That Would Be Me - serialisation of a chick lit (if you must) novel of neo colonialism and identity

THAT WOULD BE ME

Chapter One 

in which our heroine is overtaken by an urge for a new life

i

A foot came down on the sand strewn with curlicues and knots of bleached sea bones. It was brown and had pink nails which looked like exquisite simple shells themselves against the nestling and stretched tan toes. Between the big toe and the next lay a plastic daisy - mauve at the centre with wheeling yellopetals.

She raised her eyes and looked at where she was. Far out waves cascaded in an emerald turn and rushed frothing over a turquoise lens into which they subsided. It sparkled. Near her they lapped transparent against sand which fizzled to a dazzling white. Ahead was a green headland sweating, inland was a fringe of shrubbery waving, just.

'I can't go on,' she said and sat down.

She pulled her frock under but the heat of the sand still came through so she got up again.

'Come on,' he said, 'it's only a couple of metres. Iced coffee.' He laughed his winning laugh and put an arm around her.

It was warm and smooth. She looked at it and admired its brownness and curves.

'O K,' she said. Her mind was made up.

'Danke,'  she said to the girl who brought her her iced coffee.

The girl had looked a little surprised and later came and spoke to her in German.

Which she ignored. 'We've been in Thailand. We flew into Cairns. It's incredible. I can never go back.'

'How will you stay?' the German girl asked.

She shrugged.

'We can go underground until we're ready to leave,' Lynton said, 'it's huge, they'll never catch us. How did you get this job? Have you got a work permit? Is the money all right?'

She listened with some interest to his voice and thought she must never sound like that again and to the German girl's clear strong tones.

'It's always bad. They know they can get backpackers to work for very little. It is probably beneath the regulation but ... ' She shrugged in a most interesting way. 'It was better in Cairns, the tourists are rich and give you big tips in the restaurants. Here it is all backpackers.'

They all looked around. Through the woven fronds of the cafe along the endless glaring white curve of the beach, out at the lagoon which had turned aquamarine as morning gave way to the approach of noon. The waves had given up turning over the reef.

The impulse tightened inside her so that it almost hurt. All right, she noted, I am not going back. It relaxed, somewhat.

She and Lynton sat, she in utter silence, listening to the sand being swished by the little breeze, the murmur of voices at the other tables, the shrilling harmony of the cicadas. There was a faint whistling from the palms.

'Let's go back. The guys'll be in from the reef. I can't wait to go. Scuba booba and all that, Reefies whipping by with their white tipped fins.' He sketched a reef shark sweeping by with his arm and hand. He did it very well. She noticed people at other tables admiring him.

She looked at him. Deep blue eyes beneath a tawny thatch, salt clinging to his golden brow. A revelation of beautiful shoulder beneath his carelessly worn shirt, picked with his infallible eye from endless coloured shirts in endless markets in one of the endless beach resorts of Thailand.

'This is the best holiday,' he said under her gaze.

She was examining his chin which was rounded then square, looked at his mouth as he spoke so he smiled his perfect white teeth.

'It's not a holiday,' she said and rose, gathering her bag which like her sandals, his shirt, was the non plus ultra, not too camp, not too kitsch, not too cute ... serious in its whimsy. She had noticed other girls glancing at it, then her with respect.

'You're right,' Lynton said as they made their way out, 'it's a lifestyle.'

Anger bolted up in her. She was unused to feeling so stopped abruptly and pressed a clenched fist to her diaphragm. Her teeth clenched so that she could say nothing and she immediately stepped on.

Walking back towards the bunked room she dreaded, she gazed around, gathering the landscape to her, proprietal, inhaled it.

'Hey!' he called to some people watching television in the rec room, 'Are the guys back yet?'

She continued on to the dorm. Put her bag down, slipped her sandals off neatly and arranged herself on the bottom bunk, carefully pulling the fabric of her beach frock straight beneath her, smoothing its front. She stared at the springs above.

No idea came to her.

After a while Lynton came in. He hesitated because he thought she might be ignoring him for some reason sand then bowed over to sit next to her. He rested a hand on her ribs. Then he said, 'The guys aren't back from the Reef yet, they must have be having a really good time. I can't wait. I've dreamt of it.'

She noted that she would never say 'really good time' like that ever again and said, 'Same,' and resolved against that too.

After a while he said, 'Are you all right?'

She would have sat up but the springs above her were too close so she turned her head and gave him the most penetrating look she had ever given anyone. 'I'm fine. Never been better. Wundabah.'

'You sound funny.'

'Do I?' she ventured and found it strong so heaved her body around, forcing him to stand up, and sat herself in his position, bent over on the bunk.

