Australia

Everybody Has an Agenda – 26 December 2000 – 8.15PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

I pull myself up onto the high seats in the front of the van. Me and Mickey are heading back to Narrabeen to score more smack. Through the windscreen, I see Lorna walking in the road towards us. She’s making a habit of hanging around my hotel. It was only this morning I saw her here last, but I don’t think she saw me then.

I consider ducking as I did this morning, but it’s too late, I’m sure she’s seen me. I don’t want her to interfere with me and Mickey being together. She told me to stay away from him. But who the hell does she think she is? She isn’t my only connection in Sydney anymore. She was good to me for the first few days but I’m angry and hurt that she told Mickey I was a hooker. He didn’t believe her, but that’s not the point. She had no right to tell him about my business. And I’m still pissed off with her for using the heroin I paid for at the party the other night.

Mickey starts the engine. There’s a knock on my window. Lorna looks terrible. Her long, blonde hair is wild like she slept in a hedge. Her black dress is ripped at the shoulder. I wind down my window. I realise it’s not her black dress. It’s my Moschino dress. The one I leant her to wear to the party in Dee Why. That’s one of my favourite dresses.

“What’s happened? Are you okay?” I ask. Though I’m keener to scold her for ruining my dress, she looks such a state, I’ll have to leave it for another time.

“Never mind me. What are you doing with him?”

“That’s none of your business. You’re not her keeper,” Mickey says.

“Shut up, chicken legs.” Lorna shakes her finger at Mickey. “I need to borrow money,” she tells me.

I don’t want to lend her any money. She’s ruined my dress. And she’s not wearing the Russian wedding ring I gave her the other night. I expect she’s sold it for heroin already. Reluctantly, I take fifty dollars from my purse and pass it to her out the window.

“That’s not enough,” she snaps, tucking the note under her grubby bra strap.

“That’s what she’s giving you. You’re lucky to get that.” Mickey turns the wheel, pulling away from the curb.

“Fuck you!” Lorna screams after us as we drive off.

“Chicken legs.” I giggle. “Why does she call you that?”

“Stupid thing from school.” He looks at me briefly then returns his attention to the road. “It’s not funny. She’s always got an angle. I told you.”

I light a cigarette. “It’s not like I can’t spare fifty dollars.”

“Your inheritance will run out if you give it away like that.”

My inheritance – I’m glad that’s come up in conversation. That means I must have told him the dead, rich aunt story when I was drunk and not that I was a hooker. He said he didn’t believe Lorna when she told him, and it seems he still doesn’t. It’s not going to stop me worrying though. Stix knows what I do for a living. He could tell Mickey at any time. There’s a part of me wants to come clean with it tonight, get it over with and out in the open. But there’s another part fighting to hold back.

Spun Out – 25 December 2000 – 4.55PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

Sitting at this dining table with four men, knowing there’s a chance that one of them fucked me last night, is filling me with rage. If the hit I just injected was stronger, I might not feel as bad. The rage is cooking with the dirty feeling inside my body, under my skin, on my skin, in my blood. I’m a forgotten kettle on a stove that’s been left to boil over. I want to scream. I want to ask if it was one of them. But what’s the point? If the man responsible is here, he’s not going to admit it. Then there are the others who stayed here last night and who’ve since left. I want to know the truth. But it doesn’t seem likely I will.

“How long are you here for, Nicole?” Stix’s mum asks. She’s the only other female at the table. Her pink dress looks like a negligee.

“She doesn’t know. She’s got an open ticket,” says crusty-lip man. I don’t even know his name. How does he know that about me? He lowers his face towards his plate and tucks his long, greasy hair behind his ears.

“And you’re from London?” Stix’s mum says.

“Yes,” I say, chopping a slice of turkey.

The sun is streaming through the window opposite me. I squint, staring down at my plate. I cut tiny chunks of turkey and build a pile behind the roast potatoes. I’m trying to make what I’m going to leave look less than what it is. As a heroin addict, I don’t eat often. Eating straight after a hit is unheard of for me.

I eat three to four peas at a time. Peas aren’t too bad. They’re the petite pois type. They’re overcooked. I’m squashing them on the roof of my mouth with my tongue. That makes them turn to mush. They go down quite easily like that. The pork and the stodgy potatoes are more likely to come back up.

Mickey looks at me across the table. He’s sitting diagonal to me. “Do you need dropping back somewhere?”

I swallow the pea-mush in my mouth. “I’m still at the Radisson.” Back to your house, I’d say if I had the confidence. I remember the other day when I saw him outside my hotel. I’d hoped after that night we’d hook up. But he never showed at the beach the next day.

“I’ll take her,” says the other man I don’t know. He has a thin face, a pointy nose and his eyes are too close together. Never trust a man whose eyes are too close together. Or is that whose eyes are too far apart? I don’t know. I know I don’t want him to take me though. I don’t want to get in a car with a man who might have fucked me while I was out of it. Adrenalin is pumping through my body. He might try it again.

