Diana! Vampire of Sydney. Episode 12a

"And what have you been up to this morning?" she responded.
        "Not making real estate deals, that's for sure."
        "Have you been busy?"
        "Yeah," Jonathan's guitar and a pile of note-paper lay on the carpet at his feet. "I've been busy."

Mr Travers has his elbows on the table. Diana sets the phone back onto its cradle, sliding it across the desk of polished granite, as Mr Travers leans forward with his finger-tips pressed together, moving them in a vertical version of what children call a spider doing push-ups on a mirror.
        "So," his eyes vibrating above his manicured nails, "we've all been busy. Idle hands do the devil's work. And to be honest, I'd rather do my own. You have been busy I trust?"
        "I've given you two."
        "Only two?" He leans forward with his elbows on his desk. His hands pressed together, he curls down all but his two index fingers, and taps them gently, rhythmically against each other. Here is the church. And here is the steeple.
        Diana looks at his hands, not at his eyes. "Two moons, that is all I have had."
        "My darling, of course you have. I'm not forgetting. One life in each of four quarters, that is all I ask. You've done well, my dear. Yes, so far, very well. And if you don't mind me saying," now the lawyer separates his hands to lay one palm flush on the blue lease document that lies on his desk. "If you don't mind me saying, you are doing very well for yourself also."
        Diana tries to look into those fidgeting eyes, tries to hold them still, but she can't. There are no clues for her here. "I can remember a man named Ryan, and I can remember the water. Dark water. Oily."
        "You see?" He slides the papers off the desk and places them onto the tray at his right. "You're getting better all the time."
        She looks down into her empty hands.
        "You have strength when you need it, isn't that true?"
        "Yes."
        He leans back in his chair. "There you are! You should be satisfied." His smile is wide. "What is it The Phantom said - the one in the opera, not the jungle you understand - 'When you sing, you will sing only for me'. You're not thinking of moonlighting I hope. Only those in the cycle, only those who have been touched for death, you understand?"
        Diana's gaze slides from her creamy palm, across the polished surface of Mr Travers' desk, up his neck, and is parried by his quivering eyes. "It is not that. It is not what I want to do, it is what I want to know. It is not enough."
        "It doesn't have to be. Patience. For you my dear, the sky is truly the limit." He places a pink hand on the document tray. "Others in your position would consider themselves lucky." Again he leans forward, elbows on granite, finger-tips together, his eyes looking across the sharp crescents of his shiny nails. "Now," he says, "how's about a little kiss."

Still sitting by the phone, Jonathan took up his guitar and ran through the first verse:

        River mist in the reeds, white moon in the sky
        Black time flowing by
        Your brand new car, making tracks
        I feel that monkey gripping onto my back
        You got a new ambition, got a new superstition I know
        You got a letter in your hand, a ring down upon your toe
        You're gonna come back to town carrying buckets of cash
        You've made a big deal, you're gonna make a splash

He leant his guitar against a stack of shelves that he had built himself out of a couple of discarded crates and a pine pallet. It was a source of wonder to him that you could measure out a length on one piece of board, and then on another, and although they were on different pieces of wood altogether, the distances would be the same, and the joins would stick. It was a sign that the world made sense, that things which should happen, could happen. And that's why he liked making songs to rhyme - these words sung by different people in bathrooms, bars or studios, would still fit into place.
        He ran the words through his head, and they seemed solid and firm. For the first time in almost a year Jonathan had completed a song all of his own. And it came easily. Still, he would give it a burl with Christine, just to be sure, before letting Diana in on the good news.

The washing had taken hours to complete, Christine pouring buckets of water into her broken-down machine. Hanging out her clothes in the warm sun had given her no pleasure. Her shirts, pegged out with their arms dangling, looked human somehow, and horrible.
        She was expecting Bruno's call, but when the phone rang, all she could think of was Jonathan. But why would he call? She did not want to hear from him. Not now. Inside her head there were two voices. On the line there seemed to be two voices also, all mixed up. It took her a while to latch on to what Jonathan was telling her.
        "What?" She heard too much. He spoke too quickly.
        "Don't be dense, Christine. Voodoo!"
        "I what?"
        "Christine! You haven't been listening."
        "Sorry. I haven't. I got a call from Bruno. He's sick."
        "Well, can I come around and play it to you?"
        "Play what?"
        "My new song ..." Christine tried to listen as he explained that he'd written something new: words, the music, everything, just like he used to do, only this time it was great, he said, great. Christine, worried about Bruno, did not want to hear this. Trying to deflect him, she asked about last night's dinner. What happened after she left?
        "Nothing. We went home." He told her he would come by this afternoon to play the song for her. "See you soon." Christine hung up, swallowed hard on a sour taste. Not one question about Bruno.
        Jonathan was at the door, and still there had been no word from Bruno. With a greeting of scarcely more than a grunt, her friend pushed past her into her lounge room, taking her guitar from its stand without asking. And he sat, smiling and healthy inside his blue aura. The guitar was cradled in his lap as he picked out a slow blues.

        The big print gives, the small takes away
        Business works that way
        I can still see the blood upon your dress
        Still get that sweet, sweet taste of your success

As usual, Jonathan's face flushed as he played - no wonder he didn't perform songs himself. But Christine saw that the redness on his cheek was more than a blush.

