Chapter Eleven

March 2003

I'm on the Oz Experience bus waiting for the three day trip to Alice Springs to start. I'm looking forward to seeing the outback, Uluru, the red centre of Australia.

   I look up at the other passengers boarding. A dark haired man walks past 

   Steve.

   It's Steve from the night I arrived in Cairns. My neck still hurts, still bears his teeth marks, now faded to yellow. I sink in my seat and look out of the window. I don't think he saw me. Maybe he won't recognise me. It was dark and he was drunk.

   The bus leaves the city behind. Everywhere is dry. Foliage is sparse and grey. I have a sudden wish to see grass, a lush meadow or even a neat lawn. Just something to remind me of life.

   The bus stops in the middle of nowhere. All that seems to be here are toilet cubicles. We queue up to use them. A scream comes from one of them. We all look but we're too hot to care. A girl rushes out.

   'There's a frog in the toilet,' she says.

   When I get there I see it in the bowl, green and shiny. I sit and hope it's not poisonous.

   As we wait to reboard the bus Steve approaches me.

   'Hi, Amy,' he says.

   So he has recognised me.

   We speak a little about Cairns, about Cape Tribulation. I tell him I fell off a horse.

   About fifteen minutes after the bus starts he comes and sits next to me.

   'So, how did you fall off the horse then?' he says.

In the evening we sit at a table in the hostel with two women Steve apparently knows from Cairns. I'm resting my chin on my hand, my elbow on the table. Steve takes my hand and runs his finger in slow circles round my palm.

   'I was going to say hello to you the other night,' one of the women says to him, 'but I thought you were trying to pull Charlotte, so I went.' She side eyes me.

   The two women go. Steve tells me he wishes he hadn't let me go that morning in Cairns, that he'd got my contact details, arranged to see me again. He kisses me. We end up on the bathroom floor again. Someone rattles the door handle. Steve laughs. We wait a moment then come out. There's no one there. We go to our dorm. The other people in it are already asleep.

   'Good night, darling,' Steve says.

   I'm not his darling.

The next day the bus stops by a giant termite mound. To scale, we are told, it is a greater achievement than the Egyptian pyramids. It rises out of the orangey coloured earth. Humped cows wander around chewing on the meagre vegetation. 

   Another girl Steve knows eyes me curiously.

   'She said to me, "Did you meet that girl on the bus?' Steve says.

   I smile, not sure what to say.

   'Yeah, like I'm going to start chatting up some random younger looking girl on a bus.' He shakes his head. 'I said, "I met her in Cairns."'

   We stop in what the owners say is the most remote pub in the world. I wonder why anyone would choose this lonely existence. The day ends at a campfire in the middle of nowhere.

In the morning we go to a small town where the air is thick with flies.

   'It can't be possible to get used to this,' I say.

   Steve accidentally swallows a fly. He says it wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't bitten it and got the taste of blood in his mouth.

   We swim in a pool. Steve kisses me and pulls me under the water. I panic as my head submerges, thrashing and gasping for air.

   Steve lets me go. 'You're acting like I'm trying to drown you.'

   It felt like he was.

   By the side of the pool I talk to another girl from the bus.

   'So how long have you and your boyfriend been together?' she says.

   I awkwardly say he's not my boyfriend. I only met him a week ago. It was just a coincidence we were on the same bus.

   'Oh.' She looks me up and down.

   On the bus Steve tells me he'll give me a full body massage when we get to Alice Springs.

    'How did you learn to do massages?' I say.

    'I didn't learn, I just know,' he says.

   We arrive in Alice Springs. Steve and I book into a dorm. The receptionist tells us it's a small dorm. We'll be the only people in there. He looks at me and gives Steve a quick smile.

   We go upstairs and then we are alone, properly alone for the first time.

Chapter Twelve