Blue Dress Hot Mess

There are apricots and coffee half way across the world, and the kookaburra still sings from his gum tree. There are beach bars with old country music and passion fruit margaritas so spicy the chilli gets stuck in your teeth. Money seems far away – an abstract thing, meant for men (how wrong, I know, but they are men, and they are angry) in grey suits in large cities very far from the falling branch of the gum tree, from my half-apricots on the terrace (no stone), from the grains of sand on the circular table over which a tiny red and white ladybird picks (she scales mountains) silently. I am not one with the men in suits, and to the ladybird I am bigger than God. I feel like Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, as though I should be strumming a yukelele and humming about rainbows — waiting round the bend. Unfortunately, I cannot sing. But I wear a headscarf and long, patchwork jorts and my hair is still a little damp from the shower (Go Blonder travel-size shampoo), and it seems to me, on a Thursday morning with an orange apricot and an almond-sweet coffee (white mug), that perhaps I am in my pot of gold. I am playing in it, bathing like a cherub, gurgling with pleasure as I slip and dunk my golden head under, deep delis the surface. (I am played with by a Roman goddess – Venus, Botticelli’s (or is that too obvious?) – and she delights in this burbling child who squeals and blows bubbles and splashes in a golden cauldron of Australia). I am far from concerns — untouchable in the hangover of yesterday’s heat, in the pres of tomorrow’s (we are in the ‘kick-ons’ of a hot day, and begin to get drowsy with it). I resolve to care less. Care Less. An ex-boyfriend once begged me to “let it go”. Well, here I am. I let it Go. 

It smells like heat and thunder and muggy humidity, the kind of languidity that flies swim around in and die. 

14/01/26:

Sydney is a city of coffee shops and avocado toast. I lie on my haunches on a white hotel towel in Bondi Beach, fighting wind and the recurring fear – dread – knowledge – that I’m going home to reality too soon. The sun is warm on my shoulders and bakers them like hot cakes in an oven, but the wind whips through my plaited hair and my arms raise goose pimples in protest. The sand is whiter than it is at home, the air brighter with crystal-like light; Bondi is vast, an eyebrow of the city, ash-brown and fawn-tanned and liquid, turquoise-blue sea. The birds sang all night outside the hotel room – noisy, unknown birds whose call was a siren on city wind, an alarm and a lullaby in the shadowed heat of the Australia summer night. Now I hear only the waves, a heaving ocean at my back as I sit on my haunches on my hotel-white towel, yellow-black-beige grains of endless billowing sand underneath me, in front of me, around me. Lucy is stretched a leopard-print swimming costume on my right, reading her Kindle through purple sunglasses and veiling herself from the sun with a navy Ralph Lauren polo hat (the white horse dances alone). It is becoming too bright to write, the sun reflecting in glaring clarity off my notebook – my white hotel towel – Bondi’s ceaseless sand. It grows pleasantly hotter (my shoulders are cakes crisping in the oven, golden-brown tops in danger of growing red); the hairs on my arms no longer raise in protest. They are stuck down with suncream, lathered on early in double-cream consistency. (The people are tanned, have tattoos, and carry surfboards. I drink coffee-foam Matcha and taste bitter grass and ice cream). We walk through the Botanical Gardens in the cool of 9PM and talk about love in the high of dirty martinis and red-light cabaret. The word – love – tastes to my parched, unknowing lips like lemon gin and olive brine. We do it dirty down under, Lucy says. Love is a world of possibility which is a world away from me. I lie on a crisp-white hotel towel on Bondi Beach; I am no longer on my haunches, but I have stretched my legs out behind me – one at a time – and now have them curled beneath my body, furiously wiggling to fight the pins and needles. Love tastes like olive brine and butter olives. It is tart like fresh lemon juice and bitter like limes. Sydney is full of people in activewear who carry surfboards and smoothies. The lifeguards tell people to move between the flags; the sand sticks in singular pearls to my dark brown nylon handbag; a seagull’s pale feather whips into my notebook. I catch it: stop it. (Turn and watch the surfers). Keep it, stick it in the scrapbook.

My feet are cracked. Great craters of stretched raw skin pulled taught – tight – between my toes. We walk for miles, watch ‘Gatsby’, drink Aperol Spritzes and dream big. The rain pours outside, burning thunder screaming an echo down the Sydney streets. In Sydney, there is no smell; only street-food and salted air. In Sydney, I eat a grilled squid and sip strawberry smoothies in Bondi. In Sydney, I run into university friend halfway (the full way?) across the world. Everywhere is concrete, skyscrapers, beach and sand and sea. Noise-soaring, echoing noise and first dates with straws in their cocktails. (The wine is orange, her top is blood red). A city of make-believe and black silk dresses and Betty‘s Burgers napkins on the floor. I fancy fay and flora and fairies. There are no big lights, no neon signs. Just taught skin and make-up on the towels.

15/01/26:

She has tears in her eyes and messages that she had food in her teeth. We laugh because it’s a full-circle moment, and I sit on the train to the airport watching a child spin round his suitcase and write a definitive list on my phone of all the açai places I have tried in Australia. (The security guard calls me darling, making me blush and smile all at once, and I message her about it because we are suddenly new to this long-distance thing, and it seems important that every second of my time in Australia is shared. Our link; our bond; our hotel room). It would be hard to explain such a friendship to someone who has never shared its intensity. A friendship founded like a relationship. Endless pavement conversations and brunch dates and rolling over to tell each other your dreams. (I dreamed vividly, in Australia). Endless chatter and time off and films under sheets spread with focaccia. Endless talking about boys and spicy margaritas and knowing that no one else will ever be a friend to a traveller across the world, will ever share the Sydney rain or the Melbourne wind or compare relationships (friends and lovers, friends to lovers, lovers to something very far from friends) wrapped in towels on the wind-tunnel benches of a cross-harbour ferry. (My thong flies out of my bag). 

She says the immortal line “three minutes till boarding”. I have never stood in line for so long. I pop a sleeping pill into my mouth and eye the boys on the plane. (Good looking, generally. Youthful and floppy haired. Of course they are; I’m going to England). Don’t cry for me, Australia. I’m already crying for you. 

I feel very settled, grounded. I feel grateful for that, because I feel like that is what Australia has given me. We went to Manly on a ferry and saw Paddy in Rushcutter’s Park. Watched ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ in the hotel room eating day-old focaccia and hummus on the bed. I miss Lucy: I have loved Australia, every second.

China Eastern Airlines. We bond with each other every time we are together. We see the world together every time we take off. There is no cold tap water in Shanghai, only fog and expensive cappuccinos from closed coffee shops. I sit and write. If there is nothing else to do, I will always simply sit and write. I am never alone; I travel with my pen, my fingers, my small form of art. I travel away from friends and towards family, and it is so foggy I cannot see my way home. But China Eastern Airways assures me we see the world together every time we take off. So I suppose the runway must have lights.