#woomera

O’Reilly’s was an Irish Pub on the corner of the Sydney Building (or so it was claimed - the founder was an American who'd never been to the Emerald Isle in his life, and the dark, shadowy musk felt more like Goulburn than Galway). It was by no means the heart of Civic, but it was cheap, and that was what mattered to its patrons. There were no politicians here, no big-name journalists - just ordinary people.

Lapis sat at the bar, looking at a dog-eared copy of the Canberra Times. It had been printed this morning, which was already starting to feel like an age ago. OPPOSITION BLOCKS SUPPLY, it bellowed.

“No kidding,” muttered Lapis.

She shrugged and turned through the pages, past the editorials and the letters and through the various local news stories, and found herself at the sports pages. She looked again to be sure, and then threw the paper away in disgust. No abandoned car story - the editor hadn't run it. She doubted he'd even looked at it.

She sighed, burying her head in her arms.

“Can I get you anything?” the bartender asked helpfully.

“Can you get me a ticket out of this place?” replied Lapis.

“I can get you a beer,” shrugged the bartender.

Lapis groaned.

“Straight vodka,” she replied, “It’s been that kind of day.”

“Right away, ma'am.”

The bartender walked off to prepare the drink. As he walked along the counter, he passed two young women, both on the short side, in animated discussion.

“Amethyst, you know I can't,” said one, “I've got an essay due the next day and I need that time to study!”

“C’mon, Peridot, this is what student life is all about!” exclaimed Amethyst, “You gotta live a little!”

“By attending a communist rally?”

“Socialist,” Amethyst corrected, “It’s a big tent. And it'll be for a good cause! Trust me, I know a bunch of people there, you'll fit right in!”

“Amethyst…”

“Would you do it for me?” asked Amethyst, grinning sweetly and leaning in on her friend.

Peridot’s face turned red.

“I… uh… sure, okay. But don't do that here, we’re in public,” she warned.

Amethyst sighed and sat back.

“Being in public sucks,” she grunted.

“Well, we’ll be back at the dorm soon,” shrugged Peridot.

Amethyst grinned.

The bartender walked back past them, handing the shot of straight vodka to Lapis. He sat the glass down in front of her, a bit of strain in his expression. He looked like he wanted to say something, maybe, but Lapis wasn't particularly in the mood for chit-chat.

"I know what I'm doing," she grunted, letting her fingers circle the rim of her liquid courage. The man's frown deepened momentarily, but he walked away without any probing questions.

Mission accomplished. Miserably, Lapis raised the shot glass.

“Here's to Melbourne,” she said, “Some day.”

She sighed, draining the small glass in one go and shaking her head.

Not far away, Donald Fryman sat at a table, rubbing his temples. A friend of his, a local lawyer named Marilee Zircon, regarded him with sympathetic eyes.

“I'm sorry, Don,” she said, “There just doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. The RSL guys just won't hear it.”

“Why not?” demanded Fryman, “They're the Returned and Services League. I'm a returned serviceman! Why can't they let me in?”

“They, uh, they sent me a letter, but I don't think it's…” Zircon began.

“Give it here,” grunted Fryman.

Swallowing, Zircon produced a single sheet of paper from her pocket and handed it to Fryman. He unfolded the sheet and read it out loud.

“Ms. Zircon,” he read, “As Mr. Fryman did not serve in a real war - that's underlined, glad they made that clear - we are not obligated to provide him with membership or support. Furthermore, we believe that the conduct of servicemen in the late war in Vietnam does not correspond with the values of the RSL or the Anzac tradition… where the fuck do they get off on this?”

He threw the letter down in disgust.

“Don…”

“I need some air,” snapped Fryman, climbing to his feet and marching to the door.

The night was brisk - although winter was long over, the Canberra evenings still had their bite. Fryman walked up to his rusty old car and stopped next to it, lighting a cigarette.

“Bad night?”

Fryman looked up. Bill Dewey stood under a street lamp by the bus stop.

