Chapter Nineteen

1.3.26

April 2003

The bus is going down the west coast.

Steve tests me on currency codes.

'JPY,' he says.

'Japanese yen.'

'MXD.'

'Mexican dollar'

'I forgot,' he says. 'you worked in a bank.' He looks out of the window. It seems the game bores him if I know all the answers.

We arrive in Port Hedland, another tiny town.

My period starts. I am torn between feeling relieved I'm not pregnant and disappointed that my body is proving me right in its unlikelihood of getting pregnant.

I don't want a baby with Steve I remind myself. I don't want to be pregnant now.

The only other people staying in the hostel are a mother and daughter from Berkshire. The daughter is about my age, the mother maybe in her fifties.

'Do you smoke?' the daughter says to Steve when we are all sitting outside in the evening.

'Yes, I smoke,' he says.

She shows him a little bag of cannabis.

'No, I don't smoke that,' says Steve.

The mother and daughter roll joints. They don't ask me if I smoke.

Steve and I go inside.

In the morning the hostel owner drives us to the shop to buy food. He invites us to go out with him and his friends in the evening.

'There'll be dancing girls there,' he says, 'so probably not Amy's thing.'

There is a pause. I want Steve to say it's not his thing either.

'But it would be a cultural experience,' says the hostel owner.

I want to say that the objectification of women isn't culture but I think they would both laugh at me.

I am ill, coughing and aching. I hate that I am weak in front of Steve.

He tells me that life has its ups and downs. His philosophy is that you need the bad to appreciate the good.

'My philosophy is if the shit bits weren't so shit the good bits wouldn't be so good,' I say. It's something I read in a review of Mogwai in the Melody Maker a few years ago. It seemed like a good way of looking at life, not just Mogwai.

The hostel owner takes us for a walk along the beach. He shows us a hole in the sand where deep down a blue-ringed octopus lurks. It is tiny and beautiful, and deadly poisonous.

The hostel owner picks up a stick and pokes the octopus. It shrinks back, its tentacles waving.

I feel sorry for it.

The hostel owner hands the stick to Steve and he pokes the octopus. I wish he hadn't. I wish the octopus could be left alone without men prodding at it, frightening it, hurting it.

'You do it too,' the hostel owner says to me. Steve tries to hand me the stick.

I shake my head.

'Go on,' says the hostel owner.

'No,' I say. I back away from the hole.

They both stare at me. I feel like I've disappointed them.

But I would have disappointed myself if I'd poked the octopus and that would be worse.

In the evening we wait for the staircase to the moon to appear. The sun is sinking somewhere behind us, the air turning dusky. The moon rises huge and orange, seeming to come out of the sea.

I never knew the moon rose. It's always just been there in the sky before.

As it climbs higher it reflects on the tidal flats, long bars of light that look like steps leading to the moon.

Steve holds my hand. I long to let go and run up those steps, run into the light, into another world. But my hand is trapped in his and I can't move.

On our last night in Port Hedland the hostel owner gives us a bottle of wine. He thanks us for staying several nights.

Steve tells me I should travel with him in south east Asia. His plan is Australia, New Zealand then Asia.

I will be going home before he's finished with Australia, but I could come and meet him there, after I've earned and saved enough money for more travelling.

Plans. I've never really had plans before.

Never had a future before.