Diana! Episode 9

12 "When the moon is full and the tide is strong."

You could never tell with Bruno. Jonathan and he had been friends for ten years at least, but the slightest criticism could set him off, hurling hybrid insults as if their friendship had simply vanished. Another time, he might go all quiet and hurt; he could sulk, smoulder for days. And just as easily, he could be as open and generous as the hungry earth: 'Sure baby, is no problem! I do it again. It will be beautiful!' It was a lottery. Jonathan had not tried to keep the satisfaction from his voice when he informed Christine that the new mix, minus the celestial orchestra, would be ready by Monday night. Beautiful.

Walking down Palmer Street in the evening angles of shade and light, Jonathan neared a small park shadowed by the overpass of the Eastern Suburbs Line. Even in good weather old men sheltered here, and drank from paper bags. One man sat with his back to the wall, his head between his knees. He grasped his bottle in both hands as he rocked back. The liquid fell into him, thick and sweet as blood. He placed the bottle on the grass, slowly, deliberately, carefully.
Jonathan walked past, seeing the man smack and savour his wine-stained lips. Turning aside, the bitumen beneath his feet was replaced by an area of brick paving closed to traffic.
Diana had looked good this morning. The little illness must have gone that seemed to be troubling her that night at the Cross.
Kids swerved close to him, riding skateboards, bicycles, roller-blades. A woman was calling for a child to come home, while in another house a television boomed the football replay.
'Perhaps all you need is the right kind of inspiration'. Jonathan thought about it over and over, as his steps led down the shallow slope, towards the water. Christine was the real force behind the songs they had written. Sometimes he thought she had broken up with Carrie merely to provide him with material. When he tried to write about his own life, all the supposedly important stuff, the hurt and desire, seemed to float away as if gravity were thrown into reverse. Those songs of his were smart and empty, and sometimes not even smart. But Christine goaded him. She loved her life, loved digging around in it, and was only too happy for Jonathan to join in. The melodies she came up with seemed to carry the words with them. Still - he missed that childish feeling: 'all by myself'.
Diana liked him, he was sure. It was she who had suggested they have lunch together, while Christine was fetching her shout at The Rose. She seemed to think he could write, although how she figured this out he didn't know. He turned over some ideas in his mind, but they were dead ones. The melodies he hummed broke and dissolved, and came to nothing.
The trees high on the north side of the harbour caught the failing sun. Even in the lingering daylight, the moon had a sharp radiance, full and white. 'It's all down hill from now on,' Jonathan laughed to himself; not like the new moon that had hung around Diana's neck at lunch: a tiny sliver growing into form.
Jonathan came to the Harbour's edge, down by Woolloomooloo Bay. He leant over the iron rail and looked down amongst the city refuse. The water was high against the containing wall and the pillars of the finger-wharf. A brown froth rose and fell at the agitated join of water and stone, as if the harbour were fraying, like rope.
Jonathan could see a metre or two into the green water. A trail of bubbles rose from the invisible depths, spiralling to the surface. The rotting on the harbour bed is continuous. Here lived bacteria that thrived on minimum light and air. But at each digestive moment, a tiny bubble formed, scarcely to be seen. And another.
The light had now left the hill-top on the north shore. The water and all the land were in shadow. Behind Mosman, where the rich maintained their Harbour Views, the sky was deep and blue, the moon clear, big, and alone; Jonathan admired its steely brightness. Not dressed for night-time, he began to feel cold, and he considered returning home before full dark fell.
A power-boat disturbed the evening quiet, breaking the rhythm of the harbour swell. Quick ripples became noisy and insistent, and Jonathan watched as the froth was beaten and grew.
In piercingly cold European lakes, thousand-year-old trees are said to lie slowly rotting in the sediment. Within their spongy flesh form pockets of vapour. These remnants of extinct forests, at times when temperatures change, at dawn or sunset or when the air pressure falls, when the moon is full and the tide is strong, they rise, they breach the surface like sea-beasts, exhaling their stinking gas. Then they will sink again, heavy and deep and invisible.
Jonathan saw that the street lights had come on automatically in the increasing dark. They cast white pools onto black water. A red Alfa, shiny and new, took a corner hard, its tyres shifting just enough not to screech. Headlights sliced through a stream of mist that rose from a storm-water pipe. Like a visual echo, this recalled to him the sunlight on the smoke blown from Diana's lips across the white-washed brick of the cafe: white on white. He walked on, humming an uncertain tune.


Monday 29 July 1991
Waning gibbous

12a "This was the way Bruno always ordered food."

