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.