Okay, Okay, I Shouldn't Have Eaten Those Mushrooms

The Land cruiser was really comfortable on the trip back into the city, he thinks he may have nodded off. He forgets how high the, what is essentially a, truck is off the ground, when he gets out at his place in Brunswick, and he slides out in an ungainly fashion. He’s sure he was grabbing on for safety handles as it all gave way below him.

That’s funny, he thinks. Is he unsteady on his feet?

Tim leans into the back of the car to get the mushrooms. “Will, maate? You ate from both bags.”

“No, I didn’t,” he says instinctively. What?

“Both bags are open,” says Tim sounding like mum.

“I couldn’t have.” Even he heard the quaver in his own voice.

It was as if Tim sniffed his admission in the air. “Maaate?”

"Okay, okay, I shouldn't have eaten those mushrooms," he says. He holds his stomach and wonders if he is turning green.

"Maate? Maate? You didn't eat the red cap ones, did ya?"

Red cap, gold cap, I ate them like I'd eat potato chips. "Dunno..."

"Oh maate..."

"I don't reckon..." What the hell do mushrooms do to you?

"You sure?"

"Nah, of course... I'm... I'm not sure." He was sure alright, he knew he'd eaten them, but he didn't want to look like a complete idiot, now did he.

"I told ya just to eat the ones from the first bag, the ones I'd picked..." Tim says. “And then only a few.”

A few? Now suddenly there is a number restriction? "Yeah, yeah, I listened to ya..."

"So, did ya?"

"Did I what?" He was having trouble keeping up by this point.

"Just eat them from the bag, eat the ones I picked?"

Don’t question me. "Yeah, yeah, I think so..." he didn’t, actually, remember eating any of the damn mushrooms, he just knew he had eaten them. One by one as he gazed out the window.

"You think so?" Tim’s voice squeaked ominously.

"Yeah, okay, I did. I did, okay." Why did his voice squeak?

"You don't wanna eat any of them red ones, or any of them gold ones, from the other bag, you really don't want to do that."

"Sweet." He didn’t look at the colour of them. WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT COLOUR?

There is silence for a minute.

That's all you are going to say? He thinks. Does he feel well? Is he beginning to feel sick? Is it psychosomatic? "Like, why?" he asks.

"Why what?"

"Like what will happen?"

"Oh maate, I couldn't say. Wouldn't like to say. Not really sure."

“Give it your best shot.” He was suddenly feeling desperate, and he didn’t entirely know why?

Tim makes sucking sounds.

"Don't say that." What the fuck does that mean? I don’t like the sound of that.

They hold each other’s gaze.

Tim’s mouth creases first. “So, I have one question for you.” Tim holds his hands out, flat in the air. “Then I’m done.”

“What is it?” You only have one question? This is my life we are talking about.

“Why were both bags open, when I got them from the middle of the back seat, next to where you were sitting?”

He’d done coke in Sydney with Mardi Gras queens after a long weekend of taking every other drug he could get his hands on. “You must have put them in the car that way.”

“I didn’t.”

“You must be mistaken.” He’d done MDMA and trips with drag queens in London until the sun came up.

“I’m not.”

He’d done MDA with drunk girls in Milan. “Ah… er…ah” was all he could manage. He was thinking about the time he got a lift across Milan with a willowy black woman, with bright red lipstick, in a bright red Fiat 500. Was everything suddenly looking red?

“The second bag was what we’d all picked, but I just hadn’t checked it for poison’s rooms.”

Silence.

“What if I did?” He holds his hands in the air, he’d suddenly exposed an uncomfortable truth about himself.

Tim sucks in breath. 

That sucking sound, the only other time he’d heard that was when, as a kid, his dad used to get bad news. He is sure that isn’t good in this situation. 

Tim looks into the second bag. “The ratio of poisonous is disturbingly high.” Tim sucks in breath again. “I should take you to get your stomach pumped.” His eyes blink fast. “It would be the kindest thing.”

