Chapter Thirteen

 March 2003

The trip to Uluru begins. We are on a minibus with a small group. Steve and I can't sit together because most of the seats have been taken. He sits next to another man called Steve. We refer to him as Steve 2. I sit next to a Canadian woman who takes an instant dislike to Steve.

   Because he's with me, I think. All the girls hate me.

   Steve calls her a hobbit. Not to her face. Her name is Lizzie.

   There is something about being with Steve that blurs time. 

   We swim in a gorge, splashing through reflections of the sky and the surrounding rocks. There is more water here in the outback than I expected. It's refreshing to wash the heat off my body.

    We gather wood for a campfire in the evening. We are told by the guides to pick up pieces the size of our forearms. One of the other women, Anna, and I come back with twigs. Steve is dragging something the size of a tree trunk.

    Steve smokes as we sit round the campfire. I call him a chain smoking alcoholic. He says that's what his ex's mother used to call him.

   'Life's a bitch and then you move in with one,' he says, smirking as if he's said something clever.

   I shake my head, wondering if one day I would be the girl he called a bitch.

   People talk about Iraq, the war that is on the horizon. It seems so far away.

   A man, Liam, stands up and takes his chair to sit apart from the rest of us. His girlfriend, Sarah, goes to him.

   'What's wrong, babe, ' I hear her say.

   'Everyone's talking about the war. This is supposed to be a holiday. Why talk about all the bad stuff?'

   I think about the word 'babe.' Steve never calls me by my name. I'm Babe, Princess, Darling. I call him Random Bloke Called Steve.

   At night we sleep in swags, they are sort of a cross between a sleeping bag and a tent. In the morning Steve's face is covered in mosquito bites, but I, sleeping less than a metre away from him, am untouched. 

   Even the mosquitoes sense there is something wrong with me.

   In the minibus Lizzie kills flies, their bodies accumulating by the window. 

   We go to King's Canyon, looking over it, this crack in the world. I am too scared to get close to the edge, afraid of falling, afraid of the urge to jump. Steve laughs at me, my terror at being even a metre away. He walks right up to the edge and looks down. 

   Steve 2 says he saw Liam 'about ten metres from the edge,' taking tiny steps as if he thought he was teetering on the edge. He was tempted to push him. He wouldn't have been in any danger, but I think of how scared he would have been, thinking he was going to fall.

   We walk through the canyon, through the layers of red rock until we come to a shimmering pool with a waterfall cascading into it. We can't swim here, we are told, it's a sacred Aboriginal site. 

   In the evening I mention my old NUS card that I keep for ID, how it confuses some bouncers in Australia because of the Welsh writing on it. Steve 2 asks to see what a Welsh NUS card looks like.

   'It's got a lovely photo on it,' says Steve.

   'It's not lovely,' I say.

   It was taken on the day I arrived back to start the third year. The end of my second year had been spent in a haze of nausea and apathy after what happened with the man who couldn't hear my 'no.' And then I was back in that town for the first time since. My eyes were dead and my mouth long and down-turned.

   'No, it's not lovely.' Steve pulls a face.

   He and Steve 2 laugh at it. 'You look like you want to kill someone,' says Steve 2.

   Maybe I did.

   We arrive at Uluru, this red rock standing out in the desert. I think I've found the heart of Australia but I still don't know where my heart is.

   There are other tour groups here. Steve sees the woman he knew on the bus from Cairns, the one who asked him if he met me on the bus. He goes to talk to her. 

   I wonder what she is to him that he is making a point of acknowledging her.

   'Chasing girls?' Steve 2 teases him when he comes back 

   The guides tell us that Uluru is sacred to local Aborigine people. We can climb it if we want, but they would prefer it if we don't. Sometimes people fall. I choose to respect the Aboriginal beliefs. Steve doesn't.

   We walk around the base, seeing the rock change to different shades of orange and red as the light changes. I see emus in the distance. They seem to eye me with bored faces. We pass a water hole. I thought this place would be dry and barren, nothing but endless red earth, but there is life, green plants.

   Afterwards we rest while Steve and some of the others climb. I stare at the rock, trying to make out him among the tiny figures. I wonder, if he fell and was seriously injured, would I look heartless if I went on and left him behind?

   They come down safely. The next day we begin the journey back to Alice Springs.

   We are back in the same room as before.

   'I just want to get inside you,' Steve says.

   Afterwards he says, 'Thanks for that, that was nice.'

   'Why do you always thank me?' I say. I am lying on the bed, he is standing looking down at me.

   'I don't know.' He seems embarrassed.

   In the evening we go to a pub with the rest of the group. Steve 2 is trying to chat up Anna. I feel a pang that no one will try to chat me up. I know who I'm leaving with. And that's no fun.

   'Can I ask you something?' says Steve.

   'Yes.' I'm puzzled.

   'No.' He shakes his head and looks at the floor. 'I can't. You'll be annoyed.'

   'You can't do that,' I say. 'You have to ask the question now.'

   'Well... We're going to be travelling together for a bit and... I really like you so... Will you be my girlfriend?' He says the last sentence in an almost mocking way. It's himself he's mocking I think.

   'Yes,' I say. 'Why would I be annoyed?'

   'I had to ask you,' he says, 'or we could be together in ten years time and you'd still be calling me Random Bloke Called Steve.'

   'Probably,' I say.

Chapter Fourteen