They ditched the joint at the doorway of Alfresco's. Bruno claimed their seating for six as if it were reconquered territory.
"Couple of bread for everybody, ah, a couple of beer, couple of cheese. Entree. Everyone want entree." This was the way Bruno always ordered food. "Feed us with some pasta and salad and bread. Some wine. And a couple of bowl of chilli." The waitress looked to the rest of the table for help, but they were celebrating, busy talking: Murdoch, Annie and Jonathan; Diana and Christine.
"Is that your order?" the waitress asked, getting desperate. Christine looked up. "Is that your order?" she repeated hopefully, now that someone besides Bruno was acknowledging her.
Christine raised her voice above the general din: "Okay if we start with salad and bread and plonk?" The others nodded. Bruno dragged at his Camel, sucking hard through his teeth. Christine beckoned to the waitress whose eyes had lost that panicky quickness, "We'd like three of the garlic bread, and two plain..." Bruno stabbed his cigarette into the ash tray as he leant over to Annie, taking her attention: "Restaurant you should be able to say 'feed us' and they feed you, and you pay!" Annie agreed, trying not to stare at the lumpy brown cigarette stains between his teeth. Christine continued: "A carafe of red, and a white. Just give us a few minutes to decide on the rest." Bruno breathed into Annie's face: "They don't know shit about service in this country." She agreed with this, too.
The wine was already running low as the baskets of bread arrived. Annie, her hair cropped short and bleached almost invisible, turned to Murdoch. He was wearing black leather trousers and a white T-shirt, ridged by a singlet underneath - exactly what he wore on stage, minus the singlet. He was trying to attract Diana's attention, but she was deep in talk with Christine.
  "Red or White?" Annie enquired to the back of Murdoch's neck.
"What?" He replied, not turning around.
"Wine. Red or white?" Annie repeated to the back of his head.
"White."
Annie ordered red.
Diana was wearing an all-purpose little black number, showing off her neck and shoulders for the first time that Christine could recall. A medallion of a crescent moon rested on her skin above the black fabric. A perfect throat to go with her perfect back, Christine observed. Her waist tapered until it was obscured by the edge of the table. And Christine asked: "How's the knee?"
"It is very fine. And, you see, no make-up on the forehead." Diana rubbed her finger lightly across the place where the bruise had been. "Where did you learn to do these things?"
Jonathan leant across the table. "Her mother was your all-round psychic and white witch, purveyor of medicines and potions."
Christine shut him up with a look. She did not like it when someone answered a question directed at her. "My mother was a professional fortune teller."
Murdoch chimed in: "Crystal ball?"
"Yes. Crystal ball, tarot cards, palm reading, all that stuff. But they were only the props. That's just the sort of thing the punters expect." Fixing Murdoch with her eyes: "Rather like leather trousers, don't you think?"
Annie laughed. Murdoch did not. He turned to Diana, smiling at her with his crooked canines, asking if she had seen his band, and did she know there was an album in the pipe-line, and a tour of the USA, and, who knows, after that....
Diana turned away from Murdoch as if he were not there: "You said your mother was: is she dead?"
"Yes."
"And your father?"
"He lives out on the Hawkesbury River. Gone Fishin'."
Annie's carafe of red arrived. She looked into it, troubled for a moment. The mouth-red, the gum-red. That is the problem with dinners, so many mouths to feed. Her last lover, her man of three years, when they split he kissed her hard, stabbing, goodbye, because they hadn't kissed in almost two. She poured a glass for herself, the red liquid folding, collapsing into itself, settling flat. She reached over, thumped the carafe on the table beside Murdoch. He took the wine without looking at it and leant toward Diana, trying to connect with her eyes.
"White wine?" he said, proffering the carafe.
"No thank you," she replied, taking it, "I prefer red." Murdoch looked down at the carafe in her hands, opened his mouth, but said only: "Um". When Diana had finished pouring, Annie leant in front of him to take her wine back. On Murdoch's left, Diana had resumed her conversation with Christine; on his right, Annie was inviting Jonathan to drop in during their recording session. Murdoch poured himself a glass of water. Swallowed it.
Bruno was talking to the waitress, who smiled fixedly. He was ordering more wine and finding out what brand of Cognac they stocked. This is a very important occasion, he told her: Jonathan and Christine were going to be famous. Their song is going to be on a CD. "I am a little pissed, and I want to have a good time, okay?" The waitress said that was fine by her, and walked quickly for the kitchen door.
Murdoch eyed the last piece of garlic bread lying in its cane basket, lined with a red paper napkin. Diana's fingers reached down to encircle it, drawing the bread towards her mouth. Placing it between her teeth she squeezed it slightly, cracking the crust. A little of the yellow juice ran down between her fingers, and she slowly licked them clean. Christine noticed this, and Jonathan. Annie looked away. Murdoch readjusted in his seat.
They ate and drank, and Bruno always wanted something from the far side of the table. He asked the waitress for a bigger glass. Murdoch invited Diana to tonight's gig at Blue City, telling her that he would put her name on the door.
"Some women..." he said to Diana, "some women think blokes in my business have this gigantic sex drive, you know, that we're always rootin', but I reckon I only get it about four or five times a week, tops."
She replied: "Do you want to have sex with me?"
"You bet I do."
And she said: "That is a pity."
"Hey baby!" Bruno offered, "you want some more sauce?"
A new bunch of customers came through the door, and something flew in with them. It landed on the table in front of Christine and started its run for the shadow underneath a basket of crumbs. Jonathan was quick on the draw. With the cloth napkin in his hand he made the table rattle and spilt some of Bruno's wine. A small, barbed leg stuck out quivering from beneath the white linen. Christine rolled her eyes. Murdoch said 'yuck'.
"You see, Diana, Jonathan has these bad habits." Christine reached over the table, resting her hand near Diana's. "I, however, manage to combine a wild unpredictability with a mild humour and extreme tolerance of divergent opinions." She pulled back and jabbed Jonathan with her finger: "Don't I!"
"Christine," he said, rubbing his wounded shoulder, "you're the light of my life."
"Yes," she retorted, "and you're the light relief of mine."
Jonathan laughed, turning to Diana, "She's a ball-breaking bitch, you know."
"That's right, Diana," said Christine, "I am." Then she cast Jonathan a dead-pan stare: "Too bad it's wasted on you though."
"Well you can go and get fucked!" Jonathan was a little surprised that there was actually some hurt in his voice, that he had taken some genuine offence, and he snatched up the napkin, depositing it into the potted plant behind him, while he recovered his humour.
After watching him, with a smile wiped on her face, Christine once more leant towards Diana to whisper: "And he's foul mouthed too."
Jonathan turned to Annie, feeling that, for the moment at least, Christine had won their tug of war for Diana's attention. Annie covered her mouth as she spoke to him, so her words were hard to make out, and Jonathan did not pay close attention.
"I think I told you," Christine continued, "I need someone to move in to my place. Do you know anybody?"
Diana shook her head: "I know very few people in this city."
  "Then what about you? You're not thinking of an escape from the wilds of Kings Cross yourself are you?" Diana smiled, her hand wandering to the amulet on her neck. "What do you think?" Christine continued. "The peaceful suburban life-style of Darlinghurst might be just what you need. A new scene. Recharge the batteries."
"You think we would be compatible?"
"Oh yes! I think we could be very pattable."
"It is true, Christine, that I am thinking of moving, but I am too used to living alone. I have lived that way ... a long time. I will probably find a place to myself." Her hand left the piece of jewellery, rested lightly on the table. "I am like Jonathan you see, I have some very bad habits."
"Oh well," said Christine after polishing off another glass, "if you change your mind you know where I am."
"Yes," replied Diana, "I do."
When it was time for coffee, Bruno ordered Cognac, and complained that the nip was too small. The waitress explained that it only looked small because the glass was so big.
The conversation turned to the night ahead. Annie invited them all to the Blue City, the band's last gig before studio rehearsals began. Jonathan, his attention caught by a faint crackling, a kind of scratching sound, looked around the table for its source. Bruno was keen to go: yeah, yeah, baby, The Hub, (which played after Wet Money) did this hot Ray Charles set. "Drink up, baby, and we go." He took a gulp of his Cognac. The others sipped their drinks, except Diana, who merely rested her finger-tips on the rim of her glass. The wine reflected red upon her skin. Maybe it's the creaking of the table joints, thought Jonathan, or the floor-boards. Diana's left hand slid from her glass to the linen serviette in her lap. She dabbed her lips with the cloth as Bruno knocked back the last of his brandy.
Bruno felt the brandy's warmth deep in his stomach, but his smile did not last: a stab of pain in his guts stopped him short. His fingers went numb and cold. He tried to hide behind the long breath that he drew. As he looked up he saw that Diana was watching. Annie glanced at him a moment but, seeing his lips turn white, turned away. Bruno looked for Jonathan, but Jonathan was paying him no attention. Christine too had her mind elsewhere, her eyes upon Diana. Diana's white serviette lay lightly crumpled inside her left hand. Bruno saw her smile. Diana turned away, and said to Christine: "I think that your friend has become unwell."
In the dim light, Christine could not see Bruno's aura, but she did not need to. His face was suddenly lined and old, stony-pale. "Let's pay the bill mate," she said to Bruno from across the table. Jonathan could not get the sound out of his mind, the crackling, the scratching, a kind of dragging sound. Now it seemed that it was coming from behind him. "We'll share a cab, eh?"
"No," Bruno said, "I'll go by myself. You can stay."
"Don't be a dill, we'll come with you. Jonathan, you right?"
Bruno looked from Christine to Jonathan, who now had his back turned. In the confusion, Diana's face had retained its smile. "No," he said, as the pain came again, and he failed to keep the shock of it from his voice. "By myself."
Christine stood. "Hey Jonathan! Bruno isn't feeling too good," and she poked him where she was sure it would hurt, "let's split." Jonathan looked up this time, but Christine could see that he did not know what had been going on, and that the sharp little pain she inflicted had just added to his confusion. Another groan forced its way through Bruno's throat. She turned to him: "Gimme thirty bucks." Bruno stared back at her. "We're gonna pay. Come on. I'm not a charity. Thirty bucks!" Christine peeled off thirty of her own, slapping it onto the table in front of Jonathan. "See you later," she said. "You've been an inspiration." As Jonathan turned to watch them leave, he saw through the corner of his eye a white blur, down to his right. In with the potted plant was the white napkin he had used to crush the cockroach, the linen stained with the brownish juice of the insect's insides. One leg was moving back and forth, back and forth, its barbs catching again and again on the tight weave.

"You can see the moon rise. The sound of the waves is like voices." Annie and Murdoch had split for their gig on Oxford Street, leaving Diana and Jonathan to finish the last of the wine. She confided her plan to move away from Victoria Street. A place was virtually secured, she told him over a full glass, in a new high-rise overlooking the cliffs of South Head. "It will be perfect for me. That is, if the lease comes through."
"Where is it exactly?"
"It is right on the edge. Macquarie Villa. It was once a lighthouse."
"I know it, down by The Gap - luxury apartments on a site like that - it's a disgrace."
"It looks out to the sea."
"And now it's up I suppose it might as well get lived in. Have you got enough money for a place like that?"
"My solicitor says I do. My uncle had more assets than the family knew."
"And you've got it right away?"
"No. I have borrowed on my expectations."
"Is it safe to do that?"
Diana smiled indulgently, looking down into her wine, her white fingers rosy with reflected light. "It may not be safe, of course. Things can go wrong. But I am confident that my solicitor's advice is good."
"So... Spectacular ocean views! Do I get to see?"
"Of course. Next week, I hope. I would like you and Christine to come for a house-warming dinner. Can you come?"
They drank to it, and Diana accepted Jonathan's offer to walk her home.

Diana! Episode 8

Chapter 11 cont...