“What!” Even he hears his own voice squeak.

“Did you eat…” asks Tim. His right hand does a kind of Sale of the Century’s model’s hand gesture to the bag he is holding in his other hand. “These?”

Ambulance. Emergency. ICU. All flash through his mind. “What?”

“What did you eat?”

“Just what you told me.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

“Okay then,” says Tim. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“I’ve gotta go.”

He’s what? Oh… yeah… okay. Will suddenly closes the Landcruiser door with a jerk of his arm, as though suddenly he wasn’t in full control of his arm. He sees it close. He could tell he’d closed it too hard, as Tim’s mouth makes an 'O' shape and his eyes widen noticeably, but Will didn’t hear the door closing make any sound.

Tim guns the engine and selects 1st gear with a crunch of the gearstick before he accelerates away.

Will stands and watches the big truck disappear out of view. Then he stands there for a bit longer, gazing at the spot Tim disappeared around the corner.

Will’s eyes lids suddenly feel heavy, he’s not at all sure if he has both eyes open.

The front path comes up at him in the most peculiar way. The front door feels huge. The last thing he remembers is the hallway carpet coming up and smacking him in the face.

In the first few hours he thinks he is going to die. In the hours after that, he hopes he will die. Sometime after that, he remembers wondering if he has died.

He opens his eyes. Where was he? There was a flat plane seemingly extending out from his eyeballs to infinity. What the fuck was that? If only he could focus, he’d be able to tell. Why won’t his eyes focus? Why is his mouth in pain. He tries to lick his lips but no moisture comes. His lips feel like what he would imagine the parched landscape of the Nullarbor would taste. He works his sore tongue, which somehow feels too big for his mouth, like it was borrowed from a giant, or something unexplainable, in and out of his mouth and moisture does come. Painfully, he has to acknowledge. His eyeballs focus finally, to discover the flat plane extending out in front of him was his hallway floor. He is lying face down. He tries to sit up, but his back feels locked in position. 

“Ohhhh!” He instinctively knows the moan is coming from him, even if it feels like he has a ventriloquist dummy somewhere out of sight through which he is speaking. If he’d heard the words, just look at you, what state do you call this? You are a disgrace. He wouldn’t have been surprised.

Slowly he starts to work his joints. First his spine, which feels like it is fused together. As it comes good, he is able to slide around onto his arse and sit up.

Everything hurts. Now, when he hears people say ‘everything hurts’ he’ll have some reference point for the sympathy he might give. 

He doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t know how he feels, but it isn’t good. 

Somewhere in the recess of his brain he thinks he feels pleased. He didn't die, after all.

He gets to his feet with difficulty. He needs some water to restore moisture to his throat, as even though moisture has returned to his mouth, there is, really, barely enough present to facilitate swallowing and he is continually suffering a series of mini gagging events due to the lack of fluid in his throat.

He pulls his phone from his pocket as he makes his way hesitantly to the kitchen, there are quite a few missed calls. It is 9.40am.

He gets a glass of water at the sink, it has a very strange effect on his throat as the liquid goes down, like the reintroduction to his system of an unfamiliar element of life. As he is trying to swallow the water, he again glances at his phone to see the date of the Tue 6th.

He straightens up with a groan that goes from the back of his head to the tips of his toes and focusses on the sky beyond the kitchen window as though he is searching for something. He looks back at his phone. 

They went mushroom picking on Saturday.

Maggie's Night Spot

Serendipity was swinging around her pole slowly, it was a slow night at Maggie's Night Spot. None of the regulars were in, just a few losers who seemed to be staring down the misery in their pint glasses, more than they were staring at the girl's tits. 

Where were all the fun guys? The drunk guys? The guys with full wallets? The easy guys? A grab of your tits and they are happy guys.

Serendipity had a hand full of lard, so she just kept spinning around that big, greasy brass pole. 

