13

Jim asked to sweep the floor instead of washing up in the mornings. When Sam asked him why he did not want to wash up Jim said, ‘It’s a job for a Mary-Anne, and you’ve got a Mary-Anne to do it.’

We avoided each other in the ward, planning our ways in the restricted spaces to keep from meeting.

I thought that a few moments of embarrassment should not be allowed to become permanent. I would have liked to go to him and say that I wanted to be friendly again. I wished that the cause of the trouble was that I had done something to offend him so that I could apologise.

Sometimes I talked to myself about him: ‘I can’t help it if I don’t want him to touch me. If I was a girl, I wouldn’t want him to touch me. Anyway, he should have a wife. He’s not homosexual, he just thought that I looked nice. He can’t blame me for that. He’s a neurotic. He blames the Australians for being as they are. He wanted to go to the other side of the world and find a place just like England, except for the sunshine, and when it wasn’t as he wanted it he blamed the Australians. He’s a fool.’

But I knew that I was angry at what had happened and not at Jim.