Chapter 34: Murder and Music

Enrolment Time

January 25th, 1978

Lori was overjoyed to have us back home; as was Tracy. Even though we tried to be quiet, we woke them as we got into bed. Despite being tired, we made love, and then I slept soundly until nine in the morning. I would have preferred to have gone back to sleep, but I had to get across to the university to enrol. I grabbed a quick breakfast, got my organizer folder from the study, and drove across to the University. I parked behind the Electrical Engineering building, and went up to Professor Allen’s office.

“Will! Great to see you! How did your concert tour go?” he asked. “Was your girlfriend, Lori in the Sydney to Hobart race again this year? How did she go?”

I filled him in on the tour and how Lori went in the race, he told me to congratulate her on the result.

“Now, we need to see about all of your enrolment paperwork; there’s a new person working in the school office, specifically to handle student administration, enrolment, and all that paperwork. She’s been with the University for several years, working in student administration and the Bursar’s office. I’ll call her in, and she will make sure everything’s done correctly. I’ll just warn you, Michelle is really competent, but she’s rather short, not short enough to be counted as a dwarf, but just so you’re prepared, so you don’t draw attention to her height; or rather the lack of height.”

He pressed a button on the intercom on his desk, and asked for Michelle to come in.

“Michelle, Mr. Morris is here for his enrolment, can you bring all of the paperwork in with you?” he asked.

Within a minute, the side door to his office opened, and I assumed the woman who came in was the aforementioned Michelle. She was very short; I wasn’t great at estimating heights, but she was well under five feet tall. That wasn’t what struck me though, she had stunning red hair, a deep orange colour, not quite shoulder length. Actually, I believe the correct terminology for hair that colour is ‘auburn’. Her skin was quite pale, and I suspected her eyes were green. There was more than a touch of Irish in her, and I wondered if there was such a thing as a female leprechaun.

“Will Morris, meet Michelle Jones,” he said.

I went to stand up, to shake her hand, but she reached out her hand while I was still in the chair.

“No, don’t bother getting up; at least this way I feel taller than you,” she said, with a mischievous smile. “Lovely to meet you in person, Will; although I’ve seen you several times before in concert. Nice to meet face to face.”

“Now, the first thing is your application to transfer to the Science degree,” Professor Allen said. “Do you have that form, Michelle?”

She handed him one of the pieces of paper that she had in the folder; Professor Allen scanned it quickly, and put it in front of me.

“You just need to sign it here,” he indicated a line at the bottom.

I signed the form, and he signed it in another place.

“I assume you’ll get that up to Professor Angyll for him to endorse, Michelle?”

She told him as soon as we had finished here, she would get it completed.

“Now, the subjects for this year,” he continued. “Assuming you want to do honours next year, you need to do eight level three subjects, including at least four in an approved major. There are four computer science subjects, but one of them you can’t do because you did Digital Logic last year. Instead, you can substitute Computer Systems Engineering, that’s normally a fourth year Elec Eng subject, Doctor Dunworth teaches that, you should enjoy it, all about computer hardware, microprogramming, all of that. He was another person involved in building UTECOM1, with your father, you know.

“I also want you to do the graduate-level subject Doctor Thomas will be teaching, he specifically asked me to have you in his class. Even though it’s a graduate level subject, that will count, assuming the head of the appropriate school approves, which is me, so ... That just leaves the remaining three subjects, plus the mandatory General Studies unit, you can’t get out of that.”

“I was thinking about some Applied Mathematics units,” I said. “I enjoyed that subject last year, so...”

“A good choice, can you work with Will, Michelle, and get the forms completed, and make sure he’s registered for all the classes? You’ve got all the book lists too, haven’t you?”

“Sure, if he comes with me, we can complete all that right now,” she said. “We will have to go up to the School of Mathematics for me to get the stuff for those subjects, but we can do that when I see Doctor Angyll.”