Taking her place opposite, beneath the shade of a Cinzano umbrella, Diana reached at once for the menu, smacking her bright lips. "So. What will you be eating?" Jonathan ordered an open sandwich with turkey, in honour of the band, while Diana chose a small salad and a chicken-liver pate.
She was wearing the same burgundy pullover from the night they bumped into each other at Raphael's. And the gold chain too, he noticed, although attached to it this time was a kind of small, shiny disk. In the cool sunlight, the little amulet flickered, sparkled. At first sight, the medallion had seemed entirely black, but Jonathan now caught the faintest glimmer of a gold thread marking a part of its circumference.
"That's beautiful," gesturing with his eyes.
Holding it away from her chest, she looked down at it briefly, before returning her attention to Jonathan. "Thank you. It is a beautiful thing."
And now Jonathan reached out. He felt the faint caress of the outmost fibres of Diana's sweater against the hairs of the back of his hand. The medallion was strangely heavy in his finger-tips. "What is it?"
"I believe it is the new moon. The Queen of Heaven."
"Well, she's lookin' a little thin."
"Not thin. Young."
"Sorry," Michael said. "Is it some sort of good luck charm, then?"
"I hope so. It is an heirloom, but it only came into my hands today. Through my lawyer."
"I never heard of a lawyer working on the Sabbath before. Why's a law abiding citizen hanging about with lawyers anyway?"
"Family business. This little charm belonged to my uncle, apparently, and when he died, he left it to me."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"There is no need. He died many years ago. It is just that his lawyers could not find me, hidden away here in Australia. They say he has left me some money. I don't suppose the sum is very large, but there is no way of telling precisely. Not until the estate is settled."
"Were you close?"
"Not close. I wrote to him once a long time ago. In Austria. The last time I saw him I was a little child, so young. All I can remember is his beard and his big face, and the smell of tobacco."  As if reminded, she took out a cigarette, "Do you mind?"
"No, not at all, although I forgot my lighter today."
In the glass ash-tray there was a book of matches stamped with the cafe's insignia. She used this, and returned it to the table, blowing smoke into the open air. In a moment, the sun broke clear above the branches, the light becoming heavy and intense. Jonathan's hangover reasserted itself, and he took his sunglasses from his breast pocket, sighing with relief as the light softened. His scratched Ray Bans, repaired with glue and a rubber-band, rested unevenly on his nose.
"Wouldn't it be great to be the one who invented these things," he said with a smile, leaning back and glancing toward the friendly sky, "just to go through life knowing that you were the one who made the world a darker place in which to live."
When their food was served, Diana tucked right in, digging one cracker after another into the creamy liver paste. Jonathan, though, had over-estimated his powers of recovery, and could only manage a nibble at some parsley.
"I enjoyed that song of yours last night." He looked up at her, spinning the green stalk in his pale fingers. "It made me laugh." Jonathan tried unsuccessfully to recall Diana laughing during his song, but she continued: "How many songs have you and Christine written?"
"About a dozen. But only about four good ones."
"How do you know when a song isn't good?"
"I don't know how other people tell, but when Christine doesn't want to go over it about a hundred times, I know it isn't worth saving."
"How did you tell before you started working with her?"
"I didn't. I just kept writing them and trying to palm them off on bands. I don't think I wanted to write good songs, so much as just be a song writer."
"And Christine, she wants to write good songs?"
"I think that's it."
"I don't know if I could work in a partnership of that kind. If you like something - a word or a note, and she does not. Who has the final say?"
Jonathan had to think about this one: "I don't know. No-one. It depends on who feels most strongly."
"And who normally feels most strongly?"
"Christine I guess. I don't know. Sometimes it's me, but she might give you a different answer. We just do it as it goes along."
Jonathan tried to look Diana in the eye, but she was looking past him, into the distance. There was a distance, too, in her voice. "I think true partnerships are very rare. Someone will always dominate."
"Sure. As long as it isn't always the same person."
  "Have you thought of writing by yourself again?"
"I don't think I could."
She lit another cigarette and took a long drag, releasing the smoke in a slow stream.
"But there is the freedom. You do what you want, and when you have done it, it is yours." Although he rarely found cigarette smoke appealing, Jonathan was taken by its clean whiteness as it drifted into the daylight, how it caught, how it contained the rays of sun-light that speared through nearby trees. In the weak breeze, the smoke-cloud hung together as it drifted from them, breaking, like slow surf, against the white-washed building. He yanked his attention back towards Diana, hoping he had not been rude by gazing too long into space.
"Then there's the responsibility to consider."
"But you have done it before," she insisted.
"Yeah," grinning, "and look where it got me - I have the admiration and respect of Young Turkeys everywhere."
"Perhaps, Jonathan, all you need is the right kind of inspiration."

Music faded to nothing. "So?" She was mad at him. She wanted him in no doubt about this.
"Um, it's good." He looked across at her but her smile was flat and uncommunicative. "It's nice. But don't you think the strings and the choir are, you know, a bit much?"
"I think it's good." She had a plan. "I think it fills it out."
"But Wet Money doesn't use synthesisers."
"Perhaps they should."
"Christine, we've got to be serious about this."
"If you wanted to have your say on the mix-down, you should have been here." Jonathan had told Christine that he had slept in. When she rang he must have been in the shower.
"But it doesn't sound anything like the Wets."
"That's their job." Christine unloaded the cassette deck. "They're the fucking band, they know what they sound like."
"If we don't make the song sound like them, they'll be insulted. And if they have to make changes, they'll stuff it up. Or worse, they'll get scared and won't try it for the album at all. We've got to give it to them perfect, so all they have to do is learn it. You know: follow the bouncing ball."
"Ring Bruno at work then. Tell him you don't like it."
"Well," said Jonathan, looking away, his aura all a flutter.
"I thought we had to be serious about this."
"Okay, I will." Making no move.
"Go on then."
"Fine." He sat back in the arm chair and sighed. "It's not that it's bad. It's good. But it could be better."
"That's right, John baby: you tell him." Christine allowed herself a smile; Bruno would re-mix the tape the way they wanted it, and it wasn't she who had to break the news. "I'll make something to eat while you're on the phone - want anything?"
"No thanks," said Jonathan, "I've eaten."

It took about five minutes of health, weather and drug anecdotes, before Jonathan managed to broach the subject of a new mix. Christine would have preferred a little of that old Bruno hysteria, just to make Jonathan squirm a little, but as far as she could hear from the kitchen, Bruno hadn't minded at all. Oh well. Soon after, Jonathan had left with that 'I've been a good boy' bounce in his step. Christine did not blame him for this. Not exactly.
Sunlight on her lumpy neck, she dug up the earth surrounding a batch of newly planted chilli seedlings, turning up the roots of the weeds to let them choke in the sun. A twinge in her shoulder told her that gardening was over for the day. Her knees clicked as she rose. "Annabel!" she called, and she waited until the cat had slunk through the door before she went inside. It was not safe to leave a cat out while seedlings were new and the soil freshly turned.
The muscles of her arm tightened under the cold water from the laundry tap, and the high part of her shoulder cramped uncomfortably. She reached behind her neck with her left hand, and probed with her fingers the hard lump of bone and skin. It felt ugly, and now, as though the feeling were contagious, the pleasure she usually took in her body began to drain from her.
In the small, age-spotted mirror, she looked herself over, her short straw-coloured hair, her hazel eyes, nondescript. Her father had eyes of blue, though over the years the whites had become yellow and watery from drinking. Her brown hand kneaded the muscle above her shoulder. That lump on her back was ugly, and it was hard to forget an ugly thing. Although she had ceased to be self-conscious in the childhood sense of hiding or fighting, she knew that this hump was not what people wanted to see, and that even some of her friends disliked the look and touch of it. She felt the aversion in their embrace. They preferred lovely, straight backs. Like Diana's.
When does a person feel beautiful? she wondered. After good sex? But that was more a feeling of cleverness, of almost shocked pride, shared or otherwise. When the weather was cool, she thought, and the air was clear and the sunlight rested easily on your skin; when you woke from a long sleep and a dream, and there was nothing to do but remember it. She laughed at herself: 'these are a few of my favourite things'. Her mother had possessed that knack of making her feel beautiful, even more than her father had, her father who had called her beautiful, used that word, often. Christine once again probed her shoulder massaging some of the tension out of the hard, twisted muscle.
Her mother had read fortunes for a living. She told her young daughter stories of ugly lines within beautiful hands: hands she had seen and read in canvas tents beside any number of country highways. These lines, she said, could speak of violence and hate. Men would ask if they were soon to be rich and she had replied, invariably, yes. Ugly stories inside beautiful books. But, she would say, holding Christine's palm face-up inside her own, the story is the book, and ugly is as ugly does. It was one of her sayings, like 'In this world there is a place for everything - except blowflies'. This she would repeat while pacing the dirt floor, red swatter poised, in pursuit of some heavy-laden beast with only moments to live. Christine could hear even now the thick buzzing in the muffled heat, and her mother's scratchy voice: The problem isn't that they exist, she would say, stalking through the hot tent that was their home, it's that they still exist. Whack! It occurred to Christine that maybe here was a reason she had teamed up with Jonathan, the Cockroach Crusader.
Country shows smelled of horse-shit and fairy floss, and it was at one of these that Christine's mother had met the man who was to become Christine's father, or step-father, to be precise. Christine had turned eight and had just completed her first season as mistress of the cash-box. After six months she could snap, count, and bundle notes with the best of them.
Standing now at the laundry tub, Christine looked down at her fingers and remembered the stain of country money, the smell of it, and how at the end of the week's count she needed to wash her hands twice before the soap would lather: hard water, dirty money. Christine's new dad was a shop keeper from town. Her mother told her she had seen their marriage in the cards. Christine knew somehow that this was not true, and this had troubled her twice-over: How did she know it wasn't true, and Why would her mother lie?
In a few months the two were married, and in a few months more Christine's mother died of an infection late in her pregnancy. Perhaps it was one of those occasions, as in the myths of Greece, that seeking to avoid her fate, she had turned aside onto the path that led her there. Like Christine herself with Carrie's two-timing, fear of something created that thing. In any case, Christine had been left with a good father, and the memory of a mother who had that knack of making her feel beautiful.