“Mhm,” grumbled Fryman, “Bad day. This Senate crap’s turning Parliament House upside down. They've got me guarding Fraser now - twelve ‘till ten, can you believe it?”

He took a drag of his smoke.

“If I wanted to work those hours, I'd have stayed at Nui Dat.”

Both men chuckled, and Fryman took another drag.

“So, what’re you up to?” asked Fryman.

“Waiting for a bus,” replied Dewey.

He leaned forward, looking left and right, and shook his head.

“It never seems to be coming, does it?” he sighed.

“Nah,” said Fryman ruefully, “Typical Canberra buses.”

He took one more drag of his cigarette and dropped it, crushing it under his shoe.

“Well, one more,” he said, “Then I’d better be getting home to Peedee.”

“You have a good night, Don,” Dewey nodded.

Fryman smirked and performed a mock salute.

“You too, Lieutenant Dewey.”

He turned and walked back inside. He was halfway back to Zircon’s table when he felt someone tug on his arm. He turned - an elderly fellow, perhaps sixty years old, was sitting alone at a table. He was gaunt, his dark rimmed eyes magnified by a pair of glasses.

“Couldn’t help but notice you’re getting screwed by the RSL too,” he said raspily, “Same happened to me, you know.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” nodded Fryman.

“Yeah, it’s the way it goes, isn’t it?” grunted the man, “The government calls you to do it’s dirty business then throws you away when it’s done.”

He shook his head.

“They sold our lives at Woomera,” he muttered darkly, “May as well have fuckin’ shot us themselves.”

Across the bar, already fairly drunk, Lapis’ ears perked up. Woomera… Woomera, that was important… Roy Bradley’s car! WOOMERA!

Lapis pursed her lips and nodded to herself. It was time, she decided, to start getting some answers.

She climbed to her feet in determination. Then she swayed, losing her sense of balance, her vision swimming and her head pounding. Bile built up in her throat. For a moment, she glanced back at the counter, and the ten shot glasses that had accumulated in front of her stool suddenly into sharp focus.

As she fell backwards, crashing to the hard, tiled floor, she asked herself if ten shots of straight vodka had really been such a good idea.

Then there was a crash, and all was dark.

There’s a blissfulness about unconsciousness, about neither feeling nor thinking. One can’t really be hurt or punished in such a state - it is a strange sort of zen, bereft of the wonder of dreams or the terror of nightmares.

Usually it’s to define when consciousness returns. The exception to this rule is when it comes back in the form of a pounding, splitting headache. In those cases, it comes back with great and unwelcome fanfare.

Lapis groaned, clutching her head as she took stock of her surroundings. She was back in her apartment - how did she get here? She’d been laid on the couch, a pillow under her head and a blanket over her body. Did she walk home? Get a cab? Fly, even? That perhaps was unlikely, but part of her didn’t want to rule it out.

Still moaning to herself, she sat up. The apartment was a mess, but that wasn’t new - cleaning products were expensive and she wasn’t exactly swimming in money. Among the dusty pile of old newspapers and junk mail on the coffee table, she sighed a clean sheet of a paper, a hastily scrawled note written upon it.

Found you laying outside that Irish Pub at eleven last night and helped you get home. Hope you don’t mind, but I had to go through your pockets to find your keys. - Greg.

Outside? But… but she passed out inside the pub, so…

So they’d picked her up and deposited her on the pavement outside at closing time. Typical. Stay classy, O’Reilly’s.

She picked up the note paper and turned it over in her hand. There was a logo printed on the other side; It’s A Wash! An address underneath revealed that the business was in Acton, and was owned by a Greg Universe. Maybe she’d have to thank him.

She looked at the clock and sighed heavily. It was already evening - she must have slept all day. She’d be in trouble, except she doubted anyone at the Canberra Times had even noticed she hadn’t come in. Sitting back on the couch, she grabbed the remote and turned the television on.

Immediately, she was met with the face of Gough Whitlam, in the middle of an interview with someone at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation - the ABC.

More politics, she thought to herself. It was hard not to get sick of it all.

