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eternally happy by entering a convent.

      Another strange thing was that the minute they hit the mattress he never laid a hand on her. His palms remained planted on either side of her shoulders, feverishly massaging the manchester. His mouth, however, before and after his professions of undying and eternal love, clamped itself over hers, not so much kissing but rather what the boys of her youth had so aptly described as 'sucking face'.

      Sounds emitted from his throat as the moment of shuddering (his), body-wracking (his) climax approached. Was he moaning with pleasure, Ronnie wondered, or crying? Please, she prayed, don't let him be dry-retching. Mercifully, he rolled off and away from her without so much as a 'thank-you mam' to, as they say in downtown LA, 'assume the position': the foetal position.

      Ronnie gazed at the corpse of her fantasy inert beside her, breathing peacefully and resisted the urge to stroke its fur for fear of waking the beast and inviting a repeat performance. She lay as still as possible, waiting for the moment when she felt safe enough to get out of there. To go home.

      Within minutes, however, overcome with alcohol and passion well and truly requited, she was comatose.

      By the time she surfaced the following morning the sun was well and truly up, magnifying the funky air in Lawrence's upstairs bedroom. Ronnie guessed it must be after eight. Time to get out before he reappeared with an engagement ring and a slab of condoms. Her pile of clothes were where she had shed them the night before, on the perimeter of the field of shoes. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up.

      A big mistake.

      The movement was too sudden. A cold clammy hand of nausea gripped the back of her neck while burning fingers of pain scorched her forehead. Together they shook her skull until the contents throbbed. At the same time she became aware of a fire between her legs, not the flames of passion, however, merely the smoking remains. The pain made her gasp and she put a protective hand there, expecting to find blood. There was none but she felt sore.

      She walked unsteadily to her clothes, as nausea used her stomach as a skipping rope. The woman who had put these clothes on a hundred years ago yesterday morning was a stranger to her. These were expensive, tasteful, business clothes. A beige, sleeveless cotton blouse with a V-neck and large plain buttons down the front, a matching, long, loose linen skirt and low-heeled summer sandals. The kind of clothes a responsible, grown-up woman with a future wears to work.

      The woman stepping into them this morning should have been squeezing into leopard-skin tights, a pink satin bustier, white patent-leather pixie boots and a fringed denim jacket, all while lighting a fag and chewing gum.

      Ronnie dressed as quickly as her throbbing head would allow. Her clothes smelled of stale sweat and smoke. There was no mirror in the room, no way of assessing what she looked like (as opposed to what she felt like). She needed to drink several litres of water and to find a toilet. Kitchen, bathroom... Was Lawrence still in the building or had he dashed out to buy papers and coffee for the new love of his life? Did he live alone? Maybe someone was using the shower at this very moment, or making breakfast in the kitchen? There was only one way to find out. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

      She was at the top of a narrow flight of stairs facing an identical door across a small landing. There was no handrail to steady her descent and no carpet to cushion her step. At the foot of the stairs she looked to the left, not really knowing how the house lay in relation to the street, and then to the right. Red and green stained-glass panels framed the front door, and in the short distance between it and where Ronnie stood lay the body of Lawrence Konitz.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THIS was what people meant by an out-of-body experience. Nothing seemed to be happening to her. Ronnie could hear what was obviously herself groaning and panting like a woman in the second stage of labour but it seemed to come from someone else.

      Boyd, Matt, her job, her parents, her house, garden, car and electrical appliances were all swirling through her brain like the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz, as the words 'Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!' crawled like TV advertising across her frontal lobe.

      Logic and reason, along with compassion or any sense of community spirit, deserted her as the survival instinct assumed control. She had to get out of there and it was not going to be possible through the front door. She turned her back on the corpus delicti and went stumbling through the unfamiliar house.

      Past the bathroom with its much needed toilet - no time for that now - on through the lounge room, which was furnished only with a couch upholstered in faded orange bouclé, a television set and VCR perched on a milk-crate full of videos, into the tiny kitchen which, sty-like as the bedroom, was strewn with more plastic takeaway containers, open food cans and empty pizza boxes. No housemate, friendly or fearsome, was making coffee at the bench, which was lined with row upon row of used teabags, like an army of toy soldiers preparing to do battle with the platoon of polystyrene cups and wooden stirring sticks on the draining board.

      The overflowing rubbish bin was black with blowflies. Just wait until the news gets through about the stiff in the hallway, she thought.

      At last, the back door! With its gleaming, forbidding deadlock. Under no circumstances would she retrace her steps to the bedroom or to Lawrence's cream silk pockets to try and locate the key. There was a window in the lounge room with a simple butterfly lock holding the lower sash down. She raised it, hoisted her elegant designer skirt and clambered out.

      The heat knocked the breath out of her.

      It was one of those summer days which, from first light, promises a massive thunderstorm with enough lightning to strike terror into the heart of a golfer, but by late afternoon has still failed to deliver: Christmas Day weather, guaranteed to exacerbate any already heightened family tensions.

      Her head was pounding, her tongue stiff and dry as a cuttlefish, and when she walked her crotch throbbed.

      The tiny backyard was all cement, scattered with large cardboard packing cases and cat shit and with a high wooden fence. The stench was overpowering. She slipped the bolt of the gate and stepped out into one of the wide, bluestone-cobbled lanes which characterised most of South Melbourne and Albert Park. A mangy alley cat looked up at her from a doona of rotting leaves and litter. Witness for the prosecution.

      Which way back to the street? Ronnie would have to walk back to The Empire to retrieve her car to get home and change before showing up for work. It would make her a little late but didn't Dexter always say, 'It's not the time you get in but the time you put in'? The fact that she had cut her holiday short was in her favour, but in her eagerness to do so she had left her mobile phone at the beach house. Normally she could live without it and only really used it to co-ordinate school pick-ups with Boyd, but right now it would be handy to put in a quick call to work. No matter, she'd ring from home.

      Now that she was out of the house she couldn't wait another second to empty her bladder. She checked the lane and scanned the backs of houses for windows. There were dozens of them, all flashing silver in the early morning glare. It was impossible to tell if anyone could see her and, at that moment, she really didn't care. For the second time in ten minutes she hoisted her skirt, and this time she squatted.

      The pain was extreme. Like pissing razor blades, isn't that what they say? These were old-fashioned cut-throats. Release, combined with pain and a total absence of dignity, crowded in on her as hot tears evaporated on her burning cheeks.

      The cat sidled over and brushed up against her leg, purring like a Volvo.

      She'd have to call the police. Anonymously, of course, and with a disguised voice. No, that was too absurd. What kind of movie did she think she was in? She had to get home, out of this heat, eat something, drink water, try to think straight.

      It took almost twenty minutes for Ronnie to retrace the steps that seemed to take seconds the night before, in order to find her car. Her battered grey Saab was where she had left it outside The Empire, now closed as tightly as Dracula's coffin. Sandwiched between the BMWs and Land Cruisers of the film and advertising companies which proliferated around Victoria

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