Happy Bank Holiday
Good Friday. And it's sunny. Who'd have thought it - on a bank holiday? My mum's outside doing some gardenning as the birds sing a cheery tune, my brother rushed out as he does everything, rushing here and there,a 'hello' every now and then. Dad's down at the church, doing the service in front of a few pensioners who could be bothered to turn up to acknowledge one of the most important days of the christian calender, and a few little children who are undoubtedly bombarding him with questions of 'why is it called Good Friday'. And everyone else is outside, enjoying the rare sunshine and knowing us English, probably a few complaining that it's too hot, apart from those who are still asleep. Apart from me, who is inside, on the computer. I don't feel like joining in with the happy bank holiday feeling. My throat hurts and I am stuck at home. So, this year I shall prefer to be an observer.
Good Friday 2002 - I was in Sydney. It was my last weekend there before I went off travelling up the east coast of Australia and I couldn't wait to leave. Not because I didn't like Sydney - I love the city and I had a fantastic time. It seems to encapsulate all the finer points of European cities, all brought together into one. So many nice places to amble, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, the Botanical Gardens, the many beaches. And that's what you do there, amble. There's no rushing about, no missions to get from A to B in the shortest time possible, even rush hour on the Metro is easily bearable. And, although it does get cold in the winter, for the most part, the weather is great. Not stifling hot and humid like in Queensland but sunny and bright and bouncy. Everything and everyone looks fresh in that light and it lightens and relaxes everyone's moods, so much more easy going, happy go lucky. And it's clean, everywhere so clean and fresh and new. It's a pleasure to be there and pleasure to maintain the cleanliness of the place.
All the homelessness, all the crime, all the scumminess, all the sleaziness, all the drug pushers, all the heroin addicts, all the prostitution that you would expect to find in a city are compacted into one small area of the city, Kings cross. My home for three months. Indeed, ask any backpacker where they stayed in Sydney and their's will probably be the same answer. This is where all the budget hostels are, the cheapest of the cheap. But my home was not a hostel, it was an apartment on Victoria Road. And the apartment was lovely. Two bedrooms, fully furnished, all mod cons etc etc. But the real selling point - the view from the balcony. It was spectacular, of the city skyline, all the skyrise buildings, centrepoint, Wooloomooloo below and beyond, the opera house and the harbour bridge.
I mentioned that it was a two bedroom apartment. Now this was the only drawback for there were never fewer than five of us living there and for much of the time, there was nine of us, with four extra bodies spending their days there. Nine of us were friends from back home, all living together on the other side of the world. It was three months of craziness and it was a lot of fun with no clutches on reality whatsoever. Our days, spent sleeping, smoking cheap Aussie cigarettes that come in packs of 40 (Longbeach) and lots of weed bought from either one of three cafes in Kings Cross, drinking, swimming in the pool and sweating in the sauna. It was a world with no resemblance to normality. We woke when other people were coming home from school or work. Frequently I'd walk down to the local greasy spoon, Krave, in my pyjamas and eat. Or go to the shop across the road to buy ice cream and other supplies. And our nights spent watching movie after movie after movie and drinking in the Buddha Bar, the 24hr bar at the end of our road.
We seemed to live our lives in the flat, never leaving. But we did leave and see some of Sydney's finer parts. Big flat expeditions to the aquarium, Taronga Zoo, to the top of Centrepoint, to the many beaches. We never made it to Manly beach though. We never woke up early enough to make it worth the ferry crossing journey.
It wasn't all pure laziness. We did work. Well, when I was there, just two of us worked. Louise became her job and consequently we never saw her, working by day, drinking with work people come evening and sleeping at night. I did not want a job that would weigh so heavily on my mind. I just needed some money but wanted to have a laugh doing it. I started working at the Bourbon and Beefsteak in Kings cross, waitressing. I hated it, the waitress who was training me was a patronising bitch and after four shifts of blister producing work, I quit. But I had no money and every backpacker in Australia seemed also to be in Sydney looking for jobs and it was not looking good.