'Have you got your thing - the period?'

She stood up and he took a step back.

Neither of them was tall but he had always been pleasingly taller than she. She seemed to have grown. 'It must be the climate,' he thought, 'I wonder if I'll grow too. With all the Australian protein. I'll order steak instead of fish now.'

'It was a fortnight ago. Mensa - menstruate - menses - a month you fuckhead,' she hissed inside her head as she took a step forward and wriggled up to him.

'Here?'

She shrugged and went to her backpack.

In the small settlement she caught sight of herself in the window of the general store. She saw sawn-off jean shorts slung low and thick socks. She looked at her foot. It was wearing her hiking boot.

She shuddered. This was not who she was or wanted to be. And suddenly felt the weight on her feet, the heavy clinging to her ankles.

She went into the shop and browsed in its air conditioning.

'Yes?' the woman asked rudely. Then in response to the look she was given, 'Can I help you?'

'I would like some socks - cotton. Light. What colours do you have? Plain. I detest patterns.' The last was too much. She wouldn't share anything personal with a shop assistant, unless ... 'And do you have the bus timetable?'

'It's written up outside.' The woman turned her back.

She swept a plastic bottle off the shelf and it was in her blouse, held by the top of her shorts. 'Where are your socks?' She had never said it before like that.

The woman turned around. 'If you'll come over here.'

Now she allowed herself to feel pleased. Of course she wouldn't buy the socks.

They were rather nice - light but with substance. And there were some pretty pink ones. She wondered if they'd have them in Cairns. Probably.

'I'd like to think about them,' she said and stepped away.

Outside she was aware of the woman scrutinising her as read the timetable. There was one for Cairns at eleven thirty. That was the one they had caught in. Then one at four thirty. That would arrive about six thirty. Eleven thirty was the one. That would give her the whole afternoon to find some where to stay.

In the toilet of the cafe she examined the bottle. Just cheap moisturiser, no sun screen in it. She should have checked a little more carefully, she was getting careless. That was stupid. Wasted effort. To some degree. She could use it after the beach. She unscrewed the cap. It smelt cheap. She thwarted an impulse to fling it away, put it in her bag.

On the way back she thought she could offer it to some girl who didn't have any.

Lynt was asleep on her bunk. Or at least his eyes were closed so she moved very carefully, examining where her things were. She was always very neat, kept things together so they wouldn't be mislaid, left behind. She would put her boots in her pack later. She thought about just leaving them under the bunk.

She knelt over her pack. Everything seemed to - '

'How was town?'

She jumped.

Lynt laughed. 'You O K?'

She remained bent over her pack until she was ready then swung up and around to face him. She listened to her voice regress and as she heard it, forced the placating whine out of it. 'Oh it was really interesting, I saw - ran into that Aboriginal woman who showed us over that sacred site. We had a chat.'

'Did she remember us?' Lynt said. he got up. 'I booked another room for us.'

Her heart began to race. 'Did you?'

'Yes. I thought you felt ... needed privacy.'

'Where? This place is so convenient. We've just got to know - '

'Here.'

' - a few. Here?'

'Yes. They had a double. It's in that cottage out the back.'

'Won't that be a ... I thought we were saving for Byron Bay and Sydney. I haven't ... I'll have to get a job. I wonder if Ilse ...?'

'We're - I thought - we're only going to be here two more nights.'

They were in their room in the 'cottage' at the back of the property and he put his arm around her.

'Turn over,' she said.

He looked startled which he converted to amused.

'I want to look at you.'

He shrugged and obliged, predictably.

She gazed down his tapering brown back to the marble white of the buttocks, ran her hand in possession down his spine, pushed between his legs and stroked the back of his balls, jiggled them a little.

'Ow.'

She laughed. 'Turn over.'

She straddled him, gazing as she moved at his shallow expanse of hard chest like the two sand bars at low tide a channel disgorging the lagoon water back to sea, ran her hand down his sternum. He was perspiring. 'He's such a lady,' she thought and he reached up to hold her hips. 'I must try a draught horse next,' she thought, 'rough and hairy, running with sweat, coarse and bulky, huge, white and matted with black hair.'

'This is good,' he said, 'you're so pretty.' He reached up for her breasts but she placed his hands back down on her hips looking at his biceps bulging. And began to stroke herself.

'Ooh that's disgusting,' he said, entranced.

She felt the inside of her highs against his smooth flanks, warm and rode him, somewhat tentatively at first and saw the brown heel of a riding boot lying on moving brown hide, the heel flew out and came in hard on the ribs rippling under the smooth chestnut. She screamed and came.