The piano player, Johnny, was playing blues, as if he were on Serapax. Serendipity knew he drank two bottles of red, and smoked half a bag of weed before he came on. The jukebox of emo go slow.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

"It is me, they are coming to see," sang Johnny. "To forget about life for a while."

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

"Man, what are you doin' here?" Johnny screamed.

“Oh, la la la, di da da, la la, di da da da dum.”

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

"Well, we're all in the mood for a melody."

Johnny’s fingers crash off onto a classical music interlude still with a stripper’s beat, naturally. Tits and arse. Snatch and feathers. "Da da-da da da-da da da-da da da..."

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

"And you... " Johnny’s voice soared.

Johnny plays a crashing piano solo. High art. Avant-garde. Da da-da da, da da-da da, da da-da da da.

"Got us feeling alright," wails Johnny’s bluesy voice.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

The guys weren't coming in. Serendipity was getting a pain in her shoulder for no money, for no cash. She spun and she spun and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

“Oh, la la la, di da da, la la, di da da da dum,” sings Johnny.

Heels click across the concrete floor. “Step it up a bit, you two” says Maggie. “People will think somebody has died here soon, if you keep this up.”

“Not exactly a jumping night,” whines Serendipity.

“Well, do something about it,” says Maggie. “It’s not a fucken wake.”

 “What do you suggest?”

“Shake your arse, get ya fucken tits out, that’s what I fucken suggest,” says Maggie. “Before I get up there and show you how it’s really fucken done.”

Serendipity spits her gum. “That won’t be necessary,” Serendipity says, on all fours, twirking her arse slowly in the air. Serendipity gets to her feet, she steps up to her mic. "Fuck you,” she wails at Johnny, pointing in the air at him. She breathes in deep. “It is me,” she pulls her tits out. “They are coming to see," Serendipity wails. She slides her hand down her stomach and into her panties and clearly into her vagina. "I POP my cork for every man I see!"

Johnny’s harmonica soars as the piano pounds out Hey Big Spender.

Serendipity puts her mic in the mic stand, then she gyrates across the stage, wiggling he ample breasts.

Maggie whistles. “Show ‘em why you got them fucken implants, babe,” yells Maggie.

The boys instinctively make their way in from the bar to Serendipity’s stage, one by one. They start gathering at the front of the stage.

“That’s my girl,” yells Maggie. Two thumbs in the air as she walks away.

Serendipity kicks her leg high. She shakes her tits. She unwraps herself from her bra top, like she is doing the dance of the veils, and spins around back to the mic stand.

“Oh, la la la, di da da, la la, di da da da dum,” sings Serendipity. “Oh la la!”

Some of the boy’s wolf whistle. Some of the boys cheer her on.

“Come and get this, boys,” wails Serendipity. “Hey Big Spender!”

Hector is at the front of the stage. The young, Greek fish monger from up the market. Handsome Hector.

Serendipity grabs her mic and goes down on her knees in front of Hector, black g-string and black leather boots. Serendipity wraps both her arms around Hector’s head, she slides one of her nipples into his mouth.

“Say wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on in my mind.”

The punters go crazy. If Hector gets to suck tit, it means the rest of them have a shot of sucking her nipples too, in group think. Hector sucks her breast like a poddy calf.

Serendipity stands up. “The minute you walked into the joint.”

“Boom! Bang!” Johnny ponds the keys.

“I could see you were a maa, an, an an aan,” sang Serendipity.

Da da-da da, da da-da da, da da-da da da, Johnny plays

“A man of distinction.” Serendipity slides her g-string to her ankles.

Da da-da da, da da-da da, da da-da da da.

“I pop my cork for every man I see.”

Serendipity squats in front of Hector. She slides a finger into herself.

“Spend a little time with me,” Serendipity sings.

Serendipity takes Hector’s hand and puts it on her hand, the finger of which she is fingering herself.

“I pop my cork.”

