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The Good Night (Part 3 of 3) – 21 December 2000 – 11.20AM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

Lying in the queen-sized bed with Lorna, I feel like a child. Although at twenty-five, I’m an adult, right now, I’m not. I am a child and she’s touching me. It hurts. Is it my heart or my soul where I feel it? I can’t tell. I’m repulsed. Repulsed by what she’s doing. And repulsed that I’m not stopping her. I want to. But I can’t speak. I’m scared. I’m scarred too. She can’t see the marks though. They’re on the inside. This is what my past has created for my present.

Earlier, when I returned from the bathroom, I told her I wasn’t in the mood for sex. After falling asleep following another shot of heroin, she’s woken me – for sex. When will she stop? How can I stop her?

I open my mouth. I thought I did but it’s not open. I make a sound in my throat. I can hear it. Lorna moans. She must think I’m moaning too, in pleasure. My jaw is rigid. I try to raise my arm. It won’t move. I’m stuck here. I feel a tear roll across the side of my face and into my hair.

“Mummy, help me,” I hear the child inside my head speak. I know I didn’t say those words. My mouth can’t make a sound. He said to be quiet. I have to keep quiet. If I don’t, he’ll do the same to my younger sisters and brother. I have to protect them. It’s my responsibility. I’m the eldest. Mummy won’t believe me. He told me that. He knows. He’s a grown-up. This is what all babysitters do. It’s true. Most of them do this to me. It’s my fault I don’t like it. I’m not normal. They’re helping make me normal.

“Enough!” I hear myself shout. Finally, I’ve found my voice.

“What’s wrong?” Lorna stops. Her face between my legs, she looks up at me.

“I want you to have this.” I wiggle the Russian wedding ring off my middle finger. I take her ring finger and force it on.

“What’s that for?”

“I just want to say thank you for last night. That’s all.”

The light’s coming through the full-length, navy curtains. It’s last night now. I can call it that, can’t I? It can be over.

“Thank you, Nicole.” Lorna shuffles her body down the bed again.

I squeeze my thighs together, closing the gap. “I need to get ready.” I leap from the bed and sprint into the bathroom.

After I’ve showered and washed my hair, I feel like I’ve removed every trace of Lorna from my body. Not just the outside, the inside feels clean again too. Though I can still feel her mouth on my vagina, I know the sensation will disappear in a few days. I won’t think about last night like that again. It was a good night. That’s all I’ll remember. The details will fade into nothing. I won’t remember how she touched me – I won’t be re-feeling that feeling. It’ll be like it never happened. I have a skill. These things I can blank out. If I don’t like someone touching me then I don’t remember. I can do that. That’s another present created by my past.

Lorna’s chatting to me as I apply my make-up in the bathroom mirror. I’m not listening. I’m concentrating on concealing the blemishes that are covering my face. Someone meeting me now would never believe that people used to tell me I could be a model. I wonder if my looks will come back if I can stop using smack. It’s immaterial. Tonight has proven I can’t.

Dressed in my bikini and jean shorts, I pick up my Gucci bag from the chair by the bureau. I throw it over my shoulder then slip on my stilettos. I always wear high heels. Shelley used to slate me for never wearing flats. Even for a walk in the park, I’d be stilettos. She never knew, but the truth is I feel safer when I’m taller.

From my suite on the second floor, me and Lorna walk downstairs to the hotel lobby. We stop on the street. I say goodbye.

“I’ll see you back here at five,” Lorna says, walking away.

I don’t remember agreeing to that.

The Good Night (Part 1 of 3) – 21 December 2000 – 12.55AM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

After the midnight walk-bus-walk-ferry-walk journey from Kings Cross to the Radisson Hotel in Manly, I’m shattered. Lorna’s lying on her stomach, stretched out over the queen-sized bed in my deluxe suite. From her white handbag, she gets out a bag of syringes. “Have you got a spoon?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, rummaging for the dessert spoon in the bottom of my hobo bag. I picked that up from Shelley – carrying a spoon on me at all times.

“Water,” she says.

In the bathroom, I fill a glass with water. Back in the suite, I put the glass on the bedside table next to her.

“How long are you here for?” she asks.

“I haven’t decided yet.” I perch on the side of the bed. I take one of Lorna’s works and remove the orange cap. I dip the needle into the water and pull back on the plunger to fill it.

“I’ll hang out with you while you’re in town.” Lorna sprinkles the white powder into the spoon I’m holding. I’d heard the heroin in Australia was white. It’s meant to be a lot more potent than the brown I’m used to in London.