This was her first time.

He said, trying to disentangle her hair, 'That was amazing. What came - what got into you?'

She looked at him out of idle curiosity and decided to speak, 'Oh I don't know. The sun? What's pawpaw got in it? All I know is I can never go back.'

. . .

'She's so gentle. I don't know what's happened to her. She's never ... she's very punctual and - reliable. She wasn't well. All I want ... Her parents ... She comes from the Midlands.'

The young constable alone in this outpost of law thought, 'I wonder how you get to fuck a guy like that.'

'Hrm. We have this all the time. Look mate, why don't you go home - back to the hostel ... backpackers, I'll come around and see if she's ... we get this all the time, she's probably gone with old Coral, whatever she calls herself now on one of them walks she does.'

'No. I don't think so, we've already done the walk with Arpinti, she wouldn't ... we were saving for Sydney.'

'Sydney, hey? You want to be careful down there, specially round Mardi Gras time. When were your heading off south?'

'We were going to Byron Bay first - in a week, we didn't really get to see Cairns, we came straight up here.'

'Name?'

'Lynton.' He watched the painful lettering, ' No that's my Christian - Trevalley.'

'That's a nice kind of fish round here. What was her name, Lynton?'

. . .

'You go,' she had said, 'I'll be all right. I've probably just had a bit too much sun. You said yourself that ... You go, I'll come with you tomorrow. You can find the best spots. Go on, the guys'll be waiting. I'm just going to stay here in the dark and sleep in a bit. It's so good you got us this room.'

The moment he had gone her heart started to pound.

She dashed to her backpack, then back to the bed and sat, forcing herself to breathe deeply. It could be like a movie, he could come back after breakfast, he might have forgotten something, he might want to brush his teeth, he was like that. And he would come in on  her scurrying around in a panic.

No way.

She had plenty of time - too much. But they could be back early and she could be caught.

She opened her book, Sydney on the Cheap. She had found it in a second hand book shop in Cairns before they had fled up to this far flung resort. It was a couple of years out of date but it would give them - her, an idea.

Half an hour. She looked up. Now she knew where she was going when she arrived in Sydney.

She rose and made her way to Ilse, the German girl's cafe, for breakfast. She carried the stolen bottle of moisturiser.

Ilse brought her fruit juice.

She ordered a big breakfast.

As she was leaving she held the moisturiser out to Ilse, 'Can you use this? It's brand new. Lynt bought it for me and I already had some - plenty.'

'Thank you,' Ilse said, examining it, 'it is quite expensive and I put it on after I swim. And at night. I haven't seen this one.'

'It's probably local.'

Back at the backpackers she checked that she had everything ready then went across to the office.

'Can I have my passport? I need to buy some things and I want to cash a traveller's cheque.'

The receptionist was another English girl. She had established herself in the place because it made her feel important. She stooped to the safe.

'Oh, and my wallet too. I need to check ... my traveller's ...'

'Is this yours or his?'

It was Lynton's. She almost hesitated. 'That's Lynton's, he'll be back. Soon. Probably.'

The girl surfaced with the security box and handed her the other wallet.

She took it and said, 'If I'm not back, would you just tell him that I've gone into town for - to just get a bit of cash.'

In their room she read about places to have good time in in Sydney. She was dismissing most of them as she read.

She went for a quiet walk around the establishment to settle her nerves and to check her escape route. They always designed these places so you had to pass the front desk to get in and out. The confusion of the plants out the back was discouraging but the cyclone fence had breaks in it and near their cottage part of it had fanned over under the weight of some tropical vine. She would get through the fence and take the path at the back. It was a short cut to a secluded part of the beach. If she were challenged she would just say good-bye, that Lynton was still there. She would continue on her way, sadly. She saw herself as her accoster would, walking down the dusty road, a sad, solitary figure.

The only problem was the boots.

They had cost her so much - apart from her tickets, the biggest expenditure of the trip. And now she couldn't stand them. They were so unfeminine, they were like something a model in a girlie calendar would be dressed in, grease artfully smeared over a torn t-shirt. But she might need them. And she had worn them in. What if she got the chance to go trekking in Tasmania, or more likely, Mt Kosciusko?

She put them on and they were familiar and she hated them so took them off and placed them neatly back under the bed.

What would she wear on the plane to New Zealand? Her feet would freeze in her sandals and they were against the law. A girl had told her she hadn't been allowed on the plane in Bangkok wearing sandals and had had to rush back out and buy some running shoes in a duty free shop. She had showed them to her, they were quite nice.