Serendipity fingers herself open for all to see.

“I pop my cork.”

Hector’s finger disappears inside Serendipity.

“I pop my cork!”

The boys all start to cheer.

Serendipity stands.

“For evvvvery… Maaaaaaaan,” she wails. “I” She turns to face the men full frontal nude. She blows air kisses. “Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” She shakes her tits from side to side, as she struts around the stage.

Lights up. Serendipity takes a small bow. Lights down. Serendipity heads for the back of the stage. The boys cheer.

The next stripper Coral, with her python, heads towards her.

“Well,” said Serendipity. “I think they are warmed up enough now.”

“Yeah, thanks a fucken lot for makin’ my shift that much fucken harder,” said Coral.

“If you’ve got it, you’ve got it.” said Serendipity. “What can I say?” She laughed 

“Well, next time you decided to wake up from your fucken drug nightmare and do some fucken work for a fucken change, instead of thinking about how you are gonna fuck Hector next,” said Coral. “I’d have bought my dog in if I’d known that.”

“Maggie is on the snarl, apparently we aren’t bringing in enough of the filthy.”

“Was that her down the front,” asks Coral. “That I saw tonight?

“Perhaps we should do a double act?”

“Have another nosefull and come back out,” said Coral. “I could ditch the snake if you do.”

“Nah, I got me a big, Greek stallion tonight.”

Johnny’s piano started to wail on stage.

Coral stepped up to the microphone.

“I was five and he was six.”

The stage door banged shut behind Serendipity. The music stopped.

She had told Hector to meet her out the front. She didn’t want to leave him standing around the building. Serendipity knew what slags the girls were. Any handsome thing with a pulse.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” says Maggie. She’s got an armful of outfits she was clearly moving. “Good job.”

“You don’t mind Hector being out the front?”

“You can fuck him on stage, if you keep getting the punters through the doors,” says Maggie.

Serendipity clunked down the back-stage corridor to the dressing room in her stratospheric stilettos. She pushed the dressing room door open. The air was thick with cigarette smoke.

Magenta was just tucking her penis up her arse and applying a thick wad of gaffer tape to hold everything in place.

“I hope Coral put enough lube on that snake,” said Serendipity. “We don’t want a repeat of last week.”

Martinique was sitting back on her chair staring into her mirror, surrounded by exposed light bulbs, feet in strappy shoes up on her dressing table, drawing hard on her smoke, the ash from which was hanging off the end of the cigarette between her turquoise talons. Bustier, but nothing else. “She bitched for fucken days,” said Martinique.

Sibeon was crying, and Aurora was trying to comfort her.

Cashmere was shooting up in the corner. 

“That stuff will fucken kill you,” said Serendipity.

“I need something to get me through this nightmare.”

“Your choices, welcome to them,” spat Martinique.

“Seriously, Cashmere,” said Magenta. The gaffer tape was all Magenta was wearing. She had a powder brush in one hand as she puffed on a splif with the other.

“Sibeon’s got man trouble,” says Aurora. “What else makes a girl cry around here?”

“Have you done your make up?” asked Serendipity. She was now standing at her makeup table wiping at her face with a sponge.

“I’ve been touching it up since last month,” said Magenta in her baritone voice. “I call it scat face.”

“You are succeeding,” said Serendipity. She looks over at Cashmere. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I think the goblin bit off her clit,” said Martinique.

“What’s his number?” said Magenta. “That could save me a fortune.”

“Can someone look after Sibeon?” said Aurora. “I’ve got to get into my lights outfit, I’m on after Coral.”

“Not me,” said Serendipity. “I’ve got a date.”

“Hector?”

“Hector.”

“You lucky bitch, he’s got girth,” said Aurora.

“Just what mama ordered.” Serendipity twitched her nose at the thought. She dropped the humour from her voice. “And he’s nice, too. He wants to…”

“Oh Jesus, don’t even fucken say it,” said Martinique. “Dear God!”

