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Jackie was staring into her past as we drove to the hospital along Casuarina Drive. 'Help me, please help me!' Jackie got up from the sand and raced away down the beach at Nightcliff. Her clitoris throbbed and the urine pulsed inside her bladder. The excavation had started all over again. 'God, help me!' She clawed at the sand and threw it up, the great wind in her arms flying high. Melaine tried to run after her, but stumbled in her trousers. 'Jackie, Jackie,' she called, 'Don't run away.' But she was lost in the complex city and Melaine wanted to be there with her, as her lover, her friend, her sister. Jackie was caught between raging and sobbing along that section of pristine beach between the mangroves and the tides. Finally she caught up to her, out of breath and concerned. 'Jackie,' she whispered, 'are you all right?' Jackie turned and flared at her. Her blue eyes had turned red like injured fish and young sharks blooding up the salt water and feeding on her insides. Melaine took an involuntary step back, then reached out and went to touch her. 'Don't follow me here,' Jackie hissed. 'Keep away from me!' Melaine was so shocked by the eyes that she left Jackie alone in a ball of crumpled sobbing, her small hunched-over back as white and brittle as a cowrie shell. It was so sad here. Melaine couldn't do anything for her. Her eyes widened as distant as the horizon that filled them in. It was the first time she'd really faced the prospect of letting Jackie go and she didn't know whether she could just yet.
'So that was the end of her,' Jackie turned to Nikita in the hospital. 'So don't think you're the only one who screws up on a date.' Nikita lay on her back. She was feeling a little bit sorry for herself, her bruised face turned towards the window. Jackie added, 'You probably think I'm bad for what I did, but I never had anybody care about me like that. I just couldn't do it.' 'Did you ever see her again?' Nikita asked. 'Yes, but after that I never saw her in the same way again. She looked like a ghost. It really freaked me out. You know, I'm sorry for what I did to her. But it was already too late when she found me …' She paused. 'There was no hope, really. I mean of getting to know me, or whoever I am. I just need to be on my own. I don't like talkin' it out much. I can't put it into words. I'm best to sort it out on my own.' Sharlena placed her arm around Jackie's shoulder. 'We understand, okay honey,' she said, 'she sounded like a nice girl. But I don't think she'd have understood you.'
'No, it wasn't that,' Jackie said, 'I just don't want all this stuff to be dug up and put onto the surface. I want it all to stay where it is. I don't know what she wanted from me. But the last thing I need is for her to want to understand me.' Jackie turned to Hero, whose head appeared in the window from outside, 'Ask no questions and we'll tell no lies, right boy?' The blue dog with the face full of affection slobbered on the glass and they all laughed. 'He's anybody's today, just like us!' Nikita looked dreadful and I could tell that even Jackie was pleased that I had managed to drop in, rather than heading off to the donkey sanctuary on my own. 'I don't want to do the work any more,' Nikita said. Then she added, 'I may do it in six months for a few weeks to make some extra cash, but not just yet.' All the men that she had fucked caught up with her in that moment. 'Everything that we do becomes us,' I said. 'If I was to keep going in the industry at this point in time, I'd become a victim of it.' 'Well, I don't want to do it anymore, Roxy.' 'Then don't,' said Jackie, 'don't obey the money.' Nikita sobbed, 'I want a sugar daddy. I just want to be looked after.' 'Well, honey, we're all born prostitutes,' said Sharlena, 'You may as well get yourself a sugar daddy.' |