She had bought the boots in Liverpool.

. . .

Settling into the coach as it sped towards Cairns had been the happiest moments of her life.

Now she gazed as the outskirts of Cairns thickened into a suburb. She imagined all Australian suburbs were like this - strange flimsy looking bungalows crouching amongst grasses rampant  despite the mowed swathes and hung over with straggly pawpaw trees, palms and huge ornamentals with pendulous bracts in  screeching colours. She felt a melancholy billow in her; she did not want to live in one of those, isolated in shimmering heat, beaten down with heavy air, always fighting the grass and looking out for snakes and neighbours with rifles and cowboy vehicles.

Then she saw the terrace and her figure after an interminable getting dressed, stepping forth. And it was all futile, she was devastated by the freezing pounding of the winds which buffetted you worse than surf. It was all grey and brown and there was always the smell of gases. The footpath rang steely with cold and the bus shelter offered no shelter and when she got wherever she was going it was no where. Mr Craddock's pigeons wheeled over, black and desperate.

There was a service station and cluster of shops, white and glossy with plastic advertisements for soft drinks and bread and ice creams. Some smart cars were pulled up. There was no-one about and then a woman emerged and made her way towards one of the cars, trailed by two children tearing wrappers off cones. She watched as the woman turned and told them to hurry. They were dashing from air conditioned shop to air conditioned car. Their home would be air conditioned. Even though they lived ten minutes from the sea they would have a pool. All the turquoise pools. And the big dogs. And the carelessness.

. . .

She knew she would have to get out of the backpackers hostel she had found. She felt she was almost seeing Lynton approaching along a corridor. Someone asked her where she had come from.

She fled the hostel restaurant because she thought she saw someone they had met in Thailand.

She found herself in a bar area of an expensive hotel, a waiter hovering over her. He too looked like one of the Svens they had trekked along jungle paths with or watched little elephants being goaded into knocking soccer balls about.

'I'll just have coffee,' she said. 'White. Weak.'

He said something about the cafe but it closes at six.

She moved to another bar. She pretended she was looking for someone and continued the charade while a Czech girl brought her a coke.

By the time she had finished it she was feeling much more comfortable and beginning to enjoy herself; she was most pleased observing what was going on about her. The Czech girl placed a small blue cocktail in front of her.

'I didn't order this.'

'It is a gift.' She nodded towards another part of the bar.

A man was smiling at her and nodding.

'Take it away. I can't accept this.' She turned to the man and smiled but shook her head, swept her open palms up in a not quite helpless gesture.

The Czech girl watched her, glanced across at him and left the cocktail where it was.

He was at her table. 'No harm meant. It's on me. No strings attached. I just thought you might like ... It's called a Blue Lagoon.'

'Thank you. Won't you sit down then?' She decided she wouldn't use the 'then' again.

He did. And with a nod of his head indicated to the watching Czech girl to get his drink. It was very suavely done.

How interesting. She liked the economy, she felt here was much that could be learned.

As she drank and they chatted her mind roamed over him. She wondered if he was hairy. He was built somewhat brutishly, she decided. And that he was a truck driver. She had to get out of here.

He was hairy and very dainty in his love making. She surrendered almost to his delicate wiles. She had experienced nothing remotely as expert as this before, not with Hussein then Lynton.

He took her to breakfast and asked if she would like to have dinner. No? Perhaps that was a bit too much. If she wanted to have lunch tomorrow ... just leave a note at the reception desk, he was here for a couple more days.

She flinched at the other backpackers. She was acquainted with so many. She expected Lynton to turn up any minute.

She fled into the streets of Cairns.

Her truck driver had pushed two hundred dollars into her hand. She would buy shoes. Then she thought she would get a plane ticket. She had to get away. To Sydney. She could lose herself, get away from these familiars everywhere here once she was there. It would take time but she knew it was a big city. Millions. No-one would find her there.

The plane tickets were much more expensive than she had calculated. She told the travel agent she wanted to think about when would be the best time to leave.

She drifted along the most unlikely street in Cairns. And found herself in a small department store.

She was looking at lingerie. 'Something cool, light, cotton, pure ... white. I can't sleep in this heat,' she said to the girl and idly examined some expensive sets beneath the glass of the counter while the girl went to a rack. She turned apparently looking for the assistant and her expert gaze swept for the security cameras, anyone who looked like a store detective. When the girl came back with something her grandmother would have worn and apologised she smoothed it out on the counter and saw, as if surprised, the sets. 'Oh they're nice. Can I see the apricot ones?'

'We call it biscuit,' the girl said.