“It’ll be fun. I’ll show you the sights. Do you surf? I can take you surfing in Curly.”

I’m trembling as I release the water into the spoon. “No…I don’t.”

Do I even want to hang out with her? Sure, we can party tonight. I want the company. But I don’t want to get back into the life of smack. I don’t know how I’m going to manage without it, but the whole point in coming to Sydney was to get away from it. If only I hadn’t drunk earlier, I might have had more resolve not to use heroin. This is a one-off, I repeat in my head. I’m trying to convince myself.

Using the orange cap end of a syringe, Lorna stirs the mixture in the spoon. She takes off the cap and draws up the liquid into the barrel. She passes the syringe to me. While she’s filling her own works, I look for a good vein on my arm. They’re not too bad at the moment. The abscesses don’t look good, but there are still plenty of veins.

It’s amazing how quickly heroin can take you down. I’ve only been on it the last year. I remember Shelley telling me how it was worse for her because she was making so much money. The more you can afford, the more you use. Well, that’s how it was for her, and definitely how it is for me. I also think that what we’re running from, what we’re trying to erase from our mind, plays a part in that too.

Hook Up – 20 December 2000 – 9.10PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

It’s dark outside now. I’m in Kings Cross, walking through a flow of trendy people. It reminds me of Soho in London – the bright lights, the sex shops, the junkies and the hookers. This is where I feel at home. I didn’t want to go back to the hotel. In the bar there, those kind of people aren’t my kind of people. They’re the type I would charge to be in my company.

Waiting at the bus stop, a woman comes over to me. She has the same lank, blonde hair as mine, though hers is shorter, an inch below the shoulder. She has the same clusters of red spots on her chin, cheeks and forehead. She’s a skinny thing too, like me. She’s my kind of people. I can tell.

Leaning towards her, I whisper in her ear, “Can you score any smack?”

“How much do you want?” she says.

“Two-hundred dollars worth,” I say, because I don’t know how it’s measured here. This is the first time I’ve bought heroin since I’ve been in Australia. It’s been five days since I arrived but eight since I’ve had a hit. I did my cluck on the aeroplane, the two-night stopover in China, and the first couple of days here in Sydney. Being in agony from the cold turkey, I missed out on Beijing and the Great Wall. I didn’t leave my hotel room once.

She looks me up and down. She’s checking me out. I delve into the front pocket of my Dolce and Gabbana jeans and show her my cash – the proof I’m a smackhead with money, and not planning on skanking her. She takes my hand, leading me away from the bus stop. My heart beats faster. It’s banging in my chest like a drum. This deserves a drum roll. I’m on my way to score. At last, I’ll be high again, back together with the only thing that can fix me. It might only last a short while, but that’s still a short while of not feeling like I want to die.

“Have you got clean works?” I ask blondie as she drags me along. I’m tottering behind her in my stilettos. She’s wearing flats. Maybe she’s not much shorter than my five feet and seven inches.

She nods. I hope she has. I don’t want to end up back on the gear if I’m not going to be shooting it. That would be a waste of the pain and sweats I’ve only just recovered from.

She’s pulling me past punks, past prostitutes, and past parents pushing buggies. I can’t bear seeing the babies. I look away but it’s too late. I feel sad. I need this hit and I need it fast. Tears well in my eyes. I can’t see where I’m going properly. I twist my ankle and stumble.

She stops. “Are you okay?” she says, helping me up by my arm.

I dab the corner of my eyes with the sleeve of my pink cardigan. “Yes, thanks. It’s dusty out tonight.”

“I’m Lorna.” She smiles. Her teeth are good for a junky.

“Nicole,” I say. We shake hands as if we’re meeting for the first time, but we’re not. Our kind of people know each other. We recognise each other. There’s an attraction. There’s something unspoken. Somehow, we just know.

“Only a few more minutes, Nicole.” Her voice is soft like Shelley’s. I miss that girl so much. I wish she’d have been able to come out here with me.

We stop at a turquoise door by the side of a barber’s shop. She lays out her hand and I hand her the money. “Wait for me here,” she says.

I light a cigarette. I can’t just stand and be. How do normal people do that? Be. Especially in one spot and especially still.

A moment after I’ve stamped out my cigarette, Lorna returns. She puts her arm around my waist and gives me a squeeze. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“Manly,” I say. “That’s where I’m staying.”

“Where are you from?”

“London.” I brush my hand across her cheek. I’m feeling lonely and I don’t want to be alone.

She looks up at me with sexy eyes and a cheeky grin. I think we’re in for a good night.