“...so, must Sir John Kerr accept your advice whatever advice you give-”

“Unquestionably!” Whitlam replied forcefully, before the interviewer had finished his question, “The Governor-General takes the advice of his Prime Minister and from no one else.”

“And must act on that advice?”

“Unquestionably! The Governor-General must act on the advice of his Prime Minister.”

“There is no tolerance here? He must do-”

“None whatever.”

Huh, Lapis thought. Well, this was a slightly interesting development - it seemed Whitlam was making it especially clear that he had no intention of backing down. Still, it all seemed a bit strange and technical. Who cared about the Governor-General anyway? He sat in a mansion and rubber-stamped laws, everybody knew that.

She turned off the TV. It wasn’t worth worrying about.

There was a lot worth worrying about for Pearl.

The press gallery was already going off; she could hear them from the Prime Minister’s offices. She didn’t blame them - the Prime Minister had directly challenged Ellicott’s legal opinion of the previous day, which wouldn’t have been a problem, except for the fact that it could easily be interpreted as a challenge to Sir John Kerr himself.

It made yesterday seem simple by comparison - a spat between Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, a normal dispute between parties. Now it threatened to become something impossibly larger. They’d called it a constitutional crisis yesterday - now ‘crisis’ seemed too tame a word. The world had turned upside down once again, and it had only just gone five.

It seemed it’d be a late night, so she’d headed down to grab a coffee. She needed caffeine - it was that or insanity, at this stage.

She met Fryman at the cafeteria, intently studying the board, his eyes sunken and weary. Pearl’s heart went out for him - being a security guard was a thankless job, after all. Next to him was one of her counterparts from Malcolm Fraser’s secretarial pool; a tall, lithe, blonde woman, conservatively dressed, her face set into a perpetual frown.

Yellow - for that was what everyone called her - had a reputation for being neurotic and something of a perfectionist. She was often hard to like. Yet under that exterior was a deeply competent woman, and one that Pearl respected...at a distance.

Nevermind the company. She came here with a goal in mind, caffeine, and she was going to see it through. Pearl stepped up beside Yellow and waited for her turn, though she was pleased when the pair included her in their conversation.

“That Briggs man came around today,” she spat, and Pearl raised an eyebrow.

“Martin Briggs?” she asked, “From the American Embassy?”

“Yeah, I saw him heading into Fraser’s office,” nodded Fryman, “What did he want?”

“I don’t know,” replied Yellow, “Something or another; Mr. Fraser was busy so I told him to come back next week. And then he hung around for twenty minutes leering at me. How does someone so uncouth get to be a diplomat?”

“Beats me,” shrugged Fryman.

“Yeah, he was coming onto me yesterday,” said Pearl, “Gough sent him off - told him to come back at six.”

“Well, if he came back, I didn’t see him,” shrugged Fryman, “But I might have left before him.”

They chatted idly for a little longer as the line moved. Eventually, Pearl had her coffee - no sugar or cream, as usual. Yellow turned her nose up at it.

“You’d have it without milk if they let you,” she sniffed.

“I don’t tell you how to have your coffee,” snapped Pearl.

Yellow snorted as she walked off, leaving Pearl and Fryman alone.

“Are you sure you don’t want to…” said Fryman, looking down at Pearl’s mug.

“I’m sure,” replied Pearl, “Certain flavours make me gag. I’ve always been something of a fussy eater, at any rate.”

“Get it from your parents?” asked Fryman.

“I don’t really remember my parents much,” replied Pearl, “Dad was a railwayman, he left my mother shortly after I was born to go to Junee. Then she died of pneumonia when I was about four, so I grew up with my relatives in Queanbeyan…”

“Oh.” Fryman bit his lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Pearl shrugged, “I don’t think about them much, anyway.”

He nodded, covering his mouth as he yawned.

“I’d better get back to my post,” he said, “You have a nice evening, Pearl.”

“You too, Fryman,” nodded Pearl.

She yawned on reflex as the security guard walked away, and gazed morosely into her coffee. Her face was reflected in the cloudy liquid - god, she looked tired.