No More Tomorrows (4 page)

I was visiting Bali for a holiday and to see my sister Mercedes, her husband Wayan and their two little children. They lived in Australia but had been over there for almost three months to give the kids a taste of their dad’s culture before starting school at home. Since my conviction, they’ve been painted as drug dealers. Rumours flew that they owned a surf shop and sold drugs there. It was ridiculous. They didn’t own a surf shop, and they certainly don’t have anything to do with drugs. The Bali police didn’t even bother to interview either of them at any stage.

It was a situation where each bit of mud that was slung seemed to attract more mud, more innuendo, more rumour, until suddenly people thought it was all true. I used to think that innocence speaks for itself, that just by looking at me, people would see into my heart and know that I was innocent. But I’ve learnt a lot about people in the last four years. Now I know that to many people I’m guilty until I prove I’m innocent. And I’ve found that trying to prove your innocence in a foreign country, to a foreign court, with foreign lawyers and a foreign language, is not easy.

My once happy life is now a living hell. But it could soon get even worse. I live in fear that any day I could be plucked from my cell in the dead of night and taken to another prison in a remote part of Indonesia. The guards do it sporadically, without warning, without alerting family or consulates. Merc might just come in one day to find her little sister gone. It terrifies us both. It’s hard to fathom, but I actually fear being taken away from Kerobokan Prison.

Some of the guards relish threatening me with being moved from here, making it part of their ongoing campaign of mental abuse. They’ll often say, ‘White monkey, we move you tonight.’

It frightens me that, as time passes, my real world outside these walls is fading. Not my family, they are as strong and vivid as ever. They are my rock and my lifeline. Sometimes they might say and do things that I’d rather they didn’t, but I know they are trying to help, and I love them very much.

When my brother James was arrested for breaking and entering, and stealing marijuana, I guess a lot of people thought,
Well, that’s it – if he’s involved with drugs, then so was she
. How can you help what your family does? James was an idiot. I don’t approve of what he did but I love him. And I’m certain that whatever he’s done since I’ve been in here, as a sixteen-year-old kid going on holiday with me in 2004, he did not put that marijuana in my boogie-board bag. I was the last one to see inside it. But mud sticks.

There have been a few people who’ve flung mud, creating bullshit stories that are splashed as newspaper headlines, becoming often-repeated fact. I can do very little to defend myself against the lies from in here and have to rely on my family to fight the battles for me. But I get tired of repeating again and again that I’m innocent to a world that doesn’t want to listen.

My beautiful sister Mercedes is incredible, and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have her. I sometimes wonder if the situation were reversed, could I and would I do the same for her? I hope so. She’s put her own life on hold for me, visiting most days with food and anything else I need or want, within reason.

She brings me everything from toilet paper, hair dye and chocolate – a much-needed substitute – to non-essentials like eyelash curlers and a little blow-up swimming pool. I always knew my family loved me, but if there is one positive in all of this, it is to see how loved I am.

But outside my family, I’m forgetting my life before this, and it’s sad and scary. Despite mythical sightings of Schapelle Corbyreported in the media, I do not get days out surfing or nightclubbing. My whole existence is within this seedy little world. The beautiful world outside is becoming just a blur.

I forget what the beach looks like, I can’t remember what the water feels like when I dive in, I can’t remember surfing, I can’t remember the names of my close friends, I can’t remember anything, I can’t feel anything. I’ve stuck photos of the Gold Coast on my cell wall and I usually feel nothing when I look at them: no nostalgic longing for home, nothing. I’m completely numb. I’m not trying to shut things out, it’s just happening. Maybe it’s like when a child loses a parent and they start to forget what their mum or dad was like, what they looked like, smelt like, felt like.

It’s frightening, but I think it must be a survival mechanism of the brain to keep you going day by day, a tactic to say: ‘OK, this is a traumatic experience. Forget your life before this, you’ve got to survive today.’

2

Little S

B
E CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
. L
IKE LOTS OF
starry-eyed kids, I grew up wanting to be famous. I imagined a glamorous and exciting world of pretty dresses and parties, of being feted and adored and pampered like a princess. Well, whoever waved the magic wand did a lousy job. Being known around the world as a notorious international drug smuggler wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

There are no upsides to my dubious fame, and certainly no glamorous parties or pretty dresses. And the most pampering I’ve had in here is when someone rubs my back as I lean over the squat toilet throwing up from stress or food poisoning, or both.

I admit that seeing a nice photo of myself in a magazine does sometimes give me a buzz, but I can’t ever forget why it’s there. Being on
FHM
magazine’s Sexy 100 list or
Who
’s Most Intriguing People list might be flattering for a millisecond, but little good it does me in here. If I could turn back the clock and live a life of quiet obscurity, I’d do it faster than you could say ‘boogie board’.

I was born on 10 July 1977 in a hospital in Brisbane and named just before I took my first breath. My mum actually made it up. She heard a French woman in the next bed saying, ‘
Schapelle, schapelle.
’ Between contractions, Mum thought,
Mmm, that’s a nice name
. I joke with her that the French woman was probably saying something like ‘Let’s christen the new baby at the chapel’, but in her accent it sounded like ‘Schapelle’.

There are pros and cons to growing up with a name that your mum made up. No one else has it, and you don’t get confused withanyone else when the teacher calls it. But you are burdened with nearly always having to repeat it.

