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
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. LIKE 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.
As we were leaving, I’d go to the shops to buy the three of us kids a big, round, rainbow-coloured lollipop each. We always got home just before Merc and Michael returned from school.
On the weekends, Dad would take all of us to Sea World, so Merc and Michael could join in, too. I’d sit on the swinging ship for most of the day again.
We always had a great time at Dad’s place, too, as it was an adventure to camp on the floor of his room in the coalminers’ living quarters. There was a smorgasbord restaurant that was the best in town, and as Dad worked at the mine as an auto-electrician, we could eat there for free every night. Having a sweet tooth, it was heaven for me to be able to have two desserts, even for breakfast, if I felt like it.
Dad would usually take his holidays to coincide with ours, so we could go down and hang out on his property, about three hours away at Sarina. It had its own private beach, and Merc and Michael would drive around on it endlessly in a beach buggy that Dad had built for us from old car parts. I had no interest in sitting up front, preferring instead to enjoy the ride in the back seat with my dolls and my handbag. The four of us would also go on bushwalks for hours across Dad’s land.
Although he lived hundreds of kilometres away, somehow Dad knew every single thing that went on with us. Even when we gotin trouble, he knew. If he’d been a fly on our wall, he couldn’t have known more. We’d ask him, ‘Dad, how do you know that?’ He’d always answer the same: ‘I’ve got spies, spies everywhere!’ I guess Mum must have filled him in, because he never missed a trick.
We were always the centre of Dad’s life, and he never left us in any shadow of a doubt that he loved us deeply and that we were very precious to him. Seeing me in here broke his heart; I saw that in his eyes every time he came to visit. I cannot accept he is now one, it is too unbearably painful. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye before he died in January 2008. I loved my dad so much and I guess I always stayed his baby, as he didn’t have any more kids.
Mum calls me her baby, too, although she went on to have three more. Her fourth, Clinton, has always been difficult, and, as has been widely reported, he’s spent time in and out of jail. He has a problem: he’s a kleptomaniac. My family still tries to look after Clinton, because we love him and we’re always hoping that one day he’ll learn and change. Life works in mysterious ways, and I think maybe what’s happened to me is giving him the will to change. He’s got a job, and liking the rewards of earning his own money and buying his own things legally. We’re proud of him and I love him.
James and Mele are numbers five and six, to Mum’s third partner, whom we call ‘Big James’. Little James was always a good kid, very quiet and law-abiding. He even made school captain. Mele is the true baby of the family and was like my baby doll, whom I dressed up and pampered, as I was twelve when she was born. We were very close, and it hurts that I have not been around to help her grow, to answer her questions about teenage life and just be there for her any time she needed me.
Growing up with so many brothers and sisters was great fun, and we did a lot together – like bike riding or camping at the beach most summer weekends, squeezing into our little tents. Mum never showed any favouritism; she shared her love, her time and her affections evenly with all of us. And none of us ever classed each other as a half-brother or half-sister – we’re all the same. It wasn’t until my story hit the headlines that the media started differentiating between us, using the terms ‘half-brother’ and ‘half-sister’and talkingabout the fact that we had three different fathers.
The media made my family life look like a disgrace, as if we’d had some desperately deprived childhood – which is so far from the truth. We were not rich, but we were certainly loved and never went without. We almost always got what we asked for; we’d just have to wait until Mum had saved up for it. She worked several factory jobs and deprived herself of things so she could give more to us. If I wanted a $100 pair of shoes, Mum would buy them for me when she was able to. She did the best she possibly could for us and gave us all she could. She still does. Other kids in our neighbourhood and at school said that we were spoilt.
And growing up with three different male figures in the househad no effect on me at all. I only had one dad and I saw a lot of him. Getting used to the other two didn’t bother me or seem at all strange. I just went with the flow. We always had a lot of love in our house and a very strong sense of family and of security.
I guess I’ve always had Merc, as well. I can’t really talk about my life without talking about my sister in the same breath, because she’s played such a defining role in it. All my life, she’s looked after me with such love and devotion. She’s always been therefor me, encouraging me, teaching me and protecting me. I guess I thought that’s what big sisters were invented for, although I never imagined I’d end up depending on her for almost every basic essential in life.
As kids, if Mum wasn’t home (usually because she was working late), Merc would snap into the role. She’d cook us dinner, prepare our school lunches and generally make sure we were OK. She was and still is my best friend. If I ever needed to talk to someone, I talked to Merc, and do now. We’ve always done everything together and shared everything; we shared a bedroom, we shared clothes, we shared friends, we shared secrets.
Back when we were kids, we’d spend hours sitting together in the backyard making clover-chain necklaces or picking Mum’s best flowers, crushing them and then squeezing them into little bottles to make perfume. Mum’s dressing table was always covered in these bottles of our stinky ‘flower perfume’. We also sold them to our good-sport neighbours for twenty cents a bottle. Merc and I would go bike riding together, take dancing classes together, play with our d
olls together, watch TV together and just hang out. We were virtually inseparable.
Mum used to dress us in matching outfits, as if we were her little blonde and brunette twins, but our personalities were as different as our hair colour. For instance, I like things to be neat and perfectly ordered, while Merc is the untidiest person I know – although Mum comes close. Merc’s messiness used to annoy me so much that when we shared a bedroom I placed an imaginary line down the centre of the room, and the deal was that she had to keep her junk on her side of the line. As a result, our dressing table had one side almost bare and the other like an over flowing tip. My invisible line usually ended up becoming pretty visible. Thankfully, we did have separate wardrobes, because no invisible line could have survived that chaos. The bottom of her wardrobe was piled so high with shoes and clothes that it would meet the clothes of hers that were hanging – although there were usually few of those.
I must admit, though, that even with all her big messy piles of school papers and hoarded junk sprawled across her side of the room, Merc could always instantly lay her hands on anything she wanted. I, on the other hand, had a place for everything and didn’t hoard a thing but could never find what I wanted, except a use for something that I’d thrown out a week ago.
Apart from being a lot neater, I was also more reserved. I find it uncomfortable sparking up conversations with people I don’t know – though I’ve been forced to do so lately – and instinctively tend to hold back before trusting anyone. Merc, on the other hand, is a born extrovert who loves to talk to everyone, from the person next to her in the supermarket queue to the Queen of Sheba. She always sees the best in people, tending to trust them instantly. It’s a beautiful trait and one of the reasons why she’s so special, but it can also be very dangerous when you’re thrown into deep trouble like this, with all kinds of people crawling out of the woodwork to ‘help’. Her open and trusting nature has taken a battering over the last few years, as we’ve both been burnt by people we’d put our trust in.
No More Tomorrows Page 2