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  There was a pair of tiny sand birds, little bodies on longish legs, dashing about like miniature plovers. Coming onto the beach from the path was Tiger Cat, a woman I had good reason not to trust. Before I bleed I am irritable and I sniff out subjects to gripe about. I tried to get a grip on myself. Because she used to be a cop, Catherine Tobin could be a spy. I know they are keeping an eye on me.

  Not wanting Tiger Cat to recognise me, I took off, sprinting until I hurt. The pain, eventually, leached from my calves and thighs and I began really punishing my muscles. Slowing down, I went back to the tide-line. Kicking my legs out behind, now up under my chin, I did not want to stop. The end of the surf's moving scallops showed the foamless sea rolling beyond the point into the mouth of the river. Another gash carved into the sand led to the road-access through the coastal scrub. I went up a pedestrian track of planks wired together and laid across the dunes to protect the coastal grasses.

  Judith Sloane claims invention of gurls, the acronym, for bush-living radical lesbians.

  Now she gazes at a tanker making its way along the horizon, thinking neither of the ocean nor what the container ship might be carrying, rather why she came to the gay and lesbian barbecue. She recognises Margot Gorman, the triathlete, but enjoys freezing the smile on her face. Times have changed. Judith wants a lover. That is why she is here.

  As she stands, on the Paradise Coast, aware of the scene of herself on the beach, she refigures the past to a perfect picture. The original ideal of a utopian lesbian nation, Lesbianlands, is bleary with the sleep of memory. Judith contradicts any detail which doesn't fit her myth. All the facts blend with emotions and each telling is deluded by visions into a compendium from which Judith, appearing to meditate, chooses what to appropriate into her romance. She is rehearsing her next conversation. But she will not go back to the party.

  Selfhood is a task, not a given clarity. Sex. Judith says the word to herself.

  Touching the skin of another woman, entering the realm of intimacy, releases fluency into the hard boundaries learnt in antipathetic childhoods. Born into occupied territory. Judith wonders whether to keep this alien culture idea. The lesbian is terrorised into accepting a reality that simply does not accord with her feelings, thus she longs for congruence, a sense of belonging. Lesbianlands offers the place. The blessed bliss of being with another woman in bed, baring vulnerability, trusting and knowing and flying to erotic ecstasy, becomes a burden of knowledge. Judith tests the weight of this thought. We did not learn the way to be responsible at the knee of another, older, wiser lesbian. Living life itself is a trial. Utopian idealists claiming country, new country, travel through the experiences of each other towards community.

  But the dream has failed Judith. It's free for all, now. Their behaviour is sleasy. Gurls have no more than their own minds to work with at finding the truth at the base of the intensity of being, among one's ilk, to fashion a culture. Romantic happiness of one love is too narrow a scope for the vast potentiality of the woman's heart. Lonely spinsterhood is not an option either. Judith doesn't stay with a partner, because there is always another woman to charm. Lesbians are everywhere. Gurls keep coming for one reason or another, refreshing her with new stories. New prospects for her lust.

  The land is alive with spirits. She can pick her take on things. Does she believe the positive sightings of extraterrestrial craft which have been recorded in the large hard-covered minute book? She tries the witch image with words. Spells? Rituals of the old religion are scorned. Some secretly meditate with techniques learnt at monasteries or ashrams. Discipline cannot be imposed from the outside. Tradition is distrusted. Lesbianlands have also practical women, survivors, existentialists with materialist views. Judith has been all types. She generally prefers dreamers over liberals trying to rationalise the chaos. Judith can say what she likes. It is how she says it she is careful of.

  The goddess is life, the earth, nature. Judith is disgusted. She would never get out of it, take drugs, drink too much or eat gluttonously. She has nothing in common with gurls any more, except the desire to relate to women.

  When I reached the wooden path I began to jog. The late afternoon sun made the leaves of the trees syrupy with honeyed light.

  There was the sound of skidding in the car park. When I emerged from the sandy seaward path I saw silver aerials, the top of a high cabin. Dust. What was a semi-trailer doing on this side of the river? There were no dairy farms here. In this parking area, nothing was happening. Just a couple of locked cars on the graded gravel and a rubbish bin near brick conveniences. Straightening my hammies on the limed log foot-high fence, stretching my inner thighs, warming down methodically, I could smell onions cooking and the smoke of fires. Invisible from where I stood, the barbecues were in a picnic area about half a kilometre along a track, taking the longest possible route through old banksias, new Little John callistemon and other planted natives, made by Council using a scheme for the unemployed. Sandy hills held off the sea winds. I needed to rehydrate.

  The convenience block had its own tank. Rain water tasted delicious after the sharp salt air in my dry throat. I went into the toilet.

