by Ann Michaels
Chapter 5
Friday, 18th November 1988
Dana Roberts is Sally Brown
Always Looking Up
Climbing out of bed and hobbling toward the fridge, I took out some eggs and put them on the bench. I closed my eyes; last night was a long way from the most relaxing sleep that I have ever had. I had found it hard to get comfortable, as the cheap, but new, mattress had more in common with a cement slab than an actual mattress. And the next-door neighbour, appeared to be engaged in some type of bacchanal the entire night, judging by how frequently the bed battered the wall next to my ear.
After eating a simple breakfast, I had a shower and put on my war paint. ‘What cheap and tawdry outfit shall I wear today’, I said out loud to my reflection, in the mirror stuck to the back of the door. I selected a fairly plain, black, mini skirt, and a white t-shirt, which had a rainbow spread across the front, with a small unicorn leaping over it. I knotted the t-shirt on one side, and then, sprayed a little spritz of Poison, my favourite perfume. I couldn’t face the very high heels today, so I selected a pair of white, mini stilettos and slipped them on.
I wound down the driver side window of my car, as I zoomed toward Bondi Beach again and let the air, which flowed from the Pacific Ocean fill my car and my lungs. As I came to the main beach, the sounds of seagulls floated on the breeze; heat rose up from concrete surfaces, and the sand, causing people without thongs to tap dance about in an ungainly manner. Further along, I saw a familiar posse of women, parading around, sans bikini tops. This group, who had even flashed their privates’ at the Queen, were part of a group who believed that being forced to wear clothes, caused humans to be estranged from Gaia, the mother of us all –or so they believed. The uniform boys would be along soon, to chivvy them to another part of the beach, where their eccentricities were better tolerated.
How strange we humans are, I mused. We are born nude, and then, we invent all sorts of beliefs about wearing bits of cloth, over certain parts of the body. Or not.
I parked the car in the same place as yesterday, but instead of going to the restaurant, I ploughed through the early morning hordes of tourists toward the huge surf shop, with its mega range of miniscule bikinis. In some of the photos that I had seen of Tabra Hayden and, June Roze – who was another missing woman connected to Ruslen - they were posing in bikinis, so, I thought that there was a good chance that these women might have frequented this popular and well-stocked shop.
I pushed open the heavy, glass door and stepped into the shop, where the obligatory blonde shop assistant bounded toward me like a deranged lap dog.
‘Hey, how’s it going’, she sang, sounding like my Uncle Pete’s pet parrot. ‘We have a new range of lycra bikinis from Seafolly, Watersun and Blackarrow, if you’ll just step this way’.
I followed the tiny, blonde assistant, who was chewing gum and looking bored, and attempted to start up a conversation.
‘My cousin, she’s a model, told me to buy my swimwear from here,’ I said, sounding especially brainless. I then pulled some photos out of my white, Glomesh handbag; ‘that’s her. I pointed at Tabra Hayden. ‘And this is her friend, June Roze, she’s a model too. Do you know them?’
‘Sure, I do’ dead-panned the blonde teenager. ‘They came in here together sometimes, with a really spunky looking bloke, who spent a lot of cash. And sometimes, another woman would be with them….a red head, from what I remember. They would all hang of the guy’s arm, like they were all going out with him at the same time.’
I opened my wallet and extracted the photo of the third missing woman, Lee Lin, who was posing in evening wear. She rocked a vibrant red rinse in her black hair’.
‘Yeah, that’s her. Tell them to come back when you see them and tell them that I’ll give them a special price.’ Then she added, almost to herself, ‘I’ve made a lot of commission from selling stuff to them’.
I wheeled around and saw a bargain bin with some markdowns and I pulled out a slightly soiled, fringed t-shirt, which looked as though it belonged in the backwoods of Oklahoma. ‘I’ll take this’, I said.
The assistant’s face fell, almost to the floor; a picture of disappointment. She dragged her feet over to the cash registrar to ring up the $5 price, and sullenly, shoved the fringed horror into a bag; then giving me the most fleeting eye contact, handed me my purchase.
Swinging my bag on my arm, I left the air conditioned store and stepped out into the burning morning sun. I was just standing there, deciding if I would grab a coffee, now or later, when I heard voices calling, as though from a long way off, ‘dumb Dana, dumb Dana ’; insults I had not heard since high school. I swung around and around, but I could not place where the taunting voices were coming from.
Then, I looked up.
Hanging over a balcony above me, I could see two bullies from my past: Rochelle Jane and Jodie Lamb. Dressed in sarongs, they were each smoking rolled up cigarettes…no joints; I could smell the herbal perfume from down here, as they laughed uproariously. Suddenly I felt small and uncertain and intimidated, like my thin armour had been punctuated and I needed to hide and repair my wounds.
I was taken back to those years at high school in Newcastle, when a group of bullies had terrorized me, forcing me to change schools. Everyone had turned against me, for no reason what-so-ever, and no one from that school ever talked to me again. I would pass people in the street sometimes in those teenage days, people that I had stated kindergarten with, or played marbles with in the neighbourhood, but they would invariably slink across the road, or call out some nasty comment, as space opened up between us.
Well, perhaps, there was something slightly odd about me, or perhaps, I didn’t wear the right clothes or say the right kind of things. Who knows? But what I am fairly sure about is that I never did anything to deserve the kind of treatment I received. But then, my mind began to spin and whirl and memories were thrown up, of me at the age of 12, wanting to be ‘cool’ and mix with the in-crowd; sick of being the person who was always different. The target. So I embarked on a study of what the popular kids wore and how they acted and set about transforming myself. Then one day, one of those mean, popular girls noticed me and I thought that my social butterfly transformation was complete. I readily dumped my less glamorous friends and prepared to move up the social scale. But it soon became apparent that it was all a joke. I was a joke.
I was sinking into that familiar sinkhole of sadness, when a thought dawned on me. Both of those bullies were breaking the law and I could call the police and report them. In fact, I was police. Now a dilemma faced me and I still stood there, with the hard sun burning down upon me, unable to move, as I listened to their mocking insults and cruel laughter.
No, I decided, I could not and would not be motivated by revenge and I would not fall to their despicable level. I tried to comfort myself that some type of cosmic arbiter of justice may exist in this world, silently observing and noting their tormenting behaviour, but I couldn’t really believe it.
I slowly walked away, with feet as heavy as bricks, back in the direction of my car. I felt sad and somehow diminished; even though I knew that the thoughts of such people did not matter. Still, to have them see me, as I now looked, not knowing that I was a successful detective, currently undertaking an uncover operation; hurt me more than it should have, after all these years.
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Later that night, I was sitting in a cab heading into the city wearing a purple dress that I had picked up at Mean Machine, in the Mid-City Centre. It looked much better than you may presume, with its padded shoulders and pencil skirt. There was also an interesting cross over design on the front, which looked kind of designer-like. Or perhaps, I just have a very good imagination. Anyway, I was on my way to Julianna's Nightclub, at the Hilton, as Tabra Hayden had been a Friday night regular at that nightclub.
I stepped out of the cab and immediately felt the breeze, which
whipped down the canyon of George Street, flow around me. I looked about, but the street was fairly empty, as people were locked up in the cinema across the road, watching Mystic Pizza, with the new movie star sensation, Julia Roberts. I then stared up at the ugly building that housed the luxury hotel and I remembered how a bomb had exploded in a garbage truck, right here, outside this place, ten years ago. I shivered and walked past the parking attendants, through the electronic glass doors and toward the lift.