Diana! Episode 7

10 "For months at a time, the memory of pain was enough."

Christine smacked down the telephone handset, and the bell inside rang in a kind of whimper. No answer at Jonathan's. "No point waiting I guess," and she took from the coffee-table the cassette that Bruno had given her. She slipped it into the player. In the double couch opposite, Bruno, two fingers in his mouth, tapped his cracked nails up against his yellow teeth, as the music began.

Who drank from that cup?

Were the sheets ruffled on the bed?

The telephone. Who was that ringing up?

Suspicion.

His other hand held a glass containing a few sips, or perhaps one gulp, of red wine. Bruno's nails were longer than men usually kept them. They were stained and jagged, but he found them helpful in turning the tiny screws used in electronics, for opening packages, and he liked the way they would catch onto things. Last night, while Christine and Jonathan had been at The Rose, he had worked on the mix-down, sneaking some time in the Channel Ten multi-track studio.

I go through your drawer,

Hate myself just a little more.

You step out, honey I'm walking the floor,

Suspicion.

Christine clicked her tongue against her teeth and did not care if Bruno heard. Behind their basic recording of guitars and drum machine, he had added computer-generated harmonies and strings. This was not the sound they had discussed for the song she and Jonathan hoped to sell to Wet Money. How many chances did you get in this kind of business? A flat 'No' was daily currency, or that glazed, pained look, accompanied by: "Send me a tape", which generally meant the same thing. Christine did not want song-writing to be her life, but she wanted it.

Bruno sat within his yellow aura. It was darker than usual: a smoky, mustard colour. What this meant, Christine did not know. Auras are not like fingerprints; they change continually, so comparisons were risky. Then there was the complication that each aura is seen through your own aura. So: who had altered, Christine or Bruno, or perhaps the air between them? Who could say? Christine was no expert. She saw her first aura only a couple of years back. At first, bemused, she had consulted books like The Etheric Double by AE Powell, CW Leadbeater's Invisible Helpers and Annie Besant's Man And His Bodies, but they all seemed to be based on the pre-Freud hocus pocus of the nineteenth century: please find enclosed diagrams of the spirit, road maps for the soul. As if Freud wasn't bad enough.

Bruno's knees poked up out of the too-soft two-seater. He reached over to rest his almost empty glass on the arm of the couch, but it wouldn't balance. He leant down to place the glass on the floor, but found that he could not quite reach. So he was left cradling his glass in his sunken lap.

I'm digging a hole, I'm digging my own grave,

When you know it's only you that I crave.

Who's gonna save me from suspicion?

Christine gave it some more thought. The mix would have cost them a couple of hundred bucks at least. Bruno had done it as a favour;  he had to have some fun. If it was going to be a team effort, well, a team effort it had to be. The poor bugger spent most of his working hours riding the fader of a single microphone as the voice-over man delivered lines like: 'And Neighbours returns at the same time next week' and 'What happens when a group of crazy teenage boys and some naughty private school girls wind up at the same ski resort??....' And then there was the colour of his aura:  that smoky, mustard yellow.

There's a stranger in the house we don't want to be.

I know he looks a little like me.

I can't seem to get myself free of suspicion.

Bruno, in his rough multi-European accent, broke in over the last orchestral crescendo: "So baby! You like?" She just wanted the song to sound the way it should.

"It's great. But... do we really need the strings and the choir?"

"Oh baby," he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice, "I couldn't help it."

"Um." All that potential on the studio's processor and sampler, going to waste. Bruno's teeth were yellow as he looked up at her. "Thanks:" she cracked. "Thank you very much. I love it, Bruno. It's great."

She rewound the cassette, listened to the wheels turn as she sat in the best chair, now joined by her cat, Annabel. She ran her fingers through the cat's slippery fur. Bruno drained his glass and leant back into the couch, smiling, sitting with his bum down and his knees up. Christine would not give him his dope or the brandy just yet, because he would be insulted. Bruno was easily insulted - his duty as Temperamental Europe's representative on Earth. Born in the Italian Alps, of French and German parents, he pronounced catastrophe 'catastroff' and said 'for all intensive purposes'. He liked to make an impression.

Christine would keep the presents in reserve until Bruno was about to leave. He was expecting the dope, but the Cognac would be a surprize. Maybe she would wait just long enough for him to wonder if he should remind her about the green stuff. Make him shuffle a little at the door. If he was going to call her 'baby' all the time, he had to expect something in return.

"Another glass?"

"Of course another glass." He leant forward and his stomach rumbled. Bruno's insides were not in good shape, so red wine was often off the list. For weeks, sometimes for months at a time, the memory of pain was enough to keep him from drinking, but when he did drink he acted as if he had never thought of giving up. It was a blow to his pride to have to say no to anything. He lit a Camel and the smoke rose. Christine allowed him to continue. She walked over with the bottle of wine. From down amongst the bent cushions, Bruno held his glass aloft, and Christine poured.

"Oh baby, this is beautiful!" His body was not made to endure the things that he loved. Could he help this?

"Jonathan is supposed to be here."

"He is probably with some chick."

"He's just weak. He leaves me with the decisions so he can complain about them after."

"He will love it, ain't no worry. She'll be apple as cake." Bruno had his little ways. He spoke French perfectly, Italian, and three German dialects; but in English, which had been his day-to-day language for twenty years, he absolutely refused to become proficient. To him the language was tainted and deserved to be brutalised. Like his body, Christine wondered.

11 "The Queen of Heaven about to be reborn."

Nursing a slight hang-over from The Rose, Jonathan asked for a glass of water with his cappuccino. He adjusted his sunglasses against the early light. Jonathan had come early so he could drink a cup alone, giving him time to settle his nerves. How would Diana like him? What would he say? What if it all went horribly wrong? Time to himself, it now became apparent, was the last thing he needed. He let his eyes wander across the tables, the moving figure of a black and white waitress, the open courtyard and the reclaimed colonial brick of Hyde Park Barracks. It was all wrong. He should have suggested some place he knew, some place in Darlo. He had heard the sandwiches here were good. Stacked. They had better be.

Jonathan's doubts heated up as his coffee cooled down, but it was not long before Diana arrived, mercifully on time. In the courtyard of Hyde Park Barracks Cafe the quartz pebbles squeaked under the pressure of her footfall. Jonathan squinted as he removed his glasses, smiling as broadly as he could manage against the onset of pain. Before he could say much more than hello, she excused herself for the toilet. On returning, her lips had become red and shiny with new lipstick.

Diana! Episode 6

7 "Becoming darker, better defined, and closing in."

