Chapter 2
The train made its last signal before its departure to
Gothenburg. I tried to hug my dad goodbye but he kind of
pushed me away.
“Men don’t hug!” The only time that I can remember when he
had touched me in the past was when he used to punish me by
beating my bare bum with the palm of his right hand. Well, I
deserved it most of the time, being the black sheep of the family.
“Sorry but I have to leave now.” It was a lonely and sad
moment. My mum and my sister, Pernilla 18, and brother, Atle 13,
could not for some reason or another come to the railway station to
say goodbye and wish me good luck on my emigration to
Australia.
It was a freezing cold January evening. I could feel my thin
brown youth moustache turning into ice strips. My breath
produced steam like an old steam train when I spoke.
I had long wavy dark-brown hair extending well below my ears,
a gold ring in my right ear together with two matching gold
necklaces visible through the top of my short V neck jumper. To
make me look uber-cool, I wore obvious pinstripe hipsters with
massive flairs. After all, the year was 1974! To complete the
picture I wore a dark brown suede bomber-jacket, undone of
course and black platform boots with high heels. All of my clothes
were brand new for this special occasion. Yeah! It was bloody cold
being a fashion slave in Sweden during winter!
I grabbed my suitcase and walked in the direction of car 47D. I
turned my head around to wave a last goodbye to Dad, but he had
already started to walk towards the exit. The new fallen snow
made a squishing noise for each of my steps towards an unknown
future. Will I come back alive? Will I come back as a millionaire?
Will I bring the most beautiful Australian girl back home? Will my
parents be proud of me?
My plan was to come back to Sweden after I had completed my
two-year emigration contract with the Australian Government. If
not, I had to pay back the real cost of this subsidised trip – for
which I only paid AUD$50.
The situation was totally outside of my comfort zone, by 47
miles no less, particularly when I entered my shared sleeping
compartment with two total strangers.
There were three bunk beds, only one person could stand on the
floor at a time and I was on the top bunk!
I could smell vodka coming from the bottom bunk where my
travel partners conducted a small party in Finnish. Judging by their
laughter they were having a great time. I did not understand a
word. I was stuck on the top bunk. Not happy! I was dying for a
pee. The toilet was out in the corridor. The Finns used the handbasin
in this third-class car to relieve themselves while I was stuck
on the top bunk. I tried to sleep to forget my desperate urge. I
could not sleep one wink! The travel bug had totally taken over all
of my senses and the noise and movement of the train did not help
one little bit.
I heard glass clinking on bunk number two, and looked very
slowly over the edge. Wow! There were two lonely empty vodka
bottles lying waiting to be re-filled by nature’s golden brew. It was
the best feeling ever! I proudly filled one and a half bottles and
then returned them gently to their place of discovery.
11Wake up! Wake up! This car is going to Oslo in 27 minutes,”
said the conductor in an angry voice.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” I must have fallen into a deep
sleep. I was the only one left on the train. My travel mates were
long gone together with the two bottles of home brew.
“You are at the last station and I believe there are some
Australian emigration people waiting for you in hall 47A in the
main building.”
“Thank you, thank you,” I said as I ran in the direction in which
the conductor pointed his well-polished silver-look hole puncher.
To my surprise, there were 17 people in the hall and they were
all going to the land Down Under. I became part of a group of
seven guys in a similar age bracket, all with the same dream and
Melbourne as the preferred city. How good was that!
The next stop was London where we did a pub and striptease
crawl for an evening before our departure for Perth, Sydney and
Melbourne on a British Airways 747 jumbo jet.
This was the first time we had all been on such a large aircraft.
We were all very lucky to be able to sit in a smoking section,
except for Lars and Goran who were in the designated nonsmoking
zone the row in front of us. We were all addicted to
nicotine. In other words, we were very well-adjusted citizens to the
smoking society of the 70s.
The flight was like heaven on earth – duty-free smokes and free
grog as well as free food and good service from beautiful air
hostesses. We were like kids in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory!
It all proved to be too much for most of us, coming from an
over-regulated country with the most expensive cigarettes and
alcohol in the world.
Goran became so drunk that the pilot had to request police
assistance on our arrival in Perth. As soon as the plane touched
down, we were sprayed with a lethal substance for alien bacteria –
by a heavily-uniformed customs disease control-patrol.
We were told to sit down while an unwanted drunk Swedish
person was removed from our flying pub 747 by the local
constabulary, before stretching our legs and getting ready for the
trip to Melbourne.
Once we arrived in Melbourne, our little group was stationed at
Nunawading Hostel, where we were fortunate enough to get a
three-bedroom apartment with a large front room to share.
