Sunday 25th November

After lying in bed stewing for most of the night, I was shaken awake by Rachel an hour or so after finally getting to sleep.

“Why didn’t ya wake us? I thought we was going aaht?”

Red mists descended. “You think I didn’t try?”

“Oh, you should have just gone without us, silly.” Bev added.

So, not only were they blaming me for missing ‘The Biggest Party On The Southern Hemisphere’ but Bev wasn’t even grateful that I missed out on it too on their behalf. I imagined slapping her angrily around the tits and setting her off like one of those executive desk-toys, but before I could shoot them both down with my clever-but-cutting verbal assault I’d spent all night perfecting, Bev focused on a spot just above my eye and grimaced.

“Euw.”

And that one syllable took all the angry wind out of my sails.

I’d forgotten I wasn’t meant to sleep on my stomach with the fresh piercing, and it seems that burying my head furiously under the pillow was a bad idea. Bev handed me a mirror and I stared miserably at the massive grey lump that has erupted beneath my left eyebrow overnight. I crumpled back onto my bed and tried not to cry. Is it any wonder even lower-leaguers like Hamish reject me?

“I look like the fucking Elephant Man,” I groaned, squeezing gunk out of what was essentially an open head-wound.

“Nah, you’re not that pretty,” laughed Rachel.

The girls got dressed and skipped off, and I laid in bed sulking, unwilling to inflict my face upon the world. Instead, I caught up on a few emails and felt increasingly sorry for myself because everyone at home was coping fine without me. When the girls returned I pretended to be sleep.

“Hey sweetie?” Bev shook me ‘awake’. “We’re heading back over to Victoria Market in a minute if you’re up for it?”

“Or are you too busy enjoying your pity party?” added Rachel.

I fake-yawned and sat up.

“We can do some talent spotting?” Bev teased, poking me in the bum.

I wasn’t in the mood for our usual game of ‘Shoot, Shag or Marry’, but I let her pull me up and drag me out anyway because feeling miserable and doing what I’m bloody told has always gone hand in hand.

The market was selling the same old crap as before, only this time there was no Hamish to distract me. No innocent stuttering Scot to reawaken my libido before fucking off with the first available alternative. Unfortunately, it left me more aware of other cute guys, and every single one of them was staring at me. Or more precisely, at the oozing bruise around my eye. I groaned and searched the stalls for a pair of bigger sunglasses.

“Come on, put a fucking smile on it, luv.” Rachel grabbed my arm and dragged me forcefully towards the grocery stalls.

“What the hell, Rach?”

“Look, droopy drawers, I’ve had enough of your moping. You’re stuck with that face, disfigurement or otherwise, but there ain’t nothing stopping you from losing some timber.”  She smacked my belly and we watched it ripple under my t-shirt. “Why don’t you use this time away to get fit. Eat better. Feel better. Go home a new man. Or at least half the man you are now.”

Bloody cheek. Her breakfast this morning had been a curly wurly.

“We decided, we’re both going to lose weight on this trip, didn’t we Bev?” she said, pulling Bev into the conversation. I noticed she looked reluctant to join it. “We might even go vegetarian too.”

“Nuh uh, that’s just you, Rach,” said Bev. “I’m out. That salad you made me eat for lunch tasted like I’d rather be fat. I wouldn’t mind some of them orgasmic bananas though.”

“You mean ‘organic’.”

“Depends what you do with them.”

Rachel handed me some apples. “Right, here you go. Some pink ladies. Right up your street.” She starting piling different brightly coloured fruit into my arms. “I read that for maximum health benefits you’ve gotta mix up your colours.”

Bev nodded in agreement. “Yeah, my ex was a personal trainer and he told me that too,” she said, eyeing up the cucumbers. “So I had a fling with a black guy.”

Despite them telling me I was fat and disfigured, I actually had quite a nice afternoon. If I’m honest, it’s probably because they were paying me attention.

“So,” I began, slightly reluctantly as we headed back to the hostel, “I think I’m going to leave Melbourne next week. I’m getting itchy feet. I’m thinking of heading to the Capital then on to Sydney. You fancy coming with me?”

They looked at each other, then shrugged. “Sure.”

Which was a relief as I’d already booked it. We’re off Wednesday. Separate rooms. Can’t wait.

As I hoped it would, the deadline has put a rocket under the girls, so conversation turned to what we wanted to do before we leave Melbourne. I was all for a bit of culture. They wanted a bit of waxing.

“I need to get me downstairs sorted before Sydney,” said Bev. “It’s getting a bit wild. I got out the shower this morning and thought I was wearing little brown shorts.”

“I need me eyebrows fixed before we go,” said Rachel. “I’m SO underwhelmed wiv them right now. They look like two sperms having a fight.”

