I unlocked the car while she stood on the kerb, rooted to the spot. While the implications of my words brewed within her, I walked all the way around to the driver’s side, got the engine going, leaned across and opened the door for her but still she stood there.
“Come on, get in. Time’s wasting.”
    She moved, slowly, in a daze, and got into the car. I had to reach over and pull the door closed behind her. “They couldn’t have...” she murmured, as if the time that had elapsed since I spoke did not exist.
“They did. Plain as day.”
“Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. What did they see exactly?”
“Well, I went to D24 first, if that’s what you mean. That’s why the car was parked here.”
“Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
“I think that sums it up.”
  When she buried her face in her hands, I decided it was safe to pull out into the traffic.
“Oh God, Zed. It wasn’t anything, really.”
“You got arrested. Right there live on TV, for all the neighbours and relatives to see.”
“I wasn’t arrested,” she protested. “I was just detained.”
But the final truth was dawning on her.
“But... but... did mum see it?..”
“Yes. And immediately had a stroke, just as you might imagine she would.”
“Oh shit. So it’s all my fault.”
“You got it.”
“It’s not !  It’s not ! Come on, Zed. It can’t be true.”
“Big sister, in my life I’ve blamed you for ten million things and no one ever believed me, not once. But this time, you are gone for all money. Dead to rights, no way out.”
“Oh and I suppose you’re loving it.”
“No. As a matter of fact, this time you’re in such deep shit that I’m forced to be on your side.”
    I was too. I sympathised with her fully, and supposed that when Horrie set about strangling her, I would be obliged to step in and try and stop him. With such foolish fantasies in my head, we drove to on to the hospital. Rosely fell silent for rest of the trip, but for occasional little snorts that I supposed to be sobs.
“Poor mum,” was the only thing she said, in a murmur, just before we got out of the car.

It was a good, efficient demonstration as demonstrations go, although it was very odd to hear the clear young girl voices calling the old familiar action cries. On target! Height-finder on target! … a lapse. A frantic traversing of the predictor. The telescopes elevating, the lean gun-barrels following the predictor telescopes. On target! Predictor on target!   Fire! And I saw that the sheep-faced lieutenant could not keep his eyes off the girl on Number One telescope and her bottom was fairly jiggling….
    This is a man—a literary figure—telling of how he first met this future wife, also destined to become a major literary figure. George Johnson in My Brother Jack, describing his first sighting of Charmain Clift. Both were major local literary figures of their time, living out their alcohol-fuelled marriage in an oddly suburban Australian way. Glamorous people being just like the folks next door. It didn't seem right somehow.