“I’m going that way, mate. She can hop in with me,” Mickey says. Then he looks at me. “If that’s all right with you?”

“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.” More than you know, Mickey, because you’re the only man I’m nearly sure didn’t fuck me last night.

Christmas dinner goes slowly. It’s obvious I’ve hardly touched my food. Stix has left much of his meal too. I don’t feel so bad. I’m not the only one.

When we’re finished eating, me and the blokes return to the lounge. I want to leave, but I need to make sure I get Stix’s phone number before I do. Somehow, I need to get him on his own. If Lorna won’t score for me anymore, Stix is the only connection I have in Sydney. I don’t want to ask for his number in front of the others, especially Mickey as he’s recently off the smack.

Cramped between Stix and crusty-lips on the red leather sofa, I smoke a joint. They’ve been rolling them, and passing them round, for a while now. They’re drinking beer too. So am I. I need to change how I feel and the heroin hit I had earlier wasn’t strong enough. I feel quite stoned. I’m struggling to sit upright. The alcohol’s made the room spin. I need to be careful. I don’t want a repeat of last night.

Waking in a Stranger’s Bed – 25 December 2000 – 2.30PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

I open my eyes. I’m in a blue bedroom, ocean colour blue. Pink Floyd posters line the wall opposite me. I’m lying in a double bed. I lift up the duvet, peering underneath. I’m completely naked – no knickers, nothing.

Whose bedroom is this? Did I sleep here alone? I slide my fingers between my legs. I rub myself. Bringing my hand up under my nose, I sniff my fingers. I smell of sex. I feel sick in my stomach. I feel sick in my throat. I’m going to throw up.

Rolling out the bed, I look on the carpet for my clothes. They’re not there. I run out the bedroom, naked. This landing is not the landing I saw last night at the party. The bathroom door is open. I throw myself on the white floor tiles. On my knees, head over the toilet, I vomit.

I wipe my eyes with toilet paper. I blow my nose. I rinse my mouth with water from the sink. I run the shower. I need to feel clean. I’ve had sex and I don’t know who’s fucked me. Did they use a condom? I might have caught a disease. I’m sure they’ll find something when I get checked at the clinic, if not from using Lorna’s syringe the other night then from this.

I doubt I’ve been paid, but maybe I was. While I’m waiting for the shower to run hot, I return to the bedroom. My hobo bag is on a wooden chair. I check my purse. There’s four hundred and twenty dollars inside. I’m sure that’s what I had in there yesterday. I haven’t been paid. I’ve had sex with a man for free. Perhaps it wasn’t a man. It could’ve been a woman. That won’t be so bad but it isn’t as likely. Most women wouldn’t have sex with someone as drunk as I was last night.

Back on the landing, I can hear voices coming from downstairs. I’m going to have to go down at some point. I can’t stay up here forever. I tiptoe into the bathroom. I step into the bath and get under the shower. I turn up the heat. The water has to be as hot as I can take it. It’s the only way.

There’s a sponge on the side of the bath. It doesn’t look clean. How can I scrub myself? Tears are making their way into my eyes. I need to scrub my body. I have to scrub it. Ten or so times, I wash the sponge with shower gel under the scorching water. It’s not as clean as I want it to be but it’ll have to do.

I wash my hair three times then finish with conditioner. While the conditioner’s working, I scrub my body thoroughly and rinse. I rinse my hair. Then I scrub my body again. I rinse. I do it again, and rinse. I do it again, and again, and again, until my skin feels raw and I can’t bear the heat and the rawness any longer. I don’t even know who I’ve been washing off me. I don’t feel clean. I need to know who it was and what happened. That should help. Knowing should help. I hope it does.

I sniff the towels that are lying over the bathroom radiator. The black one doesn’t smell of anyone. It smells of fabric conditioner. Wrapped in the towel, I sneak out of the bathroom onto the landing and back inside the blue bedroom. With the door shut, I look around for my clothes. There’s a pile of clothes in the corner by the window. I rummage around and find my underwear and my black skirt and purple top in amongst them.

Before stepping into my knickers, I sniff them. I don’t want to wear them if they smell of sex. Thankfully, they smell clean. Fully dressed, I rub my hair with the towel. I slip on my six-inch heels then return to the bathroom. I replace the towel over the radiator.

Standing in front of the mirror, I open my handbag. I have mascara with me because last night Lorna wouldn’t wait for me to finish my make up before we left my hotel. I apply my mascara then dig in my bag for a lip gloss. I sweep the pale pink shimmer across my lips. I don’t look too bad, though concealer to cover the trademark smackhead spots on my face would have been ideal if I had it in my possession.

With my hobo bag over my shoulder, I wait on the landing. I hear the voices again. There’s at least one woman and two men. I can’t make out exactly what they’re saying. It’s too distant. Do they even know I’m up here? The person who had sex with me might not even be here now.

I will not be ashamed. These things happen. Holding my head high, I walk down the stairs.