“Good for you,” said Magenta.

“Come here, dohl,” said Cashmere ricocheting off the furniture in Sibeon’s direction. “We’ll make plans to kill the son of a bitch, then claim diminished respo… respo… “

Magenta moved towards Sibeon in rubber tits and that strip of grey gaffer tape. “No, hon, not you.” Magenta grabbed Cashmere by the arm and pushed back in the direction of her makeup table. “Sibeon, darl, get some clothes on and you can come out drinking with me. You can unload about him with me, but we won’t be planning any one’s murder tonight.”

“It’s what the fucker needs,” said Cashmere from her chair. “We could tie him up and cut his cock off and let him bleed out. That would fucken learn him.”

“I’m at a loose end…” said Martinique.

“I’ve heard the guys describe you just that way,” said Cashmere.

“Says the human bowling ball,” said Martinique. “I’ll come out drinking, too.” 

“Sure,” said Magenta. “I was planning to get shit faced and fall down, but if we are baby sitting, we may have to curb it a bit.”

“You don’t have to baby sit me,” said Sibeon.

“Of course not,” said Magenta, in baby speak.

Aurora headed to the stage. Cherish and Elektra arrived at the same time, as Aurora left. “I’m doing the Virgin Mary, tonight,” said Cherish.

“I’m doing Madeline McCann reimagined,” said Elektra. They both laugh. “Good evening… ladies,” said Elektra to the dressing room.

“It’s not a jumpin’ night, you’ll need all your tricks,” said Serendipity. “Good night ladies.” 

Hector was waiting out the front.

“You been waiting long,” Serendipity said to Hector.

“No,” said Hector. He laughed. “You know how long I have been waiting.”

“I guess,” said Serendipity. “Where are you taking me?”

“Where would you like to go?” said Hector.

“I’d really like something to eat?”

“Okay.” Hector put his arm out for Serendipity to loop her arm through, and she did. “Food it is.”

They walked towards Hector's Mustang, arm in arm.

“Did you sleep with Aurora?”

"What?"

"Did you?"

“That was before I met you,” said Hector. “You can’t be cross about that?”

“I guess, as long as you haven’t slept with Magenta.”

“I don’t think I know which one is Magenta.”

Serendipity laughed. “It doesn’t matter.”

Hector and Serendipity went to Charcoal Joes, the twenty four hour Greek restaurant in Lonsdale Street.

They sat in the large window and the world passed by outside.

“Serendipity…”

“Call me Amy.”

“Amy… Amy, I like you…”

“I like you too.” Amy liked Hector’s handsome face. She liked his dimples. But mostly she liked the feeling she got when she was with him.

“I really like you.” Hector smiled.

“Like Aurora?”

“That was just sex,” said Hector. “You must know that?”

“Why would I know that?” said Amy. “Because I am a stripper?”

“No, because you are an adult and we all have a past.”

“Yes, well,” said Amy. “I know I do.”

Hector tilted his head in the cutest way, just like Amy’s pug dog. “I want to be with you,” said Hector.

“You know the right things to say.”

“I don’t want to stop you from doing anything,” said Hector. “My mum was unhappy because my father stopped her from doing the things she liked.”

“Do you think I like stripping?”

“I don’t know, Amy, I don’t know,” said Hector. “But it is up to you.”

“It is up to me?”

“Do you like it?”

“I like the money,” said Amy.

“What about the men looking at you?”

“They can’t hurt me with their looks,” said Amy. “They can’t hurt me.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“You make me happy.”

“You know all the right things to say,” said Hector.

“I just don’t like what people think of me?”

“What do you tell people you do?”

“I tell them I am a dancer,” said Amy. “Generally, people don’t ask too many questions.”

Hector reached out and took Amy’s hand in his. Amy felt a thrill down her spine. She couldn’t ever remember a man taking her hand so tenderly, ever.