So, I took advantage of the area I was living in and got a waitressing job in one of the many strip clubs that line Darlinghurst Road, Playbirds International. I later moved to The World Famous Love Machine. It was an easy job, trying to sell as many drinks as possible. I got paid according to the number of drinks I sold, no standard wage, and I got tips. And the strip club will only keep you on if you sell loads of drinks because all they want is money, money, money. But the drinks are all non-alcoholic, non-alcoholic beer, non-alcoholic wine but did we tell people this? I don't think so. It is illegal to sell alcohol if the establishment is linked to a brothel. But the drinks taste disgusting so it is a real mission to sell lots and I had to get them to buy me drinks and give me tips. It doesn't take long to pick up the tricks of the trade. I had 'strip club mode', the way I behaved as soon as I walked through that neon lit doorway. Flirtatious, world owning, pushy behaviour, not like me at all. And soon they are buying me the most expensive drinks, giving me their cigarettes, handing over a big tip and I'm getting them a prostitute to go upstairs with.
The people who went to these clubs were varied. From the young group of backpackers, to the married couple wanting to spice up their sex life, to the old sleazy man. We had them all. One man came in every day without fail. He would come in at nine when the shows start, sit at the back, gradually move his way to the front and then go to McDonalds for half hour to get a coffee. Then he would return and do it all again. He never bought a drink, he never had a prostitute. Some of them were nice, some not so nice, many wandering hands, mostly harmless. People would think I was a prostitute even though I looked and dressed very different from the girls. They would ask me how much and sometimes push me against the wall and try to touch me. I never felt threatenned though, there were too many people who worked there who were around me, to let anything happen. The one time I felt the situation was getting out of hand I punched the owner of the wandering hands. After stumbling back several feet, he left, somewhat bemused.
The girls who worked there were mostly lovely. There were two prostitutes who I did not like. My presence seemed to threaten them, as if I was going to take some business away from them. No chance of that. But the rest were so nice. I didn't speak to the strippers much, simply because after their set, they'd move straight on to the next club. But the prostitutes were always around so I chatted to them quite a bit. But the longer I worked there, the more I discovered of their stories, why they were there and what went on in the clubs. One girl was kicked out of her home when she was thirteen. Some people looked after her and got her onto smack. When she was addicted, they took her to the club to work. She was now eighteen and had been a prostitute for five years. She desperately wanted to do something else. But there was nowhere else that she could work. For any job, even the most simple, there would always be someone who had more education than her or more job experience. You may be against prostitution and think what these girls are doing is terrible. And you'd be right. But these girls were stuck, for whatever reason, maybe because of one bad decision, made very young. Yes, many of them were there to support some form of addiction. I had to look after a girl who had overdosed on smack and collapsed as I was serving a drink. But they are still people and deserve respect. And so few people would give them that basic human respect. The men who worked at the club, the barman, the managers, the bouncers wouldn't and I walked in on countless arguments between staff. And the average person walking down the street very rarely would.
And this is what I was doing on Good Friday last year. Working. On one of the holiest days of the christian calender, the good vicar's daughter that I am, was working in one of the sleaziest strip clubs in the whole of Australia.
Work was good for a while. I'd go in, take a little bottle of vodka and get pissed as I served drinks and have a laugh. When I wasn't working, I'd walk down Darlinghurst Road with my friends, and I knew everyone. All the strippers, the bouncers, the prostitutes, the regulars, the family of the owners. Everyone. But soon it became a headfuck and there came a point where I just couldn't go in anymore so I quit. The flat, though a lot of fun, was also stressful at times. It was always filthy and there was never time for alone time. I need time for private thought and reflection and I was deprived this. And I had itchy feet. I wanted to be travelling, it was time. So, I booked a bus ticket and soon i was travelling the east coast, after three months of laughs and new experiences in Sydney.