The sun set two hours ago, and in some parts of the city, on the western horizon, the black sky relinquishes itself to a deep violet. But not by the harbour at Woolloomooloo Bay. Which waits, a black surface, for a certain man on a certain occasion.
This man does not go for after dinner walks. As a rule. His body is protesting. His day at work had been no harder than usual, but after sitting in front of the TV, and at dinner, his hips are stiff and his calf muscles hurt; as he walks he feels uncomfortable, awkward: he hopes that nobody is watching.
He and his wife and his three bits of trouble share a government town house four blocks behind him. Among the Abos and the Arabs. And this is where he is going to stay. There was a ministerial announcement last month: Who to? he wonders, because he only heard about it last week, and he only got the letter yesterday. There's been a policy change, and he has been taken off the waiting list for That Bigger Place he and Jane had hoped for. The kids will just have to make do with the one room. Katie and Andrew will just have to stop fighting. He tells himself: 'I will have to put a stop to it'.
The moon had been climbing the firmament since late afternoon. From the windy scaffolding he had got a good look at it, and it at him. Its darker regions dissolved into pale blue. But the sky is dark now and the white moon is big and grinning and bright. He gets a good look at it from the harbour wall, and it gets a good look at him.
He sees the harbour flotsam. There are blue plastic bags and white ones. Leaves and sticks, cigarette butts, and a plank with a nail in it. The slight harbour swell pushes this rubbish up and against the sandstone wall. Some pieces stick to the sea slime and are picked up again by the next surge. Up and down, against and away, like breathing.
He hacks and spits into the water. His spittle is white and holds together like sperm, and the tide guides it gently in amongst the rubbish. There is a sound overhead, a leathery, thumping sound, and he looks up to see a fruit-bat, one of several, making through the haze to feed on the giant figs of Sydney's Botanical Gardens. Light-posts mark the path ahead. As he walks this man has two shadows: the one in front of him which lengthens and becomes dimmer, and the one behind him, becoming darker, better defined, and closing in.
This man's certain death comes as no relief. He would just as soon it not have come. But now that it is here, well, what is he supposed to do? He struggles. Anyone would. He feels the pain as its grip tightens. Out of love perhaps, this man will not force his body to continue: his body, which is tired, stiff, sore, and soon gives up.
Water is all surface. Everywhere it touches you is where it begins. Like despair. There is so much of it inside him now that he sinks down and down. And now the sticky mud has hold of him and is washed across him and over him.
He is cold, remembers nothing. It will bury him.


8 "I have something that belongs to you."

A knot of blokes near the bar divided and reformed as Diana passed through. "Am I too late?"
"No," Christine had to yell, "they don't play it until the last set." Diana pulled up a chair. "Diana, this is Jonathan." Diana's handshake was good and firm. He liked that.
"Pleased to meet you again. Oh yes. I have something that belongs to you. Here," and she handed him his little plastic joint-lighter. Jonathan laughed as he tucked it away into a pocket. "And," she said, turning to Christine, "pleased to see you again also."
Christine reached for Diana's hand. Drawing her closer, she kissed her cheek.
Diana leant back into her chair and returned a smile. Christine licked her lips before taking another drink. She tasted something. Salt. But now the cold beer had washed the taste away.


Sunday 21 July

9 "It will suit that chain you're wearing."

Mr Travers' big lips separate from Diana's, then, separating, smile. "You must be feeling better. I'm happy for you." Diana takes a step back and Travers retains his hold on her hands before letting them fall. "Oh yes my dear, and I have something for you. Part of your inheritance." And he laughs quietly as he crosses the floor, taking a set of keys from his pocket and opening the lowest drawer of his desk. Inside, a circular shape, like a coin, lies upon a closely-typed contract that carries Jonathan's name and Diana's signature, still glistening and damp, in black ink.
She has barely changed position by the time Mr Travers is again before her, proffering his open hand. Without touching his skin, Diana picks the object from inside his pink palm. She inspects the little item of jewellery: a medallion slightly smaller than a twenty-cent piece, a polished disk of unadorned ebony.
"Thank you," turning it in the light, looking into its darkness.
"It will suit that chain you're wearing beautifully, don't you agree?" When she fails to answer, he continues: "I hope it doesn't make that boy of yours jealous. But it's not a gift you understand, it's simply what is due to you. You'll explain this to … to … "
"Jonathan."
"Jonathan, of course. Where was I now? Yes, my dear, this little trinket is simply what is rightfully yours, now that you have given me what is mine."
Diana presses her new possession against her lips, feeling its hardness and its coldness on the spongy warmth of her skin. She looks up. "You know it then. Last night. The first."
"Not the first, surely," he says through his fat smile, "but yes, the wheel is turning. Like the clock - four for the quarters …"
"Like the clock. I suppose."
"And look, dear girl, already your life is evolving as it should."
Diana follows his gaze down to the object in her hand. She had thought the disk was plain, blank as shut-in darkness, but now she sees, catching in the light, a slender gold thread, fine as the hair of a child, tracing a portion of the medallion's outline.
"The new moon," says Travers.
"The Queen of Heaven," whispers Diana.
"Waiting to be born."
Diana closes her fingers over the sliver of brightness, sliding the medallion into her pocket.
"You'll see him again soon? Jonathan?"
"This morning."
"Good," Travers says with finality, as he returns to his desk. Settling into his chair, leaning his head back, he draws his fingers through his close-cropped hair. The sound of it is brittle, abrasive. His Adam's apple, round as an egg, rises and falls as he swallows.
"Mr Travers?"
He looks across at her, brow creased in mock inquiry. "Yes, Diana. Is there something else?"
"It's just … " She takes a breath so that she can say, steadily, "I still cannot remember."
"What is it my darling, what is it that you cannot remember?" The word 'cannot' he twists with contempt.
"Everything. My life," Diana replies. "What have I done?"

The door closes behind her. Diana steps out into the street. The harbour wind hurries through the shadowy canyon of Bent Street. A tree has been transplanted into freshly dug earth at the entrance of a row of offices, tarted-up terraces, once the refuge of the crazed, the drug-crazed, and the hungry. As Diana walks by, she looks up at the highest branches that reach into the daylight. The tree sheds a dead branch, and Diana watches it clatter its way earthward. She picks it from the ground, rolls it in her hand, seeing that it is about twice the width of her thickest finger. The wood is grey and dry, and she feels its hard surface and its strange, sapless buoyancy.
A fluke gust pushes back Diana's black hair, and she squints against the dust. There is a crack as the branch snaps, and Diana looks down at the two pieces she now holds, and lets them fall. As she walks towards Macquarie Street the word she mutters under her breath is probably: 'Yes'.

Diana! Episode 5

(Chapter 5 cont.)