  Lying half propped against the raw brick wall with legs splayed on the gritty concrete floor was the body of a teenager. Her eyes were black with either bruises or make-up, I couldn't tell. She was staring at me. Her skin was snow. Her clothes were black. Her mouth looked as if a pie had been squashed into it. Vomit. Her eyes were open but she was dead. I retched. I had to urinate and evacuate my bowels urgently. I burst into the cubicle and closed the door on the sight, sat and held my head in my hands with elbows on my shuddering knees. In a matter of seconds your whole world can change; comprehension of life and death suddenly throws all your priorities awry.

  The girl was dead, no doubt about that. Her right hand was in a fist, holding something which may have been a crunched hanky. Her other hand rested in a small puddle near the sink was palm up, fingers almost blue. The floor was gritty. I stood for a few moments at the door, then turned away, shivering.

  At the L-shaped corner of the entrance a hat lay on the ground. I picked it up. Black, spongy nylon comprised the front, the back of the cap was synthetic netting, an awful thing. Red writing said: NADIR Mining Support Services. My hand petrified itself into its grasp. 'Nadir' had been a name on one of the trailers of the semi which shadowed me in Queensland. I held onto this cap. Evil was palpable in its greasy, unnatural material.

  Following the scent of meat cooking, going towards civilisation, I concentrated on the gravel of the path even though it wound in a ridiculously indirect fashion, figuring out my steps. My duty. I saw a ring of people around a fire big enough to roast a suckling pig. But nothing but a tin billy was on it. Further off a family group was setting up its meal on the table under shelter with the facilities provided. They seemed immobile. Time stopped. It was becoming dark. I heard my name.

  'Margot,' Maria Freewoman called out. Amicable. Familiar.

  Shaking my head, I couldn't respond vocally. I went silently up to the circle. There had been food. Paper plates showed the remains of salad, some sort of pastry. Nausea returned to my gut.

  Maria began introductions, 'Margot, you know Alison?' I nodded.

  Irrelevantly I thought why has Maria been ringing me up with her troubles when she has all these friends? I jerked to attention, searching to catch up with the formalities. There were a lot of people around, mumbling, talking, standing, sitting as if everything was the same as it was before I found her. Alison was a strikingly good-looking woman with awful dress-sense. She wore a wrist-band with studs, black leather pants and gold lurex top. The light made it hard to see others.

  'Are you all right?' She asked and seemed to know why she was asking. I frowned at her. She came to my side. I nodded dumbly as Maria indicated others. I could not see Sofia anywhere.

  'Dello and Maz,' Maria pointed to two with identical hair and dark glasses. I stared at them. I lost concentration, faces became a blur
. Kids were running around. I heard a male voice. I was, momentarily, at a loss.

  'Been training, Margot?' Jill, whom I had met at the gym, spoke. Jill David. I couldn't bring myself to tell these people what I'd just seen. I couldn't control my voice. They'd probably troop over and destroy the crime scene, anyway.

  'Margot?' Maria addressed me, and said something else in a business-like tone of voice. I shook my head and moved my hands as if thrusting something in the air away from me.

  There was a lull in the general noise.

  'I need a phone,' I uttered.

  'Anyone got a mobile?' A chorus of attention drowned Maria's voice. 'I think there's a public one at the caravan park.'

  When I turned to run off, Alison was beside me. 'Easy does it. What's wrong?' Her hands were gentle, but forceful.

  'Oh shit, I haven't got any change.' Thoughts and impressions were crowding my consciousness like refugees on the last ship out, stampeding my brain. Don't panic. Surely someone there had a mobile phone.

  'Come on,' she called, and started walking decisively. I followed. We went up to the road. She reached into a red low-slung sedan and handed me a car-phone. I looked at her before I dabbed the number. We looked at each other. If she was this cool and she didn't have anything to do with it, she could be trusted to keep her head. Or she could be helping me because she knows exactly what is going on, what I have seen and what I have to do. I spun around with the car-phone and walked out of earshot.

  My hand was still clasping the black cap. I rang the local cop shop, and then the Criminal Intelligence Unit for this part of New South Wales. I asked them what they wanted me to do, and I was told.

  'Yours?' I pointed to the Saab as I watched her replace the receiver between the front seats.

  'No. It's…'

  I interrupted, 'Is one of these cars yours?'

  Alison drove me to the toilet block in a heavy old Ford with the gear stick under the steering wheel. I wondered if she knew there, beside a dripping tap, near the basin, a dead girl lay against the wall. Before Alison had quite stopped, I jumped out. I pulled the door of the shelter shed shut. The Yale lock clicked.

  'Can I give you a lift home?' What! I pressed my lips together. She reached for the hat in my hand. I couldn't let go of the horrid nylon. It was animated by some devilish fluency, it seemed to stick to my palm. Evidence. I was tense.

  'I've had a shock.' When I said it I started shaking.

  'Wait here. I'll get my son.' Alison ran along the path a bit and yelled. 'Lenny. Lenny,' she called, but I did not know why.

  The cops wanted me to wait. I waited.

  Judith Sloane, in the moonlit dusk, makes her way to her car.

  Margot Gorman, now very cold, stamping her feet, watches her walk past.

