We All Lived in Bondi Then by Georgia Blain

Author:Georgia Blain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC029000, FIC019000, FIC045000, FIC087000
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2024-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Two hours before dinner, the power goes.

It is the silence that Annie notices first. The hum of the computer, the soft whirr of the fan-forced oven (slow-cooked lamb), and the television all stop. It is only five o’clock, still just enough light to see, but she looks for candles in case it lasts into the evening.

They have four. Horrible scented things in glass jars and floral tins. Unwanted gifts kept in the bottom of the kitchen cupboard. She puts them on the table and then pretends to search for the matches. She knows exactly where they are. Behind the coffee cups and next to the last of a pouch of tobacco she bought two weeks ago and hid in shame. There is no one in the kitchen with her, so she doesn’t really need to pretend to look, but she does, even saying ‘Ah ha’ out loud when she puts her fingers on the box.

‘Blackout,’ Kath tells her when she comes in from the fuse box. ‘The whole street.’ She lifts Lou up and sits her on the kitchen table. ‘No lights. No TV. Nothin’.’

‘For how long?’ Lou asks.

‘Who knows.’

Two hours later there is still no power. Annie rings the hotline on her mobile every fifteen minutes. She keys in their postcode and the message is always the same. A power outage has been identified in your area. The cause is [pause] unknown. Power is expected to be returned in [pause] approximately three hours.

‘No news,’ she tells Kath every time, finding this pleasing and exciting.

Jane and Sarah arrive with more candles, a torch, and a bottle of wine. The blackout is in their street too — five blocks away.

Jane pours them all a drink, except Sarah, who is pregnant, although they both insist on referring to the pregnancy with the collective noun.

‘Cheers,’ Jane says. ‘Here’s to the darkness,’ and there is a hardness in her eyes, a darting distance that Annie recognises. Jane will be drunk within the hour.

‘I put four dogs down today,’ Jane tells them, but Annie is the only one who is listening. Kath is heating the lamb on the gas stove and Sarah is reading a story to Lou. ‘I hate Fridays.’

‘Maybe you should stop doing it for a while,’ Annie says.

Jane rolls her eyes. ‘I’ve asked in staff meetings, it’s just a day a week, but they all have excuses — study, kids — and until I can find another volunteer, I’m stuck. I can’t leave them in the lurch.’ She inhales deeply. ‘Lamb?’

Kath holds a wooden spoon out to her and Jane takes the taste. They had been lovers before Annie met Kath. Both tall, lean, handsome women who liked other women — and drinking — too much. The first time Annie briefed Kath at the legal centre, she felt she would burn up from desire. If she shifted just a little, their legs would touch, silky skin on silky skin, and she was daring then, the skim of her calf against Kath’s enough

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