By this point, I was totally up for some alone time anyway, so we went our separate ways without drama. They skipped off to have their lady-gardens manicured, and I zig-zagged about the city crossing a bunch of grownup stuff off my Melbourne ‘To-Do’ list. We met up again for dinner, where they introduced me to a couple of burly guys they’d got talking to at the beauticians. Stu and Graham are ‘just good friends’, with matching shaved heads, plunging necklines, and jeans that are at least one size too small. You could tell what religion Stu was just by looking at the outline. Rach kept twirling her hair and touching Stu’s arm, and Bev was laughing at everything they said, even their menu choices. I had a horrible feeling the girls thought they were on a double-date but my Gaydar was going off louder than a foghorn in a library. For a start, neither of the gents had once glanced at Bev’s ample cleavage, and I’m sorry but that’s hypnotic even for me. If Hamish had been on the road to Queensland (which is where he may now be, for all I know), the girls were clearly taking a swim up Denial.

“But they don’t even look gay!” Rachel snapped, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as they disappearing into the toilet together.

“Where did you say you met them?”

“They were in the bleaching room having their bums done. I made a joke about them changing their ring tone.”

“Ha! Funny!” I laughed. “But no. Straight men don’t do that.”

She was fuming. “Why do ya have to spoil everything? Not everyone is a bleeding bumder.”

“Yep. I know that better than anyone, Rach.”

Although, there are more gays about than most people realise. One in eight was the estimate when I was at school and I’m sure it’s gone up since. I’ve never forgotten that little statistic, mainly because it was the only reference to homosexuality in an entire term of sex education classes and I’d grabbed at it with both hands. My old teacher had blurted out a few words from a book, red-faced, before showing us a video of a bearded man with syphilis.

“It is estimated that one in eight men and women are homosexual.”

That was it. Nothing L, G, B, or T at all, and if you were that one in eight, like me, you were going to have to figure it all out for yourself. Even that single sentence had caused a scandal at the time, as there’d been eight of us around the table. We’d eyed each other suspiciously until I pointed at Stinky Matt and told everyone it was him. I’ve always felt guilty about that, especially as I’d run straight to my girlfriend’s house after where I’d imagined her brother naked.

After dinner, Stu and Graham politely turned down Bev’s subtle offer of ‘a nightcap’ (she even used air quotes) and headed back to their shared room.

“Oh well, it’s probably just as well,” Rachel grimaced, limping a little as we headed back to the hostel. “That waxing proper chapped me lips.”

9.45pm

I got a stroppy email from mum. “Menstruation is not a laughing matter. Period.” She wasn’t happy about how I spoke about the girls in an earlier email and wants me to apologise.  I don’t think she even realised she made a joke. Period. Lol. Well, sorry ma, I’m rebelling. I’m not apologising to the girls for something they don’t know about. I don’t send the emails to them! It would just make a shitty situation worse, like kicking a dog poo. What I actually need to do is bite my tongue and get to Wednesday, when I’ll finally have a room to myself.

I can only think of one time that I’ve rebelled before. It was before the divorce so I can’t have been more than five or six. I ran away from home. I can’t remember why, probably to get away from the shouting, but I didn’t get very far. I knew mum would be angry if I crossed the road without an adult holding my hand, so I didn’t. It meant I just stomped angrily around the block a couple of times and I’d been back home in less than ten minutes, totally traumatised by the whole thing, and no one had even noticed I’d gone.

I didn’t rebel again. Before I knew it, Dad was moving out, Mum was struggling in every sense of the word, my sis went off the rails, Gran’s health went downhill, and I grew up quick to become ‘the Man Of The House’. Cut to my twenties, and I think the only rule I’ve intentionally broken is when I’ve filled a pot noodle over the ‘max’ line.

Anyway, where was I. Once the girl’s had finished intimately creaming their newly bald lady-bits (“it looks like a plucked chicken!”), they put themselves to bed and left me frustrated and bored in an empty common room. It was barely dark, everyone was out, so I played a game of pool on my own and still managed to lose. I’m now sitting on the fire-escape, cradling a cuppa like some proper old fart, wishing for a discarded ciggie or stuttering Scotsman to distract me from my thoughts. There is a steady flow of revellers heading past the hostel on their way into town and I’m trying to figure out what it is stopping me from joining them.

I’m perfectly happy exploring the city alone in daylight, but as soon as it gets dark something changes. Everything is more intense. When the sun goes down, I stick to the girls like they’re some kind of security blanket, a tether to my life back home, because in England I knew who I was and how I was supposed to behave. Without them with me, out on my own in Australia at night, who knows what I’ll get up to? The thrill of anonymity, that rush of excitement I’ve felt since we got here has never left. I’ve been bottling it up ever since I sat topless in the park. I think, deep down, I realise that the moment I head out alone the genie is at risk of escaping the bottle. There’ll be nothing holding me back. I will be on a mother-fucking rebellious rampage, more than twenty years in the making. The person I am now will no longer exist. That’s what I’m scared of. I know it’s going to happen at some point, and I am terrified and gagging for it in equal measure.