“Sounds good; Will, I’ll let you go with Michelle, and get all of that finished,” he said to me. “Remember, any time you have a problem with anything of an administrative nature here, see Michelle, she knows everybody in admin and student records, if she can’t get a problem fixed, then nobody can. I’ll see you at the start of classes; I hope the remainder of your holidays is relaxing.”

I thanked him for helping me get the enrolment done, then followed Michelle out of his office. She was very short, now that we were both standing up, I estimated her height as maybe four foot ten inches at the best. But she was incredibly cute; I could imagine her with wings, almost like Tinkerbell from a Walt Disney cartoon. Not that I would dare mention that to her. She led me up the corridor to her office; next to her desk was a large IBM terminal, which I assumed was connected to the University’s mainframe computer that processed all of the student records and enrolment information.

“Now, let’s get all of this crap sorted out,” she said. “So much fucking paperwork ... sorry, I didn’t mean to swear like that. It’s just that after several years dealing with this stuff, it still amazes me how someone in the bowels of administration can come up with yet another set of forms. Plus, they change things every year, just to confuse us. Okay, let’s get the fees done first; do you have a cheque for the payment?”

I pulled my chequebook out of the organizer, and wrote a check for the combined union and student fees. It had gone up this year, it was now $90 – not that it would break the bank. Michelle wrote out a receipt, and stamped the back of the cheque; then took my student identification card, and punched a fancy shaped hole in the ‘78’ year position. She entered some commands on her computer terminal, and wrote a number on the back of my cheque. After a few seconds, the printer behind her desk burst into life, she tore off the page when it had finished printing, stripped the row of perforations from each side, and put the printed receipt in the folder she had for me.

“Now, you’re officially enrolled for this year,” she said. “Now, let’s enter the change of course details, and then I can sign you up for the subjects.”

She entered more commands at her terminal, filling out more forms on screen, and more pages were printed, which she also put in my file. She then entered my name against the subjects I had chosen, and asked me to select a General Studies subject.

“I guess Cosmology is already filled?” I said; knowing I was probably out of luck, it was probably the most popular subject.

“Are you always so optimistic?” she replied. “Let me check ... No, that’s full. What about Economics? That’s always useful, and it’s not one of the typical bullshit subjects. Let’s see if I can work that into your timetable...”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said.

After a few minutes, she had registered me for my subjects, and printed out my timetable. It looked nice and light, I would finish by 2 p.m. every day, except for Thursdays, where I had two hours of Economics after lunch. She then pulled out copies of the printed course outlines and textbook lists for the five computer science subjects.

“Now don’t go thinking you’ve got an easy year, with just over twenty classroom hours,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, the two computer science subjects this semester have really complex and time consuming programming assignments. Particularly for Doctor Robinson’s compiling techniques subject, the main assignment is to write a full blown compiler; I’ve heard of students working for three days and nights straight near the project deadline, just to get it finished.”

“At least I don’t have the same huge classroom load as I did last year,” I said. “I should have time to work on projects and assignments without having to panic right near the due date.”

“Feel like taking a walk with me up to the Science building?” she said. “We’ll get the last of the forms signed up there, and the papers for your maths subjects, too.”

We took the elevator down to the ground level, and walked across the car park to the foot of the Basser Stairs.

“It’s probably faster to go up those funky stairs out the front of the building,” Michelle said to me, “but they’re no good for someone like me with short legs.”

As we made our way to the Science building, I asked her about what she had done while working at the University. She had been employed here for about six years, starting as a typist and filing clerk in the administration area, and moved around most areas in administration and student records, meanwhile she was partway through a commerce degree part time. It appeared that she was studying a similar course to Mary Beth, and I asked Michelle if she knew Mary Beth.

“Yeah, I know her, we’ve shared some classes,” she said. “She’s really smart, she’s probably going to top the course.”

I told her that she was my girlfriend’s sister, and also was our sound engineer and touring manager.

“I had assumed that your girlfriend was one of the other women in your group; the one you sing some of the duets with.”