The rose hip tea tasted sweet and sharp, and, by now, comfortably warm. Christine saw her fingers red, felt them warm, as she withdrew the cup from her mouth.
Diana had her back to the window. Flowing past her and into the room, a steady orange sunlight was interrupted by the occasional white flash reflected from the traffic outside.
"You have a nice house. You are here alone?"
"Sometimes."
"I mean, there is someone who shares the rent."
"I know. I'm just being difficult."
"That mean streak of yours."
"I suppose." Christine tried not to react, but this piece of perception, if you could call it that, pleased her. "I used to share with a lover, but that's been over for months." She exaggerated. It had been only a matter of weeks since Carrie had left her, but Christine did not want to frighten Diana with the prospect of a freshly injured heart. "I'll stay here by myself for a little while. I might clear out the spare room and get someone in. I might find another lover." Diana smiled, rising easily from the deep chair. Christine followed her with her eyes. "But I'll probably move out - I can't afford it much longer." Diana took a few paces across the carpet, and Christine saw that the talk and the tea had done her good.
Without looking at the Man Ray shot that most people could not keep their eyes off, Diana crossed the room. Her short, black coat rested evenly across her shoulders, then fell in a line where her spine curved inward, leaving the pleated hem to rest on her blue-jeaned buttocks. A lovely, straight back Christine thought.
Diana examined the stack of records. Nearby on the shelf was the picture that had attracted her attention earlier, a photograph of a middle-aged woman with straw coloured hair; she had some cards splayed on the table before her, and she was looking out of the frame and into the world. Diana flipped through the records, and in the process turned the photograph aside: "And your no-longer-lover is not that man you were with last night?"
"No," Christine laughed. "God no. I don't have male lovers. Not since I discovered women." Diana continued filing through the records. For Christine, it was hard to know what this non-reaction meant. Some women were shocked when she told them about her sexuality, and some were shocked and then ashamed of their own reactions, then made excuses to get away. Some women thought they'd be raped. Others were simply interested, and some women, gay or straight, became very interested indeed. Christine was proud of her ability to spot a dyke. She looked at Diana and could not make up her mind. Then again, she thought, there are dykes and dykes.
Diana took out a record. "Do you mind?"
Christine recognised the Brahms piano trio. "Go for your life."
Diana looked over the amplifier, the little mixer. Christine's knees clicked as she rose to help.
"No need," and her muscles formed a defined column up her neck as she turned her head. "I am rather good with technical things. It is just Input and Output, is it not?" Christine watched as Diana turned on the amp and the mixer, chose the correct turntable and settings. Soon, the first sliding, gentle notes of the piano were answered in layers by cello and violin. Like coloured lights overlaid on water.
Still standing, Christine tried to get a focus on Diana's aura, but the music-colour distracted her. Diana moved closer, stepping into a square of strong light cast from the window, and Christine's eyes were slow to readjust. A truck went by, like a shutter.
"So what is this fellow's name?" Diana asked, returning to her chair.
Christine sat again as well, with the feeling that she had somehow been permitted to do so.
"Who?"
"The fellow you were with last night."
"That's Jonathan. He writes lyrics."
"And you write music."
"That's right. If we stick together we could be small."
"You are not ambitious?"
"He is, in a meandering kind of way. I guess I am too. Writing songs is fun, and I reckon we'll find a few bands around town who'll play them. Fame and fortune is a bonus, that's the way I see it. At the moment we're just concentrating on getting that first band. Shit!" She remembered. "Pia, she's a friend, she's expecting me to pick up some gear. Are you all right?"
"Yes. I'm sure."
"Jonathan and I have some recording to do. I just..."
"I am fine, fine. I'm sure."
"Good, 'cause I'd really better get going. I'll ring you a cab."
"I only live in Victoria Street. I can walk."
"Walk my arse! You'll wreck my good work. I'll ring a cab."
"Thank you. You have been very kind to me."
Now Christine realised that she had moved too fast. Diana could be gone for good. The business with Pia could wait; she had not intended to mention it. Having let it out, she had backed herself into a corner. "Listen," she thought fast, "the Young Turkeys are doing one of Jonathan's old songs Saturday at The Rose. I was thinking of going. He'll be there too. Would you like to come?"
Diana smiled: "I would love to."
After half an hour the cab tooted out front. They had hardly left their seats before the horn peeled out again, long and loud. On the footpath, Christine felt the hardness of Diana's grip as they shook hands goodbye. Christine looked into the black centre of her eyes, but did not get a second glance. Diana squeezed her hand sharply, and Christine's hand relaxed, retreated in response. Diana slid into the back, and was gone.
The memory, the nerve-echo of her grip, lingered on her skin - those hard, fine bones, hard as the door handle she now twisted open, and clicked shut. She walked across to the stereo, returning the Brahms to its sleeve. She straightened the stack of records, and restored the picture of her mother to its usual place on the shelf. Christine's reflection on the glass shielding hovered above her mother's image. The photograph was an arm's length away, her fugitive reflection was twice that - an arm's length to the glass and an arm's length beyond, at once before and behind the image of her mother. Christine's eyes adjusted and re-adjust as her focus shifted. Her hand on the frame began to perspire, and she released the picture, examined the faint sheen of her palm, then wiped it dry on the back of her jeans.
When she and Diana said their goodbyes, Christine had looked into Diana's perfect eyes. There were lots of things about eyes that could make you want to look closer - clarity or milkiness, colour or penetration, or Jonathan's knack of being big-eyed and squinty-eyed at the same time. None of these things matched Diana. Christine had become aware that her gaze was deepening into Diana's black pupils. Something.
Christine felt a warm, damp sensation about her ankles. The softness slid across her shins and between her legs.
"Hello Annabel," reaching down to scratch beneath her cat's up-help chin. "Now. Where have you been?" Annabel, looking sideways, towards the closed door, said nothing.

Saturday 20 July 1991
Moon: Waxing Gibbous

6 "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

The head Turkey said 'two' into the microphone as Christine set down a schooner for Jonathan and one for herself: the all-important second beer.
"Do you think she'll show?"
"Why shouldn't she?" Christine said, craning her neck and leaning forward to get a look at the stage gear.
"Would you like me to leave early?"
"No need," glancing back at him. "I think it's you she's interested in anyway. Although, frankly, I can't see the attraction." And she twisted on her chair to inspect the hardware, a smile upon her face.
"Did you get Bruno organised?" she asked, this time without turning back.
"Gave him the four-track," Jonathan rolled his schooner glass between his palms. "This week some time, he reckons. Whenever the studio's free. Tonight if we're lucky."
"Right," and she glanced back again. "Tonight then. I feel lucky."
"Beautiful. It's good to at least feel lucky." Christine snorted, returned her attention to the stage set-up.
The 'stage' was a wooden wedge raised about half a metre off the floor, jammed into a corner. The Rose was an old pub and the bar took up far too much room, built so a battalion of bar-staff could contend with the six-o'clock swill. From her table, sitting back in her chair, Christine could see a stack of speakers and the profile of the singer, but not much else. The other side of the pub was for dancing or for standing. Out the back there was plenty of room, among the pool tables and the card machines, but if a glimpse of the band was to be had from there, it was a wild accident, not to be counted on a second time.
The Young Turkeys were a punk/country/surf outfit. They regularly played Jonathan's first publicly performed song: "Since You Left Me, You 'Bin Gone", written before he had struck his partnership with Christine.
Christine and Jonathan had met through her old day job at the Bondi CES. This was a highly seasonal operation, and she liked to think of it as the new agriculture. Business would begin to build through spring, reaching a frenetic peak by February. Then winter set in, the full-time jobs returned to the market, and the seasonal clients migrated north.
In December, tempers and temperatures vied for supremacy, and it was one December that Jonathan's telephone enquiry was mistakenly put through to her. His dole had been cut off due to his tremendous earnings as a full-time song writer and part-time exam supervisor. Christine listened as he complained bitterly, although, really, it had nothing to do with her: she was doing him a favour just by taking the call. When she told him so, he told her a thing or two. She said she was a public servant, not a public slave. He said, right, I'll see what I can do to make your life easier, make a few calls, pull a few strings. She told him he was a fucking idiot and should piss off and bother some other poor sucker. He said 'don't you abuse me over the phone', and she said he could come on in and she would abuse him in person if he preferred. He said, right, that was fine by him. It was fine by her. Right. Right. And so they became friends.
Christine and Jonathan each felt on their fingers the air's moisture, condensed to liquid on the hard glass, as they drank: Christine, in long, slow draughts, Jonathan at a quick gobble. A kind of harmony of consumption. They wanted something to do besides wait.
"Another?"
Behind the black speakers, the drummer hit his sticks for the beat. On 'three' the bass slid down an octave, on 'four' the kick drum got a belt, and on 'one', the Young Turkeys launched into "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance".

Diana! Episode 4

5 "Christine's key slid easily into the lock."

Christine emerged from the shadow of the David Jones building on Elizabeth Street. Keeping to the sunlight, she passed the buildings of the Supreme Court. She had begun to feel quite cold: her toes especially, in her canvas shoes, each aerated by a fraying hole at big-toe level. A car passed close and she felt the slip-stream on her neck. The hump on her shoulder was sensitive to chills, so she gave it a rub. Further along, brass plaques announced: Solicitor, Solicitor. One said: 'Lawrence, Ferguson, Gass and ass'. She snorted: "Lawyer territory."

Christine would not usually choose the morning after a late night to hassle around for equipment, but last night, tired as she was, sleep had eluded her. She had given up trying by about six. By eight her eyes had been sore from reading, by nine her washing hung from the line, and by ten her dishes were stacked drying by the sink. After a second breakfast, she began stretching a few friendships with Sunday morning calls.

The first to relent was Pia. It's hard to know whether ex-lover status qualified you for lesser or greater leeway as far as favours go. This morning at least, Pia had been in no mood to make light of inconvenience, making it clear that she wanted no visitors until twelve at the absolute earliest. So Christine had decided to walk the few kilometres to the Wynyard buses.

Christine exhaled condensation onto the polished brass plaque riveted to the convict-brick wall. With the tip of her finger she drew a pair of crescents joining tip to tip, then a smaller pair inside, to create the shape of a cunt. Before walking on, she watched her art-work slowly vanish.