‘Michelle?’

‘No,
Schapelle
.’

‘Ah . . . how do you spell that?’

It was a name unique to me, thanks to Mum’s creativity. But she recalls that when I started grade one she had a ridiculous dispute with my teacher over how to spell it. At the start of the year, Mum wrote ‘Schapelle’ on my new school books, but the teacher Tipp-Exed it out and wrote ‘Schappelle’. Mum wasn’t happy and a war of words raged for a few weeks as the books went back and forth between home and school. Finally, one of them gave up, and it certainly wasn’t Mum, because she’s doggedly determined when it comes to her kids. And this really was a fight she was entitled to win.

But the name is no longer mine alone. There is the yacht
Schapelle
, the racehorse Schapelle, and a few people have even named their babies Schapelle. Then there are the dogs, cats, birds and goldfish called Schapelle! I know about these because people have written to tell me. It’s a very strange feeling to get letters from people saying they’ve named their goldfish after you.

I guess when I finally do go home I won’t have to say my name twice or spell it out any more when I first meet someone. But sadly I know that’s only because they’ll know my name before I even say it; they’ll know my face, know me as convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby. It feels so demeaning to have that title connected to my name.

It’s certainly not the sort of fame I imagined as a kid, when Mercedes, our brother Michael and I held concerts in our suburban driveway. These were a highlight of my happy childhood. Merc and I were forever singing and dancing around the house, and we spent days choreographing new dances and composing songs. When we were ready, we’d teach Michael his moves and sell tickets to all our neighbours for twenty cents.

From about the time we could walk, Mum had taken Merc and me to modern, tap, jazz and classical ballet classes, which we continued for about ten years. Although I’ve always been a little shy, I had no qualms about dressing up in my ballet costumes and dancing and singing my heart out.

Merc, Michael and I were and still are very close, as there’s just a one-year gap between each of us, descending in that order. Typically, as the baby of Mum’s first batch, I learnt early on to stick up for myself – which I guess has stood me in good stead for life in this place, where guards and prisoners are always trying to push you around and mess with your head.

I can recall one night when I was about eight years old, Mercedes decided to have some fun terrifying me. We were going to sleep in our bunk beds when I heard tapping on the window and Merc saying, ‘Schapelle, who’s out there? Listen, Schapelle, someone’s out there . . .’ I was scared to death until it hit me that it was
her
tapping the window with her foot. I leapt angrily up onto her bunk, grabbed her arm and pinched it hard until, she reckons, it went numb. She was laughing a lot, saying, ‘Let go, Schapelle . . . I won’t do it again.’ She didn’t.

I had to stick up for my rights, too. Like when we did the dishes each night, Merc and Michael always got to stand on chairs to wash and dry while I was left down on the floor to put things away. I had to fight pretty hard with them sometimes to make them switch with me, because putting away was regarded as the lowliest job.

Although I’m writing about my life now, it really goes against my nature. I’m doing it to clarify a lot of the misinformation that’s been written about me. To have my life trawled over has been hard, but to have so many lies reported about me has been painful and humiliating. I’m cut off from the world and only find out about things if someone tells me, so I probably haven’t heard all the bad stuff. Two of the most humiliating lies were that Iworked as a prostitute in Japan and that I got pregnant in jail. If you choose a life in the spotlight, I guess you also choose to accept a level of personal invasion. I didn’t choose the spotlight; it chose me.

I’m essentially a private person and have never been a big fan of talking about myself or even just talking for the sake of it. In fact, one of the things I can’t stand is when you meet someone and they talk and talk and talk a lot of crap and don’t shut up! It irritates me. You may not even seem interested, but they still keep talking at you. I prefer to say what I have to say and then finish.

I’m a people watcher and will often just stand aside, observing, tending to look and listen more than talk. I can sit for hours lost in my thoughts as I watch the world twirl around me. I often did that in court, to pass the hours in the sweltering heat as the judges or prosecutors droned on in Indonesian and the media surrounded me like hunters ready to pounce. There was always plenty of colourful people-watching to do. It made me laugh to hear that a couple of cameramen thought I had the hots for them because I was apparently always looking at them!

But I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a loner. I also love having fun and spending time with my friends and my family. Growing up in a house with six kids meant that I didn’t get the chance to spend much time alone, anyway.

I was the baby for five years, until Clinton was born. By this time my parents had separated and Mum was married to Clinton’s dad, Mick. My dad, Michael, left when I was about two, so I have no memory of life being any other way than Dad living up in the coalmines in central Queensland and Merc, Michael and me visiting him during school holidays. I never felt a loss or longing for my dad to be living with us, because it just seemed normal. And the split between him and my mum had been so amicable that he spent Christmases with us at Mum’s and often just dropped in for a few days on a surprise visit. He’d spontaneously appear at breakfast some mornings after driving down through the night. We were always so excited to see him, and he loved to spoil us.

I can remember when I was about four years old, Merc and Michael were already at school, and I’d get Dad all to myself. I loved those days – just the two of us. We were like best mates. He’d take me to Sea World on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, and as soon as we’d paid the entry fee, I’d drag him by the hand over to the swinging ship ride. I loved that ride. He’d sit on it with me for two straight rides, then get off and go and stand next to the ride operator, chatting and watching me swing backwards and forwards for almost the whole day.