“Amy, I want to marry you?”

“Marry me? Are you sure, Hector?”

“I’m sure,” said Hector. “I want to have children with you.”

“Children, Hector? I never thought…”

“Why would you never think?”

“What would I tell them?”

“You’d tell them you were a dancer.”

“Oh Hector.”

They drank too much at dinner. Amy was tipsy and giggly balancing on her stratospheric stilettos when they got back to Hector's.

The third floor of Hector’s terrace house had a balcony, the French doors open to the stars.

Some men are truly gifts from the gods, thought Amy, as her head hung off the side of the bed and she saw the room upside down with a carpet of stars leading out to the rest of the world. 

Suddenly her life made sense, upside down. 

Hector snored. He is the one, she thought girlishly to herself. A girl can dream.

Amy was late to the club the next night. She crashed through the door with barely enough time to get ready to go on, but she clearly wasn’t upset by that, in fact she felt happier than she could ever remember feeling.

“What are you so happy about?” said Aurora.

“I’m going to be a decent, upright, respectable, married lady,” said Serendipity.

“You’re a funny girl,” said Magenta.

Half Good

South African, Rita Kindervarten is an old lady. She finds herself half way across the road on the central median strip looking at Billy back on the footpath. Billy helped her, but he got distracted and left her halfway across the street, when his mobile phone rang.

“I’ve got to take this.” He retreats back to the first side of the road, when the other side of the road is blocked with oncoming traffic.

Billy repeats back what the person on the other end of the phone is saying, as if he can’t quite believe what he is hearing, the effect was the entire conversation, had a touch of the macabre’s about it, as though Billy was answering himself but without really listening. 

Billy was standing in front of a shop window, Rita can see that he thought he looked pretty good in his three button cream sixties suite, as he looked at his reflection in the glass. He did, in his thin black tie and his pointy black shoes.

“I can’t wait for this nonsense,” Rita mutters to herself.

Rita is trying to cross the other half of the busy street on her own. Cars rush passed, and Rita is shaking, as she tries to judge their speed. Rita's macular degeneration makes it almost impossible for her to see the approaching cars.

Rita is going to be killed.

Billy realises what he has done. “Gotta go.” He flips his phone shut, and he dashes across to the middle of the road and takes Rita's arm. “Steady on old girl.”  Just as Rita is about to step in front of on-coming traffic.

"Rita, I am so sorry," says Billy.

"Eets not the ind of the wurld, Beelly," says Rita.

"I shouldnta done what I done, Rita," says Billy. "It's the voices, Rita, it’s the voices." He holds up his phone.

"Never mynd Beelly, yr ere now," says Rita. "Let's geet across."

"On the count of three, Rita."

"Roytio, Beelly," says Rita. "On zee count of thhree."

Billy takes Rita by the arm and escorts her to the far side of the road. Across three lanes, in between cars flashing passed them on either side. "Immaculate Degenerate, or not, Rita. Immaculate Degenerate, or not."

"Yes, Beelly," says Rita. "Yes, Beelly."

"Run!" says Billy. A truck approaches them in the far lane.

Rita Screams.

Billy drags her to the footpath just in time.

"You're moi 'ero, Beelly. You're moi 'ero."

"That was close, Rita. That was close."

Rita clasps her hands to her forehead. "I felt zee vind, Beelly. Zee Vind from the car passing su cluse."

"You nearly felt more than that." Billy laughs.

Rita laughs. "Don't say eet, Beelly. Don't say eet."

It reminded them of home, the windy back blocks, those tumbleweed streets of where they’d come from, the hills out the back of Bolago. As kids, Billy and his mates used to hide in Rita’s garden. They would scramble about being up to no good, and sometimes Rita would hear them. 

“Is there somebody there,” she would call out. “Or is it ze wind?’