By the time she reached the corner of Market St, her armpits were becoming moist, though her toes were still numb. She thought of heading down to the GPO Building to check out the gargoyle Queen Victorias that ringed the façade. They were supposed to represent the conquered peoples of the world. Christine liked particularly the Indian Queen Vic - the one with a nose-ring. The Empire had a dyke for a Queen - no doubt.

She was about to turn off Elizabeth when, almost before knowing why, she halted. Stiffened. There is something about the squeal of tyres. Sweat had risen from deep within her, quick and hot, before the echoes faded. Her skin itched. That sound must be in our racial memory, she mused; like the wail of an infant it will unravel the nerves; it will not be ignored. With her nerves all a-jangle, she could not tell if the sound of impact she seemed to recall was real or imagined.

She did not have long to wait. On the corner ahead, Christine walked into a crowd of about a dozen. Even on a Sunday, this end of town was lawyer territory. A couple of suits jockeyed for position. Through the knot of people, talking, speculating, comparing stories, Christine heard: "Thank you. I am all right now." A man stood in the way. She bent at the knees, lowering her centre of gravity as she had been taught in Ninjutsu classes, and shoved him hard in the back: next, a little kid, who said 'fuck off'. She saw a taxi stopped in the street at a strange angle. Then she saw a woman prone on the bitumen, or rather she built a woman's form from a compilation of glimpses snatched through the shifting crowd - a bare calf, the glint of jewellery, the creamy arc of a neck, a hand held palm outwards. It appeared the woman was trying to get up. A man reached out to help her, and another reached to restrain him: "Let her lie still. Give Her Air!" Somebody else was holding a large coat in front of her matador-style, while the taxi driver alternated between apologies and insults. At last Christine's jostling and the crowd's movement conspired to give her a clear view of the victim. The woman on the ground fixed her blue eyes onto Christine: alone, bewildered. "Get me out of this! Please."

The woman from Raphael's appeared thinner and sicker in the sunlight. "Get me out of this." People tugged at her, casting their black shadows over her. She looked as if she wasn't too far from screaming, her eyes growing brighter, more urgent and more blue. Christine took pity on her distress. A man in a suit tried to push past, proffering a small white card, but Christine steadied herself again and with her elbow gave him a good hard jab into the cavity beneath his ribs.

"What's wrong?" She beat him to it.

"I was only knocked to the ground."

Christine touched the red mark on the woman's pale forehead where her skin was slightly roughened and broken. Although the flesh was swollen, and meaty red, there was no blood to speak of. Taking Christine's hand, the woman rose to her feet. When she tried her weight on her left leg, she hissed through clenched teeth. "It is just the knee. It will warm up, I am sure. Please," speaking low, holding Christine tight by the hand, and now the elbow: "get me out of this."

The cab driver was still pressing his apologies, and his abuse. "Shut-up," Christine said and, as he took a breath to continue, "get us to Darlo." His mouth snapped shut, opened, and snapped shut again. "You going to drive or what?" Christine gave the driver her address and they made their escape.

"Do you think you should go to Casualty, see a doctor or something?"

"No!" the woman said quickly. "Thank you. I hate doctors. I never go to doctors. I am fine, honestly. I was just knocked to the ground."

Christine slipped her arm from under her seat-belt, stretching to touch the woman's forehead, where a pink mark now showed beneath a lattice of scratches. "You hit your head. Are you sure you didn't black out?"

The woman looked into Christine's eyes, steadily, like a knocked-down fighter trying to stay in the ring. "No. I am sure. I have had a fright, that is all."

"Then you need to rest a bit. You can have a cup of tea at my place if you like."

"Thank you. I would like that. You are very kind."

The taxi took them through the Cross and into Darlinghurst, dropping them off outside Christine's. The driver dipped his head to look across at them through the passenger window. The fare read $8.20. "You've got to be joking," said Christine.

The cab spun its wheels. Christine revised her thoughts on tyre-squeals - that one felt just fine. She smiled: she had a mean streak. She liked this about herself.

Christine took the woman by her elbow, but the she leant no weight into Christine's grasp as they crossed the footpath. "It's okay. I've got you," Christine reassured. The pressure on her arm increased slightly, but Christine suspected this was mostly for her own benefit. Together they took the three small steps up to the doorway. Christine's key slid easily into the lock. Inside the brass casing, the tumblers made slick contact. The door slid open across the inside rug, and Christine stepped back for her guest to enter. Taking the step, the woman bit back on a cry of pain and her injured knee buckled. Christine caught her, heavy this time, by the elbow, guiding her over the threshold.

"My name's Christine, what's yours?"

"Diana. Diana White." Her voice was heavy and distant. Christine cast her eye about for the best chair. As usual, her cat Annabel had herself coiled right there. The cat had no favourite chair, but seemed to know in advance where you wanted to be. Fussy cat. As Christine began to calculate how she could best leave Diana in order to shovel Annabel aside, the cat looked up milk-eyed towards her mistress, then across at her guest. And scrammed.

"There you go," Christine laughed, as she helped Diana forward, "you can have the best seat. Annabel must like you." Christine leant a hand on the back of the couch, which had a tendency to engulf the unwary. When she entertained mixed company Christine liked to arrange it so that a bloke or - even better - two blokes, sat on the couch. They looked funny: their knees up in the air, their crotches sunk out of sight. That mean streak again. But today she had given Diana the best chair, out of hospitality. Christine thought briefly of the pool of cat-warmth that Diana's bottom was about to settle into and looked in vain for a sign of pleasure or distaste.

"Well! Diana White," clapping her hands, trying to lighten the air, "would you like Earl Grey, chamomile or rose hip?"

"Rose hip please."

"Good choice. Very warming after a shock."

Christine left the room, and Diana looked the place over. The three arm chairs, including the one she was sitting in, bore absolutely no resemblance to one another. A two-seater with concave cushions backed against the wall that joined the flat next door. On the wall opposite, above the bricked-in fire place, hung a Man Ray print of a woman's bum. Records, CDs, and books on shelves. One stack of shelves was devoted to stereo equipment: two turntables, a CD player, a cassette and a reel-to-reel; a mixer, amplifier, and a tuner. On the shelf among the records rested a small framed picture. Diana was about to leave her chair when Christine returned with a tray of provisions.

"So, what's the damage?"

"Please?"

"Give me a look at you." Christine set down two cups of tea, a large bowl of warm, fragrant water, and some bandages and cotton balls. She pushed back Diana's cool, soft hair, and tilted her head so she could inspect the injury. Her forehead was yellow around the red-raw centre, but there was only a slight grazing. In an hour or so there would be a nasty lump. But it was the skin around the wound that bothered Christine: pasty, almost grey, the blue veins showing through. Her cheeks showed no colour, but this was as you might expect after a shock. Her lipstick had been rubbed mostly away and, on her lower lip, there was a small cut where her skin had been torn.

Christine tried to keep her mind on what she was doing. "This'll sting for a bit, but in two days you won't see a thing." She began to press the warm, soaked cotton lightly onto Diana's forehead, cleaning it first, then gently massaging to stimulate the circulation. She enjoyed holding Diana's head in her hands. Diana looked up, and Christine held her glance for a long moment. Perfect eyes. Deep black pupils, clear blue and sharp white. The tiny red blood vessels were beautifully defined and healthy. She had not expected this. Perfect.

"Now, what about your knee? How does it feel?"

"It is a little stiff," flexing her leg back and forth. "It does not hurt."

"I can look at it if you like, but you'll have to take your dacks off."

Without speaking, Diana slipped off her black shoes. A little awkwardly perhaps, but showing no pain, she stood and turned side-on to Christine, unzipping and removing her jeans. Her legs were skinny, and not very pretty. She sat again in her chair, while Christine took her by the leg, holding her in the crook behind her knee. "Stretch out now. Good. Does pressure here hurt at all?"

"Not very much."

She lifted Diana's leg gently by the calf. "Put your foot against my shoulder.  Good. Now, push against me. Anything?"

"No."

"Not much wrong here. Just be kind to yourself for a couple of days. Ms White: you may re-robe."

Again Diana turned to the side, the same side, as she pulled up her jeans. Christine found this modesty attractive.

