No More Tomorrows by Schapelle Corby Read Free Book Online

want to feel so lonely for the rest of my life, which at that time I had the feeling I might, especially if I got stuck there with kids. I missed my mum and I missed Australia, and I just wanted to go home. We decided it was best if I did; it was a mutual thing. Kimi and I had stayed married for two years, although if there hadn’t been a piece of paper involved, I might have left earlier. My belief in marriage as a lifelong commitment had kept me holding on, but eventually I realised I was young and unhappy and I didn’t have to stay. I’m just grateful we didn’t have babies.
    It was late June 2000, just two weeks before my twenty-third birthday, when I called Mum and told her the news, and asked if she’d meet me in Bali for a break on my way home. My devoted mum didn’t hesitate to jump on a plane, and we spent two happy weeks together enjoying each other’s company, snorkelling and dolphin watching. It was so good to see her and, rather than being sad, I was simply relieved to be going home.
    I had packed up my life fairly neatly, taking with me just a suitcase full of clothes and my bag with my new $400 yellow boogie board, which I’d bought in Japan, and my flippers. I used the board to surf in Bali while Mum sat on the beach watching and having her nails painted. The next trip I made to Bali was four years later, with the same boogie board, same bag and same flippers.
    This time, though, the board wouldn’t make it into the water. It was incinerated instead.

    Although Kimi and I stayed in touch for a year or so, sending Christmas cards and birthday presents and talking on the phone sometimes, all contact gradually died off as we both moved on with our lives. I haven’t heard from him while I’ve been in Kerobokan, nor do I expect to. It’s been eight years since I left Japan and he’s got a new life with a new wife and kids. The first he knew about me being in jail would most likely have been when one of the women’s magazines tracked him down to get the story of my ‘secret life’. According to the article, we were married for just three months.

    By the time I arrived back in Queensland, Merc was living there again with her new husband Wayan. After being together for five years, they’d decided to get married when Merc learnt she was pregnant. Kimi and I had gone to the wedding, which took place in Bali in March 1999, along with all of my other siblings, Mum and Dad, and various aunties, uncles and cousins. It was a huge event, and in marked contrast to mine. Merc and Wayan were already living in Australia by the time they were married and flew back to Bali for the ceremony. It was a Hindu wedding, lasting a month, as Merc had decided to convert to Wayan’s religion.
    Back in Australia, Dad had bought a two-storey duplex on the Gold Coast as an investment, and I moved in upstairs with my brother Michael. Merc, Wayan and their two little kids, Wayan and Nyeleigh, lived downstairs. So, just like old times, we were all together again, which put me back in my comfort zone after Japan.
    Life moved along happily. I was working a couple of jobs – one in the ANA Hotel galleria and another tour-guiding Japanese people – and after about a year I had a new boyfriend, Shannon. He’s had his share of unwanted publicity since my arrest, with a couple of photos of us stirring debate. I know about this because Merc brought in the articles, which showed what people said looked like a joint in an ashtray. It was a Marlboro Light. Although I’m anti dope-smoking, I do smoke cigarettes occasionally, and it was my cigarette in that ashtray.
    Our relationship lasted about two years, before Shannon and I both realised it wasn’t quite right. I was single for eighteen months before coming to Bali.
    Growing up, I always loved playing with make-up, doing facials and all those girly things. So, as I was still just doing odd jobs at this point, Mum suggested that maybe I should study to become a beautician. I agreed