't mind me talking to you,' he says.
'Oh no. No, no,' I say.
'I think you are beautiful.
I walk quickly away.
As I wait to cross a road the sky fills with heavy rain. Three women waiting too laugh. 'And then it rained,' they say. 'And then it rained.'
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