Oz-Revoir and Goodbye

Finally moving on from Australia and round the corner towards home on that epic Drag journey in 2001. A short dispatch to Jo,- Oh, Jo, we’re in New Zealand, and we’ve left Australia behind! I’m so sad – it was a great time there. But Sydney was getting cooler and wetter and the Pacific is waiting for us, so….it was time to go. We had a lot to do before we went and we flew back specially to catch the last concert Kylie was doing in Sydney. She’d added on a few nights but this was the very last, at the Entertainment Centre, and we were going to be there! It was a big do, and she was fabulous. Loads of emotion – last night and all that – she descends from the heights, does all the hits, wears clingy silver and flamey trousers, has lots of campy dancers, comes up though the stage on a piano, cries a bit, leads us in a Mexican Wave, puts on a space cadet little number with a sloopy cap and does the finale with explosions and it all ends through a veil of glitter and everybody on their feet. I could give you blow-by-blow, Jo, but no need, - she is the People’s Princess – fuck Diana, Kylie is It – Mads may be the Queen but Kylie is with us all the way – all the gay-boys at the front in their glam and screams – she knows we’re important. God Bless Sydney. But still things to do. I decided to pay a last visit to the Drag Bag, a bit nervous because since Kitty disappeared it’s been a bit unfriendly. I’d bought a new hair from The House Of Priscilla, but I thought I’d get one from the DragBag and they gave me a nice welcome after all. Kitty is “good” apparently, and I bought a blue bob which has served me well already, we had a good chat, looked at their website and they asked me to be one of their Dragettes Of The Month. I was glad to be alright about them before I leave, really relieved. And before I left town I had to pay a last visit to the Taxi Club. Well, I did, didn’t I? Home from home, and all that. Actually there was madness in the hotel in those last few days, some coke-addled pair in the next room screaming all night, I was better out than in, and I’d asked Shayne (the yellow naked man) to go with me but at the last minute he wasn’t well, and it was nasty wet – but I went anyway. But I told myself – we were flying early the next day, this time, for once, I’d go home alone. I wore the blue hair, and the slinky black PVC, and the black stillies for the last time in Oz and Roger’s blue jacket and got shouts on the street – “Blue!” – as I walked up there after midnight. And it was like it always is. Rex and Graham and the next morning papers, - at the bar being felt up, by Michael, who bites me, feels my crack – am I with anybody? – You say that to all the girls. The barman says, Yes, he does. Upstairs the karaoke, as awful as ever – “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” in a time-warp, lots of trannies waiting for the disco, fewer Aseatics than usual. In the toilet they’re talking about breast implants, operations, flaccid dicks – “I don’t want mine!” – I do want mine, I think, to myself. Upstairs on the couch David wants it, or rather his, feeling, plants my hand on it. I’m going home alone, so I get dancing, go to the loo, he dances in my space for a while, he’s big and no catch and, sorry honey, and he’s gone. The Aseatics are dancing a storm though. Downstairs I get talking to Daniel – a typical Taxi regular - who’s a set-builder for Fox and a station-hand in the West, managing cattle, who travels from one side of the country to the other. We talk about cows, utes, choppers, mud and donkeys, - Daniel tells me a useful piece of advice about donkeys – pokies and pubs. He’s a rough conservative and he adds something to my life. I get talking to Linda – girl-talk, her two homes in Sydney, her smart hand-bag – “not big enough for a dildo” – hair, my bustier, our nails. Gary joins us, fancying Linda, but she goes. She has a headache, her first time out this week,- and he’s not after me. Michael still is. He grabs me as I’m getting ready to leave. He still wants me, and says he’ll travel to Auckland with me. But No. No. No. Down in the foyer you can read the Taxi Club breakfast menu, - it is a club for taxi-drivers after all - and fill in your membership form. Nothing’s changed in 20 years here as Shayne said to me on the ‘phone. But. “You’ll Have To search Far Away To Find Another Club Like This One….it’s no ordinary experience.” As I hit the wet street – alone for once – Amen. Say I. Jo, if you’re in Sydney you’ve got to go there. Don’t worry, it won’t have closed. love Mandy