Chapter Thirty Two

 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.

   I wish I could put this baby on ice, just for a year or two, until the time, the circumstances and I are all better.

   Steve and I email. We love each other. We miss each other. He's still looking for work in Perth. I'm having a great time.

   I look for cheap flights to Tasmania. There are none. I book a ferry.

   One morning there are bright spots of blood in my underwear.

   Oh thank you God I mouth at the ceiling. Thank you thank you thank you.

   But there's a sharp tang of disappointment.


I'm waiting for the ferry. There has been no more blood since that morning.

   If it was a miscarriage surely there would be more. If it was a late period then there would have been days of blood.

   My stomach is not shrinking.

   A man with a little boy sits next to me.

   He's going home to rural Tasmania. He hated Melbourne, hated the the sounds, the fastness, the busyness of the city. He says drug addicts tried to attack him and his son in a subway under the road. He is glad to be going back to where it's safe.

   I nod. I look suitably shocked. I don't know what to say.

   I hope I will find some kind of safety in Tasmania. Safety from myself, from my feelings, from my body.

   The ferry ride lasts ten hours. I spend most of it on the deck, against the rail, throwing up over the side.


Chapter Thirty Three


   

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