I told her my relationships were complex, and when you perform on stage with someone things can appear to be different than they are in real life. I really didn’t feel like having to explain all the complexities of my relationships, not to someone I had only just met. At least she seemed to accept that answer. We had reached the Science building, and took the elevator up to one of the top floors, where the dean had his office. Michelle spoke to one of the administrative assistants, showed her the change of course form, and had that signed for her. Then it was down a few floors to the School of Mathematics, where we got copies of the course outline and textbook list for the three subjects that I would be taking.

“Well, that’s got everything done,” she said. “Now we just have to take these across to the student admin offices, and that’s it.”

We walked across the Library lawn to the chancellery building, where she led the way to the student records area. In one room, where it appeared she used to work and knew all the people, she gave them copies of all the forms we had filled out today, one of the people there took them, and filed them away in a large compactus.

“Done!” she said, as we headed back out to the Library lawn. “And all in two hours, too. Do you feel like a coffee or something? We can grab a bite to eat in the café under the Goodsell Building, if you like.”

“After helping me enrol, I would love a lunch date,” I said. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

She went red, and looked down at where she was placing her feet.

“I wasn’t meaning it like a date, or anything ... I just thought, being around that time of day ... you might be hungry, and we could get something together...”

Oh, shit, maybe I had offended her, being a bit of a smartarse. Story of my life; how to piss someone off without really trying; I would have to make up for that.

“Sorry, Michelle, I wasn’t implying that you meant anything like that,” I said, trying to make amends. “Look, you’ve been really helpful this morning, I never would have been able to get all that done; let me shout you lunch to thank you for all your help.”

“You don’t have to apologize, I was the one being forward, suggesting lunch together. But since you offered to buy me lunch, I would like that, thank you.”

The café was almost empty, and we stood at the counter to get our lunch. Michelle ordered a salad, and I ordered a ham salad roll with some potato chips and a flavoured milk. Once we had our food, we found a table, and sat down to eat. She asked me what other plans I had for the remainder of the summer holidays, so I told her about the murder weekend, and the upcoming Melbourne tour. She seemed quite interested in the murder weekend, and I described it as a mix of acting and role playing.

“Almost like those guys you see all the time in the Green Room, opposite the CLB, playing their Dungeons and Dragons,” she said. “But I assume you actually dress up as the character you are playing? That would be a lot of fun; I tried playing that D&D game, I enjoyed it, except for the nerdy guys; they really didn’t know how to act maturely around a woman. I eventually gave up on it, it was just too embarrassing.”

“You’d probably like this group,” I said. “Most are couples in their twenties or thirties, although there are some older people. Plus, on the mystery weekends, they get in some professional actors to play the key roles. I’m not sure what the theme for this weekend will be; I will have to study the background and my character information this afternoon, so I can play the role properly. Lori and a few others did a lot of the writing of the scenes and the events while I was away touring.”

She then asked me where I was living, and I told her that a bunch of us in the group, and associated friends shared a row of three terrace houses in Erskineville.

“It works out well, behind the terrace I’m in we’ve got a big room over the garage that serves as our studio, and also a big study area. We have rehearsals most Saturdays, you should come over and listen, if you want. A few other computer science students share the places with me, too, David Farrell, Claire Warner, Garry Lewis.”

“Sounds like a regular commune,” she said.

“Funny, that’s just what Doctor Thomas said to me the other week; he’s been there since he arrived back in the country; but he and his girlfriend, Ros will be moving to International House,” I said. “He has some friends back in the States who according to him are real hippies, and he thought it would make them laugh when he told them he had moved into an urban commune.”

“Full of sex, drugs and rock and roll,” she said, laughing.