It was long after Rita’s husband had passed and Billy could hear the sadness in Rita’s voice. As his mates scrambled and scattered in fear of being seen, Billy would take one last look at the woman in the single globe lit back door, as if the pool of that single globe was the tapestry that was left of her life. He’d call out as softly as the wind, “It is only ze vind.” Before he’d scatter through the garden as quiet as a mouse.

“Er.” Rita’s voice would herumph. It would be the last thing Billy heard, as he dashed under the second story growth of Rita’s vast garden. The resignation of loneliness. It gave him a chill.

Years later, Carmel, Billy’s mother’, died and it was her funeral. Rita was the tiny figure sitting quietly down the back. Afterwards, Rita plucked up the courage to say something to Billy. Billy’s mum, Carmel, had been the first local to be kind to Rita, after she immigrated to Bolago. She approached Billy and told him what a wonderful woman his mother was.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

 “You’re the woman from the veranda,” Billy says, as though thinking out aloud.

“Your one of the boys who used to call to me from my garden.”

“I thought you were mad.” Billy picked up a sandwich from the plate.

“I thought I was going mad,” says Rita. “We’d been married for 30 years.” She scooped a sausage roll deep down into the tomato sauce that it looked as though it dripped blood as she bought it to her mouth.

“Do you still miss him?” asks Billy.

“Ivery day, Beelly, ivery day.”

“How long has it been?” asks Billy.

“Fifteen yars, Beelly. Fifteen yars.”

Billy misses his mum. Rita never had any children. They stay close.

One night, a couple of years after Carmel’s death, after a huge batch of eggnog made by Billy’s sister, Amanda, Billy told Rita the story of what he and his mates used to hide in her garden.

“It was late, we were bored,” says Billy.

“Well, eet vas a small town, Beelly, a small town. Not much for kids to do in a small town."

“We used to hang around the arcade, Saturday night playing games, hanging out.”

“Not much goin’ on in a small town on a Saturdee night.”

“We play games until old Joe would kick us out and shut up shop. I think it was 11pm.”

“I’d bee vatching teevee, Beelly, till late, I no longer had any reason to go to bed.”

“We’d walk home down Donaldson’s Road. We’d cut across the creek which ran along the back of your yard.”

Miryveather Creeek,  Beelly, Miryveather Creeek.”

“Your house sat up high…”

“Yeees, it vas a good view in ze day tyme from my veranda.”

“It was a game to us.”

“My husband Elliot had not long died, the greef didn’t leave me for a number of years,” says Rita. “It vas an ard von zat. Greef Beelly, ze greef.”

“I found that out with my mum dying,” says Billy. “It never really fully goes.”

“But vhy my hise, Beelly, vhy me?”

“It was just on the way, Rita. That’s all it was.”

“You’d make those noises, Beelly, those noises you boys made.”

“I know, we thought it was funny,” says Billy. “We were bored and young, a dangerous combination.”

“It vas unkind.”

“You were the lady with the funny way of talking, with the accent…”

“Ze accent, Beelly, get it right.”

“Ze accent, Reeta, ze accent.”

Rita laughs. “Oh Billy you are so funny. Zat is supposed to be me.”

“Zat is you, old gyrl.”

Rita laughs. "Don't say eet, Beelly. Don't say eet."

“It vasn’t just ze vind, Mrs Kindervarten.”

“Oh Beelly.”

“I’m glad I got to know you,” says Billy. “I’m glad you forgave me.”

“Me too Beelly, me too,” says Rita. “A friendship shared in death.”

The cars begin to rush again on the lane they’d just crossed.

“Don’t say it, Beelly, don’t say it.” Rita giggles.

Billy laughs nervously. "It vas zee vind, Mrs Kindervarten? "It vas ze vind?"

"It was zee vind, Beelly," asks Rita. "Ze vind?"

"Yes, Mrs Kindervarten. Ze Vind."

"Er," says Rita. She shrugs.

"Zee vind," says Billy.

"Ve made eet," says Rita. "That is all that matters, Beelly."