Chapter Thirty Four

 June 2003

I'm cold and wet. I miss the sunshine. I miss who I was in the sunshine.

   No one speaks to me in the hostel. I wander around Melbourne alone looking for things to do.

   I wonder if I will see Nick who I met in Byron Bay. He said he was from Melbourne. Would he recognise me now? It was less than six months ago but so much has changed. I've been changed by Steve, changed by the weather that seeps gloomily into my bones. He said I was beautiful then. Would he still think that if he saw me now?

   I go to the Theatres Building and look for the Museum of Performing Arts. I can't find it. 

   There has been no more blood. My stomach isn't shrinking. 

   Maybe that wasn't a miscarriage after all.

   But then why was there blood?

   It must have been a miscarriage. I can't be pregnant. I absolutely cannot be.

   Steve and I email. He's found work as a labourer in Perth. I'm eating free pancakes in the hostel in Melbourne. We miss each other's cuddles. We wish we were together.


I go to Canberra. It's not like other capital cities. It's quiet. It feels suburban. I share a dorm on the hostel with a middle aged woman. She's cheerful. She wears stripey socks with individual toes. She says her daughter thinks she has too many clothes. She's waiting to be housed after fleeing her violent husband. 

   I am angry at men, how they can destroy women's lives while they carry on living however they like.

   How hard it must be, I think, to be starting over in your forties like her. I don't think I could be as cheerful as she is. I'm lucky I'm with Steve who would never hurt-

   I feel his teeth in my neck. His fingers pressing into my arm. Him pushing into where I don't want him to go 

   But that was different.

   He didn't mean to hurt me.

   He got carried away.

   He didn't mean it. He didn't mean it.


   Canberra feels as listless as me. I go to the museums, to Parliament House but nothing interests me. I go to the botanic gardens and look at ferns and eucalyptus. I feel a sort of homesickness for Sydney and the botanic gardens there.

   I email Steve and tell him how cultured I'm feeling. 

   


Chapter Thirty Five

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