“Well, there’s the rock and roll, but no drugs,” I replied. “And I’m not going to tell about the sex...”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, blushing again. “I wasn’t trying to imply that there was ... Shit, I’m good at putting my foot in it, aren’t I? I should shut up before I say something really inappropriate, and you won’t want to talk to me again.”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t worried by what you said; it’s just that the whole living arrangements in our group of houses is a bit complicated, and I don’t want to get myself into a situation where I feel I need to explain things. When I say ‘complicated’, I mean things are a bit unconventional, I guess...”

“You don’t have to explain; it’s your lives, and I’m not wanting to pry. It’s probably quite different from the share flat that I live in.”

“Where are you living?” I asked.

“Just up High Street, I am sharing an old flat with two others from student admin, it’s right on Avoca Street. But I’m sure it’s a lot more boring than where you are; none of us even have boyfriends; so it’s as celibate as a nunnery.

“I find that hard to believe, a woman as attractive as you, not having a boyfriend.”

“Now you’re just poking fun at me,” she said, looking a little miffed.

Shit, I’m just digging myself in deeper, I thought to myself. You’re in good form today, Will.

“No, honestly, I wasn’t trying to be a smartarse. You really are very attractive, and I would have thought there would be a queue of guys desperate to take you out...”

“Hah, I wish! But thank you for the compliment ... In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little bit lacking in the height department ... Well, a lot lacking in that area, and most guys find that hard to handle; I guess they think I look like a fourteen year old girl, but with adult sized boobs, and they are too embarrassed to be seen out with me like that.”

“Well, if that’s how some guys are, you don’t need someone that shallow,” I said. “I mean, don’t wait for some guy to get up the nerve to ask you out; you can always take the initiative and if you see some guy who interests you, ask him out...”

“I tried that once ... never again,” she said, looking rather despondent. “It wasn’t all that long after I first started work here; there was this guy working with me, and we got on well at work, we would talk and joke all the time. Anyway, after a month or two, I asked him if he would like to come out with me one night on the weekend, see a movie, that sort of thing. Well, he turned me down, and the look he gave me ... I felt so humiliated; I never want to try that again.”

So much for me trying to make things up with Michelle. Time to try another tack, and change the subject.

“You said earlier that you have been working in the student administration and records area; how did you end up in the Electrical Engineering School?” I asked.

“Well, after enrolment time last year, we noticed that there was a big increase in the number of student enrolment applications that had problems or mistakes and were rejected by the computer system; we had to spend a huge amount of time fixing things up. Once everything was fixed, the assistant Registrar in charge of the area asked me to see if I could find what the various schools were doing wrong. Anyway, when I went through all the enrolment information, and pulled out the ones where mistakes had been made, we found a pattern. It wasn’t coming from those schools, like Arts or Science, where students typically have a great deal of flexibility in the subjects they can choose, but rather the Engineering Faculty; where traditionally there has been a fixed course; you enrol in the Bachelor of Engineering, Electrical, for example, and you have very little choice in what subjects you can take.

“I think it’s because the administration staff in those schools have never had to understand the subject selection process; and now that more choices have been made available, they really don’t know how to navigate the subject selection process; what the various exclusions and prerequisites mean, and how to make sure students make a valid subject selection. So I suggested that we assign enrolment and subject selection experts to the administration unit in each school. He liked my suggestions, and asked me what school I want to be allocated to. So, I chose the Electrical Engineering School; a couple of reasons; Firstly, Professor Allen was very receptive to the whole process, and secondly, I thought it would be a great place to meet guys ... that makes me sound rather shallow, doesn’t it?”

She smiled at her own self-deprecating comments.

“I wouldn’t call that shallow; I mean, one of the reasons I got into playing live music was that I thought it would be a great way to pick up girls,” I said.

“And how did that work out for you? I wouldn’t have thought you would have trouble picking up women without doing that.”

“Well, I played one set of gigs up at the Antler, at Narrabeen, and some of the local talent flashed me, pulling up their tops and skirts, and even tossing their underwear up on stage at me.”

“Oh, real classy ones! You had it made!” she laughed.

“Yeah, well ... I do have some standards,” I said.