  Still without recognising me as a possible acquaintance, the woman I saw on the beach crunched by me in English walking boots, and, using her key, got into one of the parked cars. A shiny new four-wheel-drive ute with spectacular purple duco. I noted facts about the cars in the vicinity to keep my mind occupied. Usually I have a notebook handy.

  After she went, I stared unseeingly at the locked amenities door, rubbing the gooseflesh on my forearms with the cap from the mining company. A few minutes later, turning, I saw Alison and her son walking towards me. Lenny's father was apparently Aboriginal. A tallish lad of about eleven, he had liquid brown eyes, long lashes and defiant eyebrows, deep brown skin, very baggy knee-length trousers and even baggier top. Alison thrust him forward.

  'Lenny will wait here until the cops come,' she said. Confused, I shook my head vigorously and frowned at her. Why did she want to get me away from here?

  'You were shouting into the phone. You're freezing.' Alison explained.

  'Oh?' I looked at the lad, furious. 'Have you told him?'

  She shook her head slightly. No, mouthed silently. 'Only that the cops are coming. That there's something in the toilet and not to let anybody go in. How long do you think they'll be?'

  I didn't know. If she had told the boy, had she blurted it out to the people at the barbecue?

  Alison queried, 'Who was that in the purple car? I thought I saw Judith.'

  'You?' I started but could not find the words to ask what she had said to the others. For some instinctive reason I did not want them to know, yet.

  'She used to have a mustard Landrover Series 3, short-wheelbase,' Alison continued, 'As well as an old grey Toyota LandCruiser.'

  Fortunately, the police weren't long, or didn't seem to be, though minutes hung in the air with our desultory discussion about motor vehicles and the weather, meaningless half-finished sentences, scattered repetitions. The shock and the wait distracted me.

  Uniform arrived in a squad car. They did not have the key to the toilet block. My credentials established with the local boys, I was allowed go. They took down my words on their incident pads and got the ranger by radio. My cotton training sweats were now icy. Leaving Lenny at the scene, Alison drove me home along the dirt road to my place. She came inside, asked for some paper and wrote on a used envelope. 'That's Chandra's number. Tilly and I are staying at Chandra's. I'll take Lenny to his father's. Should be back there in two hours if you need me. Or do you want me to stay?'

  I didn't know. She was too much of a stranger, almost surreal in her leathers and studs. Slowly coming back to normal, I sat down in my own surroundings while Alison hunted for light-switches. She found the bathroom. I heard the water running.

  'Have you any Epsom salts?' she called.

  'In the cupboard, under the sink,' I answered.

  The rushing water was comforting. Then she was behind me.

  'You've been perspiring,' she said as she rubbed my spine vigorously. 'You're stiff with shock. Good idea to have a bath.'

  'Yeah, okay.'

  Alison patted my shoulder on her way out. 'Ring Chandra. Chandra Williams, she will help, I promise.' This was a caring, rescuing, effective Alison, not as I imagined her to be from the previous encounter when she was stoned out of her brain. She had to go. She had responsibilities elsewhere. She backed the old Falcon out of my drive and headed south. I wondered about the women, and the men, and the children, at their bonfire. Was the dead girl, so young and white, at their party? Or did she belong to the family at the gas barbecue? Why and how did she die? Her features under the gothic make-up were quite lumpy, large; her mouth open, slumped and misshapen with the muscle collapse of death. Not as good a look as fashion photographers imagine it to be. As I soaped my waxed legs, I had a sensation that this death was more than incidental to my life. Perhaps it would become a media bonanza, whipping up righteous indignation about the heroin epidemic, making one rural family suffer too many words, while many other tragedies go unsung and effectual policies don't get done. The war on drugs making the wrong people rich…

  The bath did some good, but I was jittery and very alone when I got out of it. I put a soft tracksuit on and sat staring at the phone number. Chandra. I hesitated and thought of first ringing my ex-lover, Broom. I did ring her number. When I heard her voice come on the answer machine, I felt bereft. Nervously trying to cope with my need of someone, I pushed the buttons of Chandra's number, with a courage born of need.

  While billions of hours of housework and husband-care are never paid for, when women do have jobs in poor countries, their wages are a pittance compared to the price of those goods for sale in America. These facts are what Chandra is reading on the Internet when her phone rings. The enormous profits made by transnational corporations and the salaries of their CEOs alone make Chandra as mad as hell. Recently, via the same medium, she discovered her good friend Meghan Featherstone was working for the conglomerate she is researching now. When she confronted her, they came to blows, literally. Each first shouted her passion but the words wore out as their emotions became ragged. Meghan's temper shot up like a geyser. She lost it and lashed out. Chandra, forced to defend herself, flattened her with a punch to the jaw. Although the fight and rupt
ure of friendship is with her constantly—hence her ferocity at uncovering every ounce of information about this group of disparate operations—when she recalls the actual argument, she still seethes with anger. She is sore. She picks up the receiver.