Sydney looks nothing like the places where Jo grew up. The first few years of her life in the village of St Ives shone in pastels: mint green and warm cream and the iced aquamarine of the bay. Then Chesterfield, the colours washed out and muddied. London could be captured in monochrome; even the water of the Thames looked more grey than blue for most of the year.
There’s something about the quality of light in Australia that’s different to anywhere else. Jo can’t place why exactly, but it makes colours more saturated.
The bus pulls in for a stop and Jo is crammed further into the window as more passengers get on. It’s a hot day, the air on board soupy with body heat. Sweat itches her face and her t-shirt sticks to her back. A woman with a baby presses up next to her. Jo grins at the infant, who hides its eyes under the edge of the carrier.
They turn a corner, and this is it, this is the reason Jo loves catching the bus even though it stinks of BO. She watches Sydney Harbour stretch out, postcard perfect. All silvers and blues and stark whites. The baby peeks around the carrier again, smiling this time. She pulls a face at it and it giggles and everything feels so right. She’s finished a long shift at the café and now she’s on her way to her second job and she’s exhausted but still, she is filled up. She’s going to make this life work. This is going to be her place, her home, for keeps.
Jo presses the stop button and weaves her way through elbows and backpacks, steps out onto the street right in front of the pub where she hosts her trivia nights.
*
Jo sits on a stool at the edge of the bar, checking the trivia results from the first round. She goes down the list with her red pen, marking ticks or crosses next to each line and tallying the results.
‘Beer?’ the bartender asks her over the taps.
‘Just a soda water.’
‘Course.’
She likes pubs in Australia much more than the ones back home. In England, the pubs felt closer, darker. They were always too warm with their cranking heaters and open fireplaces. The pubs here have high ceilings, cement floors. They keep the doors open because the air outside is balmy and the sun doesn’t set until eight pm…
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