“I’m glad of that,” she said.

“Now, I would assume that the job of looking after all the student enrolment would only occupy you for the first month or two of each year? So, will you be going back to Student Admin once the year has started?”

“No, I’m now permanently part of the Engineering Faculty,” she said. “My official title is ‘Senior Administrative Specialist’; my other duties will be working with Doctor Thomas; helping him work with the University bureaucracy. I guess I’ll be a glorified secretary, or something like that; doing his typing, making sure the results for his students get recorded properly, and managing his calendar. Next month, I will move up to the new office space in the back of the old mainframe computer centre that he’ll be using. At the moment, I’m also battling the International House management so his girlfriend, Roslyn, can move in with him. One person is upset about the fact that she’s not married to him ... at least that’s the public statement, setting a ‘bad moral example for other students’. But I suspect it’s more than that.”

“Oh?”

“One person in particular, the assistant warden, is upset with a black man sharing living quarters with a white woman.”

“You’re kidding?” I exclaimed. “In this day and age? I didn’t think there were people with views like that around still.”

“You would be surprised at some of the attitudes, particularly among the older, more conservative staff members. Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been here, yacking on, not even noticing the time. I guess you have things you need to do this afternoon, getting ready for your murdering weekend, and here I am, rabbitting on, keeping you away from that. But thank you for lunch, and talking with me, it was all very nice. Even if it wasn’t a date, it was still a really lovely time with you.”

She reached across to take hold of my hand; as I held it, I noticed how soft her skin felt, and how warm her grip was. With our lunch ‘date that wasn’t really a date’ over, we headed back to the Electrical Engineering building, and we ended up at her office. I thanked her again for getting all of my enrolment sorted out, and invited her to come to our next rehearsal session, on the first Saturday in February.

“How will I let you know if I can get there? And how will I know where you live?”

“I’m sure you’re quite capable of finding that out,” I said, knowing she had full access to all of my personal information – address, phone numbers, and so on. “I’ll look forward to seeing you on the 4th, we start around mid-morning.”

“Oh, you cheeky bugger!” she said. “And thank you for lunch, too.”

As I walked back to the car, I thought what a nice woman Michelle was. Not just attractive, but clearly smart and competent. Plus, I was sure she was flirting with me; not that I really wanted to start yet another relationship; but it was good for the ego. I shook my head, recalling her comments about guys being put off by her lack of height; some guys must be incredibly shallow, if they couldn’t see past that to her personality and intelligence.

Centennial Murders

January 26th – 29th, 1978

When I got home, I went upstairs to our bedroom; where Lori was laying out all of the clothes we would need for the long weekend. I saw she had what looked like an old fashioned army uniform for me; complete with a bright red jacket.

“How did it go? Did you get into the subjects you wanted?” she asked.

I showed her the timetable, and explained how they had a dedicated enrolment specialist working there, and that she would also be Alonzo’s administrative assistant. She seemed impressed in how much time I would have off classes, until I told her about the degree of work involved in some of the assignments.

“At least you have another month or more to relax before all that starts,” she said. “Here’s the details about the weekend; your character is Major Arthur Gidley King; a descendant of Governor Philip Gidley King; the third governor of the colony of NSW. The theme for the weekend is the celebration of the centenary of the establishment of the colony. Read through all the background material; as you can see, there are at least three different ‘factions’; the descendants of the New South Wales Corps – who were behind the ‘Rum Rebellion’; those descended from convicts, and those from free settlers.

“There’s a special guest speaker; a journalist for the Bulletin who is going to talk about the ill-fated ‘Garden Palace’, that was opened for the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879, and burnt to the ground in 1882. The train will be leaving Central at ten tomorrow morning; the Australian Railway Historical Society is running a special weekend excursion train, and we have one carriage to take us to Bundanoon.”

