Wicked Game

  June 2003 It's cold, so cold in Melbourne. I don't know what to do with myself in a city.    People in the hostel seem wary of me, their eyes slide over my stomach and then they don't look at me again.    In the cubicles in the hostel bathroom I talk to a God I don't believe in every morning, looking up to the ceiling, mouthing the words silently.     Take this one and I promise I'll be good for the rest of my life.    I'll keep the next one.    You know I can't look after a baby. I can't even keep a cactus alive. Give me time to be a better person before I become a mother.     But I'm afraid this could be my only chance of having a baby. I don't want to lose it.    But if I keep it I can't go to Asia and Steve will probably leave me. The whole future I had will disappear. If I'd got pregnant before, with Ian in 1770, with Nick in Byron Bay, with anyone else, I wouldn't have cared because I had no future then. ...

  June 2003 I travel in the Oz Experience bus along the Great Ocean Road.    Time is still out of joint. What did Steve do to my mind? There is an invisible wall between me and the others on the bus.    Steve built that wall. Without me noticing he piled up the bricks that separate me from the rest of the world. I don't think I'm strong enough to knock it down.    We see the Twelve Apostles, stacks of limestone that stand in the sea. There are only nine of them. I wonder if three of them walked away into the sea. Maybe if I wait long enough the others will go too and I can follow them.    Koalas yawn at me in trees. Sometimes the bus has to stop to let kangaroos cross the road.    On a beach in the evening we stand facing the sea. Fairy penguins emerge one by one, waddling past us as they run to their burrows for the night. In the dusky light I can make out the bluish tinge to their feathers. Near me a tall man stands with his legs ...

  June 2003 I'm in Adelaide.     Steve emails and says he nearly cried after I left. I don't believe him. I tell him I'm cold and I need his cuddles to keep me warm.    I think my stomach is growing larger. I got away from Steve just in time, just before it became impossible to hide.    I didn't really get away from Steve. I still feel his teeth in my neck, feel him violating my body.    It was a violation what he did in Perth. It was r-    No. No. No.    This is the father of my child. He didn't. I must have let him. I must have let him. I must have let him.    He's not the father of my child. There is no child.    There are scales in the hostel. I weigh myself. I haven't weighed myself for months, not since I left home in September. I was about seven stone then. Now, fully clothed in jeans and two jumpers and shoes I am over ten stone.     Have I put on weight?     W...

  May 2003 Our days together are running out.     'But we'll soon be together again, in Asia,' Steve says.    I nod. It seems so far into the future. I wrap my arms around my stomach.     Will I even be able to go to Asia?     I picture myself backpacking with a baby. That's not possible. Not possible because I'm not pregnant. I'm not I'm not I'm not.    'We've spent so much time together I feel like I've known you for three years,' Steve says.    'You sound quite bitter about that,' I say.    He puts on a mock annoyed voice. 'Three bloody years I've known you...'    Steve says he's seen a job in a pie factory advertised.    'There's no way anyone would let you work in a pie factory,' I say, 'they'd take one look at you and...'    'What's with the fat jokes?' he says.    'Who said it was a joke?' I say. I raise my eyebrows.    Later in the pub with ...

  May 2003 I'm going away for a few days, on a tour of the rural areas south of Perth. Steve isn't coming. He's already been. He needs to look for a job.     I wish he was coming, that instead of joining a tour it could be just the two of us travelling together. Like it was before.    In the morning before I leave he's still asleep. I bend down to kiss him goodbye. Maybe my wet hair drips on him. He jerks violently away before I get close. I feel like a ghost on the tour, like some kind of invisible presence causing a slight sense of unease in everyone.    Two of the men get very drunk on the first night and stay drunk for the rest of the trip. We climb precarious feeling ladders. One of the women comments to another that it's irresponsible of the tour guide to let the drunk men do that.    At lunchtimes there are apples, the tour guide tells us we can eat as many as we want. I eat three and I still want more.     We walk ...