And she noticed the unconvinced way she rolled her lips forward in what was apparently an attempt to register prudishness. She had noted a teacher warning them against getting into the back seat with boys do it but much better of course.

'The Japanese love this colour. We keep it for them.'

'Oh well you'd better show me the rose petal ones and those with the lace.'

She examined them idly and returned her attention to the nightie. 'Yes, like this but I wanted a broderie anglaise trim. Very traditional.'

The girl started back towards the rack and turned abruptly just as she was about to sweep the rose petalled knickers under her blouse. 'I don't know if we've got that, what does it look like?'

She went with her to the rack and began to explain.

'Oh I know! We've got some like that but they're boxed.'

'Yes, they probably would be.'

'They're English.'

She smiled. 'Could I see a couple. I'll choose one of those.'

Back at the counter she didn't check for observation again, she simply took the rose petal knickers.

Her heart was pounding. The effort not to betray her excitement was thrilling. He will love them, she thought.

An older woman appeared and began to fold the sets strewn on the counter.

She should have left.

Her almost panic resolved itself into a clarity. 'Your assistant is getting me some cotton nighties trimmed with broderie anglaise to look at,' she said. 'Will you give me some idea of the price?'

'Broderie anglaise trim? We haven't any ... Oh, Rachel probably thought ... I know what she's gone to get, it's very nice. A lovely crocheted trim around the hem and inset.' The woman's hand went to her chest.

'Oh. The friend I'm buying this for loves broderie anglaise, I .... '

'You might get it in one of the big hotels. They all have shops. Where are you staying?'

'We took an apartment. We're here for the diving. My husband's very keen. Oh, he's parked .... Thank you. I'll have to come back later.'

She just avoided Rachel heading towards the counter with a couple of white garments floating over her outstretched arm.

She descended into panic; she should have checked the best way out. She made herself pause to examine some lipsticks. A salesgirl asked her if she's like to have a makeover, she was starting a demonstration in ten minutes. They'd be doing the announcements soon.

The audacity tempted her but she thanked the girl and excused herself.

'Anyway, you should change to this ...' she picked up a pale pink lip gloss, 'it'd really suit you with your dark skin.'

The tan had to go.

She was clear of the department store and her breath was almost heaving now. She went into an arcade and as she walked transferred the rose petal knickers into her bag. The glimpse she had as they passed through the light satisfied her deeply. They were lovely, perfect.

She had a watermelon and ginger drink at a stand and headed back towards the hostel. On the way she stole some tissue paper in the newsagent's where she had stopped to pick up an Australian magazine. 'Oh and this,' she'd said, picking up a roll of cello tape as the youth concentrated on the cash register. Her guilt deliciously drained as he cancelled and rerung the total and handed her the change. No thank you, she didn't need a bag, She threw the magazine and tape into her small bag, on top of the knickers and tissue paper.

She lay on her bunk and flicked through the magazine, satisfied.

Then she went to the ironing room and wrapped the knickers in the tissue paper.

Thank you for the lovely time. I hope we meet again.

Have to leave earlier than expected.

Elsie (P S my real name is Rachel in case we do).

She left the parcel at reception for him.

She knew the gift would thrill him enormously.

And it did.

On the way back she got a standby ticket to Sydney.

She couldn't stay here.

She was on the plane she had wanted, there had been no wait.

The old lady sitting next to her went on and on about her son's business and how she had helped her daughter-in-law. Curtains.

She was politely attentive though desperate to think.

Where would she stay? They'd be landing at ten-thirty. She'd head for Kings Cross. She was seven hundred dollars behind. But then there was the two hundred Gareth had given her. She would have to get shoes with that. Good shoes. She might have to pay more - a lot more. Where would she get the money? Well now she knew one way. She wouldn't feel obliged to repay next time.

'He's thinking of importing his own fabrics, from India,' her travelling companion said.

She smiled and nodded and wondered how much she had in her bag and if she would ask her to mind it when she went to the toilet. 'Indian fabrics are wonderful,' she said, 'and very good value. Benares is a good place to go. They have little shops everywhere selling fabrics.'

Kay got a notebook out of her purse for her to write it down.

'I can sew,' she said, 'do they ever need anyone?'

Kay wrote out their name and number and tore the page out of her notebook to give her.

Parting in the airport, Kay irritated her daughter by delaying everyone by taking her notebook out again and writing her name and number to give to the lovely girl she had flown with. Then she made her daughter drive her to a backpackers in Kings Cross.

She waited until the daughter had squealed off, Kay waving, and crossed the road and went down the street to another hostel.

She instantly loathed the atmosphere.