I read through the background material that Lori, and I assumed Alice and Kerry, had prepared. There was a lot to absorb; they had certainly done their homework on the establishment of the colony, and many of the initial frictions and disputes between various groups. From what I read in Lori’s background paper, it was the New South Wales Corps – the so called ‘Rum Corps’ - that appeared to be the major cause of most of the problems in the early decades of the colony. They were a pretty corrupt load of scoundrels; controlling the colony’s rum supply, giving land grants to other members of the Corps, and were, of course, involved in the overthrown of Governor William Bligh. One of the ringleaders was John Macarthur, of the merino sheep fame.

Lori’s character was the secretary of the “First Fleeters”, a society for people descended from those who arrived on the First Fleet in January 1788, and Tracy was Lily Parkes, the daughter of Sir Henry Parkes.

We would also have Colin Friels, playing David Johnstone, the Bulletin journalist who was going to be the guest speaker and Judy Davis, as his wife Beatrice. It looked as if there was plenty of opportunities for conflict and arguments between the various factions. All the elements were there for a fun weekend.

Over dinner, I told Alonzo that I had met the woman who was going to be his admin assistant.

“Michelle? She’s a real firecracker,” he said. “She’s already helped me get my office organized, taken on several battles with the University administration and bureaucracy, I would be lost without her knowledge and experience. When you get back from the weekend away, come over to the University, and I can show you what I’m setting up. I will have some preliminary papers for you to read by then; I assume all you got today was the basic class outline?”

I thought that sounded quite interesting; although I wasn’t sure where I would get the time to do much reading. After dinner, Lori and I decided to go to bed early; we had a month of being apart to make up for. A bit later in the evening, Megan and Tracy joined us in the bed; but we were too wrapped up in each other to really notice them. I suspect they were more concerned about catching up on lost time with each other, as well.

After breakfast, Tracy, Lori and I caught the train to Central, then walked down to platform one, where our special train was scheduled to depart from. We were wearing our costumes; the two girls in long Victorian-style dresses, and I in my officer’s uniform (complete with scarlet jacket and ceremonial sword). We attracted several strange looks from the puzzled people around us; but it was all part of getting into character. Once on the platform, we found our carriage, and decided we would take the first compartment. Colin and Judy were already there, and while we all remained in character introduced ourselves. We hadn’t been in the compartment all that long before Rusty Noakes and his girlfriend, Nicole entered our compartment. He was playing a successful merchant; Nicole was his equally well dressed wife.

Just as the train started to pull out of the station, Alice and Kerry came around, and distributed our first set of instruction cards. I read mine; basically I had to find David Johnstone and tell him how I was descended from Governor King, and that I was interested in hearing the truth about how the NSW Corps conspired to have my grandfather removed from office as an act of revenge because he was trying to crack down on their corruption. I wondered if there would also be a descendant of the next governor, William Bligh, who was the subject of the only military coup in the country’s history. That might make for some fireworks, I thought.

The train journey through the Southern Highlands was quite pleasant; we were joined by another couple whose names I didn’t recall, but I remember seeing them at the previous murder weekend, at Robertson. The characters they played were also descendants of first fleet settlers; although their forebears were actually convicts that had been transported to the colony, served their sentence, and received tickets of leave, eventually founding a successful business as shipbuilders in Sydney.

All the while, Tracy (as Lily) was subtly flirting with me; her dress, even in the Victorian style, was considerably lower cut than would have been socially acceptable back then. She was sitting next to me, and would arrange herself so I could peek down the top of her dress; she would touch my hand as she spoke to me. Since responding to her wasn’t in my script, I did my best to ignore her, which only seemed to encourage her further.

Once the train arrived at the Bundanoon station, we all got out onto the platform, and walked the short distance up the main road to our accommodation; ‘Treetops’ guest house. We had booked the complete place for the weekend; when we arrived inside, we found our room allocations, and headed off to unpack. I wasn’t surprised to find that Lori, Tracy and I all shared the one room; there were two double beds in the room. I opened the curtains, and there was a view out over the rear gardens.