When United Globe arrived in Dagenham, Claire had scoffed, but it was only six weeks before the church seduced her through the doors, with an offer of she couldn’t refuse – a free driving lesson with a qualified instructor just for giving her opinion of God's role in the modern city. It had been easy: a questionnaire; a reasonable cup of coffee poured by a Joan, a girl from Ohio who was excited about being in Essex; and the driving lesson voucher was placed in her hand. Viewing Dagenham as exotic destination was a new concept for Claire, and it took some time for her to believe Joan wasn’t taking the piss.

Within a week Joan had rung to suggest Claire helped out with swim-club at Sunday School – U.G. paid for the swimming. Claire understood how it worked, you did something for them; they did something for you. She joined the U.G. Education Programme and studied in the Church Hall alongside half a dozen other young people. Some of them had been at school with her, none of them had managed to get a job since – an intense competitiveness grabbed them all, but it was Claire who won the Essex Scholarship.

She needed to complete one more course that summer to be eligible for an overseas award and she had chosen Intermediate First Aid to round out her United Globe semester. She knew exactly which award she wanted - a month in Austria. She would have to teach sport for three days a week at a convent school, but otherwise she would be free.

In her mind was a confused mixture: the Von Trapp family and veal in breadcrumbs; Hitler, and the Swiss Family Robinson before they were shipwrecked; uniforms and waltz music. It added up somehow to ‘Europe’, a place she’d never been, and she chose not to explore further. She’d find out when she got there.

The letter arrived two days before the course should have started - Intermediate First Aid was oversubscribed. She stood in the hall, shaking. If she didn’t complete the course and get a credit she wouldn’t be eligible for the award. She would have wasted a whole year of her life. She rang the U.G. centre.

"I’m sawrry," intoned the course coordinator, "we do give prriorridy to new and first time students, and you have cerdainly already made good use of our facilidies, Miss Um ...."

Claire lobbed a boulder of rudeness into the woman’s endless stream of soft words.

“I need to take a course next week. I don’t care what it is. Just book me onto something – now!”

“Wayll ... the only thing thad I think we could prrrobably squeeze you indo is ‘Volundeering with Animals’?”

“Fine. Good. Thank you.” Claire felt bruised by the failure of U.G. to recognise her ambition, ‘ambidun’ as the consonant-impaired coordinator would have said. She was sure that a better, more efficient church would have spotted her intention. She had never mentioned it for fear of jinxing herself, a fear that would have disqualified her from the award had it become known. A United Glober took hold of God’s hand and outlawed fear, superstition and ignorance - but especially ignorance. What you knew wasn’t as important as the willingness to learn.

‘Volunteering with Animals’ taught her how to rescue dogs and cats from drains and trees. She found it boring and knew she shouldn’t. Partly it was the droning voice of the tutor and partly it was knowing that as long as she passed, she was free. She would have the necessary credits, she could enter for the placement, and she would spend September in Vienna. One the last afternoon of the three week course, after the written test she knew she’d passed, the tutor showed slides of his ‘more exotic encounters’. Sitting at the back of the darkened classroom, Claire began to doze.

What brought her awake was a strange icy tingling in her right temple. Her head had rolled against the wall and now pins and needles throbbed coldly where it had pressed into the plaster. Why did pins and needles always feel cold, she wondered. Shouldn’t they be warm, if what you felt was the blood rushing back?

“The best way to disengage a koala, is to press gently on the top of its head,” intoned the tutor. The slide showed a grey blur hidden in leaves. “Their grip is very strong and any attempt to break it can cause them to lash out with their long claws.”

Claire tried to focus on the blur and eventually made out a dark eye and a pudgy nose between foliage. For a second she wondered how this man had ever come to meet a koala, and what he had wanted to disengage it from, but that thought was overlaid by the fear that she might have snored, or dribbled, and she stared resolutely ahead while checking her chin for drool with a nonchalant gesture, meant to express serious interest.

Vienna was surprising. Larger and greyer than she would have believed possible. She had thought Dagenham had the exclusive on large and grey. But unlike Dagenham, it was full of music and food. Women, too clean to be human, sold cheese and sausages from market stalls. Chocolates were displayed like jewels in shop windows and coffee was drunk like the elixir of life – beer though, was drunk like water. The orphans were respectful, maybe too much so, and that sometimes kept her awake in the narrow but dense bed provided by the convent. Should children be so polite and pale? They weren’t undersized, but they seemed to try and make themselves smaller. Dagenham children of the same age were half the size but made four times as much of themselves with noise and movement. It was a puzzle she felt unable to solve.

In the third week she met Alan, another U.G. award winner, and also from a car town, but his was the exotic Detroit. His duty was to teach car maintenance to young refugee men in Vienna’s suburbs.

After their first night together, Claire dreamt of a koala. She reached into the branches and pressed on its head, gently. It turned to her and its nose, oddly phallic, burrowed between her breasts as its strong furry arms wrapped around her neck. It smelt of eucalyptus and dust. She took it as a good omen.

She traded her return ticket for one way flight to Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Her award placement ran out four days before his did, and the strength of their attachment made it seem perfectly natural to take his keys and the hand-drawn map of the route to his apartment. She packed the chocolates he’d bought for his mother and kissed the American visa she had acquired – everything seemed an omen of good fortune.

She did not dream during the long flight.

Easing out of the airport cab onto Merriman Road, she shouldered her backpack and stepped into the path of a car. She’d looked the wrong way for traffic, being full of omens, being in love, being British.

As she lay on the warm roadside, she felt cold. Around her voices buzzed. Feet crossed her line of vision without really impinging on it. Intermediate First Aid, she thought, but instead a koala climbed a winter branch, its claws slipping on the frosty wood. Press on its head, she wanted to say, press gently on its head and it will disengage, but the words wouldn’t come and the stars in the creature’s eyes gleamed coldly as it climbed further away from her.