        White moon, grey light
        Something here just is not right
        I can see the rising sun
        But I just don't know where the night has gone

        So long girl, guess I'll be seeing you soon
        Till then it's just back to my books and my room
        Sure look forward to when I see you again
        And you can introduce me to all your flash new friends

        "Well?" he said. "What do you reckon?"
        "It's..."
        "It needs tom-toms and a key-board wash." Christine looked at him. The mark on his face was definitely some kind of wound or graze. Jonathan rested the guitar against the side of his chair. "Maybe a slide guitar. And no high-hat or snare - you know, like Daniel Lanois did for the Neville Brothers on Yellow Moon."
        Most people with a mark on their face will touch it now and then, or move their hand as if to touch it, but refrain. Jonathan did none of these things. It was not serious, not in the least, but still, under some circumstances, Christine might have suggested a dressing of comfrey.
        "Bruno still hasn't called."
        "He's probably fine then."
        "What would you know?"
        "You still haven't told me what you think of the song."
        "Where did you get that bruise?"
        "What bruise?" Jonathan raised his hand to his face, his finger-tips wandering across the surface before locating the swollen, tender flesh. He touched it, pressed it, and for the first time felt the pain. He told her he couldn't remember how he came by it.
        "Maybe," Christine suggested, "Diana was a little rough with you." And right now she wouldn't mind being a little rough with him herself.
        Jonathan did not stay long: there were some other people he'd like to play his song to. Moving from room to room, Christine had to make a conscious effort not to glance at the phone. Jonathan had not seemed at all anxious for Bruno. It was Jonathan who had introduced them, He was more Jonathan's friend than hers, but Jonathan had not mentioned him at all, not asked after him at all. Christine could not think why he would show so little concern for his friend.

When you were waiting for a job to come through, or for that new woman to ring; when you were waiting to hear from your sick friend - that was when the phone ran hot with everything but the call you wanted. Jonathan was only the first. Pia wanted her equipment back. Margaret had some tour dates. Some bloke asked her if she wanted to participate in a market survey into cat-food. She told him she preferred dog-food, and hung up. Christine would be pacing through her little house. She would click her tongue in annoyance, exasperation, and then the phone would ring. Vetting the calls with the answering machine did no good. The thirty seconds it took for the message to spout was a good twenty seconds longer than she would give the caller anyway - and she already knew who was on the line.
        Things were getting altogether too weird. Almost every time the phone rang these past few days, she knew who would be at the other end. Sometimes when she picked up the receiver she would launch half-way into the conversation she knew she was about to have. Auras. And now this.
        Auras had appeared to her first during the muscular and breathing exercises at her Ninjutsu class. That was five years ago. The colours just seemed to come into focus, like a bud that blooms over night.         Christine closed her eyes. She sees too much, and now she was hearing too much. What had done it this time, she wondered, what had triggered this latest change? Diana maybe: something to do with her.
        From the front step came the unmistakable slap of a newspaper, the Wentworth Courier. Perfect, thought Christine, it would keep her mind off reality. She opened the door, reaching down at her feet, as a twisted shape hurtled past her. She turned in time to see lamp on the coffee table, knocked off its axis, pirouette briefly at an angle before plunging to the floor. Annabel the cat leapt away, as if under attack, spun, spied the length of twine that she had dragged in with her, still caught on her back paw, pursuing it dervish-like. It flew free and she pounced, rolling head-first on the hall carpet, batting and pummelling the length of twine until it formed into a knotted bundle. Closing the door behind her, Christine looked down and laughed. Annabel heard the laughter and returned Christine's stare with bright, brown, disapproving cat-eyes. Annabel was a boy. Christine had given it a girl's name for fun. Some people, people she knew quite well, had found this disturbing. One or two had even expressed a concern for the poor cat's self-image.
        Christine took the paper with her through to the kitchen table where she sat, leafing through it. One thing about this neck of the city - no shortage of crime stories. And it was not only crime committed locally, though there was plenty of that, it was people caught up the Cross, apprehended as they say, after dirty deeds done elsewhere. On page three, a rail worker, described as "known to police" had been found dead on Forbes. "Robbery," it said, "appears to have beed ruled out. The man was carrying a sum of money as well as a quantity of the illicit substance benzedrine. According to sources, the injured man found with him, and thought to be his associate, was unable to help the police in their inquiries."
        She thumbed towards the back. Two paragraphs on page eight told of a suicide from The Gap, one of Sydney's most popular destinations. Not even the murder of Macquarie Lighthouse had ruined its appeal. The classifieds were dominated by sex ads for Asian Princesses, Young Hot & Latin, and the personals which were always good for a laugh. She heard a clatter from down the hall, and she smiled, as Annabel, at the edge of the kitchen, leapt over her ball of string, twisted, lost her back feet on the kitchen tiles, and crashed face-first onto her unsuspecting prey. Girl or boy, Annabel seemed a pretty well adjusted cat to her. Just think of the hard cash that humans will fork out in order to be ambiguous.
        In a staccato stare, Annabel's eyes darted up at her and away. She was off again. Christine preferred her cat's brown eyes to the blue of Diana's. It was certainly Jonathan that Diana was interested in. She could not quite figure it, Diana's attitude towards her. Some women, teases, held out against her advances with an air of seducibility, but it was often a sham, vanity on their part; when push came to heave it turned out they were just straights after all, scared of a little kiss and cuddle. Perhaps this was Diana, talking up to her at dinner, then pissing off with Jonathan. Although, she thought, it was hardly Diana's fault that Bruno had taken sick. She enjoyed being with Diana at dinner. She enjoyed it when their hands lay close together. And her eyes, clear as a cat's, but blue, not like Annabel's - like her father's.