There were two emigrants per room and common toilets and
shower facilities outside the apartment in a corridor leading around
to other living areas.
This was all compliments of the Australian Government, as
well as food, until we had gained employment or had been there
for three months. Then we would have to pay a small fee until we
could find a place of our own.
We received an allocation of one gold-coloured porcelain mug,
one spoon, one knife and one fork which we had to protect with
our life.
My room-mate Rolf, was 12 years older than me, quite a large
man, wearing fashionable pilot glasses; a half bald-headed, chainsmoking
unemployed architect, dreaming of being a tennis coach
in Australia. He had left a very bad marriage behind him in
Sweden. The only things he had to his name, were the clothes in
his suitcase and his precious tennis prizes from his successful
playing days. His ex-wife had taken him to the cleaners! He would
lie on his bed all day smoking and day-dreaming.
It felt strange walking in 27-degree dry heat considering just a
few days ago we were experiencing minus-17 degrees in Sweden.
We proudly carried our eating utensils in one hand, our golden
mug in the other, as we walked to the canteen for lunch; we were
still very jetlagged. Our pale dairy-white skin made sure everyone
at the hostel knew we were the new arrivals as they enjoyed
Melbourne’s midsummer.
There was a long queue to the four ladies in pale blue uniforms
serving the food. Each lady had a designated task – potatoes lady,
meat lady, vegetable lady, and the sweet little gravy and bread girl
who become my favourite.
Once we finished our lunch we had to go to a designated wet
area to wash our valuable eating equipment and then transport it
back to our apartment ready for the next meal.
Imagine yourself as one of six Swedish guys, no job, plenty of
saved money, no rent, no food expenses, no commitments
whatsoever, sunshine, cheap smokes and alcohol, no family, new
country, bad English and plenty of girls … right! It was a long
party until we started to look for work and, being good emigrants,
we were surely a good investment by the Australian Government.
During that party period, Goran arrived from Perth and was
allowed to stay in an apartment opposite ours, in the Nunawading
Hostel. When I first met him he was a very well-groomed person,
long straight black hair, with a dark suit, white shirt and a tie.
Unfortunately, he could not handle cheap and easily accessible
alcohol, he constantly became like Willy Wonka in a pub. Goran
only lasted two months and was sent home broke, with a shaved
head, one front tooth missing and thongs, shorts, dirty, unshaven,
and a hopeless alcoholic. He owed the Australian Government the
full cost of his trip, which was a lot of money in those days.
We had started making bets on what colour knickers the gravy
and bread girl had. Her mini dresses were so short that when she
bent over to clean the tables in the canteen, she exposed them in a
discreet, sexy and elegant way.
Of course we laughed out loud and our eyes followed every
move she made during meal times. Obviously she understood what
we were doing because the next day she made a moving upwards
V signal with her a food tongs towards me and was smiling as she
served me wonderful, typical government-canteen food.
“What does it mean when someone makes an upwards V signal
towards you?” I asked the guys at the table.
“I am not 100% sure but according to a guy in the pub
yesterday, it means fuck off!” said Lars hesitatingly as he burst out
laughing.
“Fuck off. What does that mean?”
“Don’t you know that? Fuck is knöla (sex) and off is av (off).
Get it?” said Lars very proudly.
“Sex off, doesn’t make any sense! Maybe it is an Australian
secret code for I want sex with you?” I said with wishful thinking.
I could feel the gravy and bread girl’s eyes burning into my
neck when Lars had his little attack of the giggles. As I turned
around she pretended to be very busy serving another hungry
emigrant from somewhere in southern Europe. This secret mutual
flirting kept going on for many weeks.
I felt helpless and stupid because of my terrible English. For the
first time in my life I was regretting being the clown at school and
wished I had studied this language to perfection. I would have
approached her a long time ago if I had been on my home turf in
Sweden.
The gravy and bread girl become more and more attractive each
day that went by. I could not wait for meal times. I kept thinking
about her while I was out partying with my Swedish emigrant
friends. She was always on my mind! No escape! I could clearly
see her in my mind: black, shoulder-length, teased-up hair with a
left-sided fringe coving half of her left deep-blue eye, long black
eyelashes with pale-blue eye shadow, together with a black
natural-looking eyebrow surrounded by tanned, smooth, healthylooking
skin. Her white smile with a small overlap of the top front
teeth made her face stand out in the Australian meat market. Her
petite, sexy, Coca-Cola bottle-shaped body with small, firm 21-
year-old breasts, matching buttocks and legs made her so much
harder to get out of my mind.
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