She returned to her place in the two-seater. Opposite, Diana took up her tea as she reclined in her chair. She cradled her cup in both hands, the steam lingering about her face, then drew in a long mouthful. Reaching for her own cup, Christine didn't notice the rising heat until the liquid seized her skin, scalding the tip of her tongue. She hissed, snapping her head back, then stared suspiciously into her tea's shiny surface. Beneath the moving light the liquid was a deep and rich red. Christine leant back into the couch and took another sip, small and cautious. "So, Diana," she said after swallowing, looking up, "what happened?"

"The lights said walk. I walked. The taxi turned the corner and must not have seen me, at least not straight away. He braked, so by the time he actually hit me, he was not travelling fast. I am sore from hitting the road. I fell awkwardly." Diana had an accent that she could not trace.

Diana! Episode 3

3 "Her little house was empty."

In the orange light of her doorway she separated her house key from all the pad-lock keys she used at the theatre. They felt cold and sharp, and Christine thought of Jonathan's opening lines to their new song:

I fit the key in the door

Of the little house that we share

She should get around to oiling the lock. The key stuck. She had to jam it it, twist it hard. Her door closed on the light behind her. Her little house was empty. She switched on the hall lamp as she walked through to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Why do I feel someone was here before?

Suspicion

Christine didn't mind Jonathan borrowing from her life: it was her life or his, so, obviously, he had made the best choice. She took a glass from the draining tray and turned on the tap. It was all over now anyway. She had played the part of jealous lover with her usual flair. The problem was that Carrie had played the unfaithful bit even better. It was strange how a fear of something could create that thing. Her fear of being left alone had sent Carrie ever further from her. Her anger over Carrie's imagined unfaithfulness meant that Carrie had begun to lie for no reason, and then for good reason. Suspicion. Now, if she could only make this song a success, it would all have been worth it. She looked into the misty liquid inside the glass: "Sure!"

Christine took one gulp and poured the rest down the drain. Carrie had been gone for three weeks, maybe four. She refused to count the days.

The window above the sink was black, and she sung softly to her own reflection: "I'm there when you come home at night, a little after dark, and as you reach out for that light: Suspicion...." She was not completely happy with the melody. And she crossed to the chair by the kitchen table, trying to think of a way to persuade Jonathan to change a line or two, to fit a rhythm she had in mind.

We got two small rooms and a share backyard

Hardly room to swing a cat

If there's no room for this

There's no room for that: Suspicion

The early verses were fine, but the last definitely required surgery. It was not until she found herself absent-mindedly flipping through her message book, with the song still in her head, that she again recalled Carrie, and her real-life suspicions. 'Work,' she thought, 'work.'

She reached for her address book, turning the pages, tallying the ownership of recording equipment against favours given or owed. Pia would be the best bet. She was another ex, but over the last couple of years their friendship had lost its ex-lover awkwardness. There was every chance she would still be awake, but Christine decided to leave it till morning.

From amongst the open envelopes and reminder notes, Christine took a letter post-marked 'Melbourne' from about a week ago: Margaret.  The paper was pink, its top edge torn where it had been ripped from the kind of ultra-cheap note-pad that Margaret always used. Christine ran her eyes over the scratchy hand-writing. Margaret's band was making a move north, so they would be in and out of Sydney for a couple of months at least. She smiled, leant back, recalling the caresses of a long ago drunken night: you could never tell. She might get lucky. And Christine's chair squeaked across the tiles as she headed for the calendar stuck to the far wall - to count the days.

Sunday 14 July

4 "Sincerely, 'Welcome'."

The mat says, sincerely, "Welcome"; but the heavy, green door is closed. The woman presses a red button, speaks a name, and the door opens for her. She walks across the wooden floor which has been polished until it is smooth and shiny and hard. Her steps echo in the space created by the wide flight of stairs and the high ceiling. Each sound is hard and polished, surrounded by silence. Mr Travers' chambers are on level three. His receptionist, forty, with a narrow mouth and hard, red nails, not too long, asks her if she has an appointment. When Diana replies that she does not need one, the woman does not betray her contempt. Mr Travers, she says, will attend to you soon. Wait.

Diana settles into one of five black leather chairs. There is a colour travel magazine on the coffee table, and a copy of the Financial Review, but she gives no thought to either. Although she can smell it brewing, she is not asked if she wants coffee. Inside her pocket, her fingers coil around a plastic lighter. She withdraws her hand and wipes the perspiration onto the leg of her jeans. Diana breathes in and out, a long deep breath. When the door opens, she fills her lungs again before she stands.

"My dear girl," he says, ushering her past. He leaves her standing while he makes for his desk. Mr Travers is a large, pale man with orange, receding hair cropped close to his skull. His eyes are a milky grey, and they quiver in their sockets: a condition know as Nystagmus that distorts his vision past the distance of two long paces. Their incessant vibration ceases only during moments of extreme drunkenness or stupor. He wears a double-breasted suit, pin-striped, with silver buttons. Coarse hair from under his shirt protrudes a little over his white collar. At his gesture, Diana sits opposite. He sits likewise, smiling with large, shiny lips. His eyes too, vibrating, smile. "My dear girl, how pleased, how very pleased I am to see you."

Mr Travers' desk is large and black: the desk-top is dark with the bright flecks, like stars, of mica and quartz. His hands hover above spotless blotting paper as he twists a thick fountain pen around and around in his clean fingers. Diana sees the frame of the window behind him, looking out across Bent Street; the window pane is invisibly clean. The room itself, a lawyer's office with book-shelves, a grey filing cabinet and a computer, has a smell which resembles a dentist's.

"I have an offer. I have found someone." And her voice is steady.

"Ah!" He leans back in his chair which swivels and contours without squeaking. "Straight to business."

"Business. I am not here for my health."

"My girl. Are you not?"

"Will you help me?"

"Of course." Laying down his fountain pen, the lawyer leans forward, pressing his hands on the desk. "If you are sure." Splayed out on the polished surface, his finger-tips create little haloes of vapour.

Diana reaches into her hip pocket. In taking each breath, the diaphragm, the wall of muscle beneath the lungs, pulls away into the stomach cavity and the air pressure within the lungs decreases. As the air pressure inside falls, there is space created for the outside air to escape, briefly, from the weight of the tonnes of atmosphere that press forever down upon the earth. Diana feels all this as she breathes in again and, with effort, exhales, withdrawing the lighter from her pocket as she does so.

"If you are sure, Miss White."

She is not sure. How can she be sure?

"If you prepare the papers," she says, "I will sign."

The lawyer Mr Travers watches as Diana places the lighter upright on the polished desk. "Yes," he says. He takes the lighter from the desk. For a moment the plastic lighter disappears inside his fleshy palm. "And is there a name?"

"Not yet."

"I can help, of course."

"No! No need. I know where to find him."

"Ah!" Mr Travers looks at Diana a moment, then his eyes slip from her, to the little lighter in his palm. "You know best, of course." He rolls the lighter between thumb and forefinger. A spark flies from the flint and the gas ignites, the yellow flame dancing in the moisture of his eyes. "I'll hear from you soon then."

"Soon."

The flame is extinguished, and Mr Travers slips the lighter into a drawer at his right. "Then, my dear, it will be my pleasure to prepare our contract." By the time Diana has fully risen from the chair, the man is already approaching from behind his desk. He takes her hand. "I am delighted that things have worked out for you." He wraps his arms around her waist and draws her to him. "You will be wanting a little something, I am sure. Just to tide you over?"

She looks up at him and prepares to smile, but she does not need to. He pulls her closer, and she leans into him without resistance. He kisses her with his big lips, and she groans faintly, with pain. She takes hold of his wrist, as if to steady herself, pressing her thumb against his blue, pulsing veins. His eyelids slide closed and open, and his glance for a moment is steady and hard. A small trickle of blood slides from between her lips as she eases away from him and he relaxes his grip. Diana wipes away the blood with her finger.

"Be careful," the man calls after her, "on your way home."

Inside his office, Mr Travers holds the lighter up to the sunlight, examining the shadow of the fluid-level within. He rolls back his sleeve. Entering the atmosphere's weaker pressure, the trapped liquid turns to gas, which a spark ignites. Mr Travers holds the yellow flame against the pink skin of his wrist. His nostrils flare as he draws the rich smell, in an easy stream, into his lungs.

The woman steps down onto the footpath. She turns, half on her toes, in the direction of Chifley Square, feeling better already.