Chapter 11: Friends – With Benefits

The Wakehurst Parkway Ghost

September 25, 1981

“Hello, Will, hello, Alli,” Jillian said. “I’ve wanted to see both of you for a while. I’m so sorry for what happened to Janelle, Will. I think you are coping with things though?”

In one sense I wasn’t that surprised to see Jillian; well, as unsurprised as one could be to see the ghost of a girlfriend who had died almost two years previously. She always seemed to turn up when I was going through a stressful situation. I would have expected her to have appeared a few weeks earlier.

“I would have come to see you sooner, right after the accident happened, but there was a lot of information I had to find out, things to check up. Now, have either of you heard of the Wakehurst Parkway ghost?”

I hadn’t heard of that, and I shook my head. Allison did as well.

“The story goes back to 1970; when this teenage girl, Kelly, was hitchhiking along the parkway one night. She got picked up by a guy driving a white panel van, he was a plumber, and all of his tools and supplies were in the back of the van. Anyway, he raped her, quite violently, her dead body was found at the end of an overgrown track leading to Middle Creek. Her throat had been cut, but before that, she had been raped repeatedly, both vaginally and anally. She had also been severely beaten, some bushwalkers found her body, it was pretty gruesome.”

“I think I remember that happening,” Allison said. “It was all over the news, and my mother told me never to hitch hike.”

“The police set up a special task force, reporting directly to the commissioner at the time, Norm Allen. This may or may not be a coincidence, but the detective heading that task force was until recently in charge of the ill-fated ‘Special Branch’, which you know all about, Will. Anyway, despite an extensive investigation, neither the white panel van, nor its owner were ever found. There were rumours that the investigation had been quashed at the direction of the state Premier, but that was just idle chatter around the place.

“The poor girl who was raped and killed though was never fully identified; probably just one of many teenage runaways, possibly from interstate. Remember, this was back before there were central computerised registries of missing persons, fingerprints, dental records, or anything to help the detectives identify some unknown person. But she hasn’t completely disappeared, her soul still haunts that stretch of road, and sometimes at night, when she sees a white panel van driven by a middle aged man, with tools and equipment inside and on the roof, she will appear inside it next to the driver and scare him shitless.

“If the driver doesn’t immediately tell her to get out of the vehicle, she will take control of the steering wheel and try to crash the car, either into trees at the side of the road or into an oncoming vehicle. Usually it results in a fatal crash, the driver being killed on the spot. There’s been at least a dozen accidents that she’s caused since her murder. If you remember, Will, you could easily have been in another of those. Not long after you got your car. Do you remember that time driving back from Mona Vale with Lori and Megan in the car?”

I did remember that situation quite well, and the similarities in the situation – if not the outcome – to Janelle’s death struck me as curious at the time. At least I was able to react in time, pull over to the side of the road onto the gravel. The other car was not so lucky, running off the road at the curve at the bottom of the hill, and hitting some trees.

“So, are you saying, that’s what happened to Janelle?” I asked. “She was the victim of some vengeful ghost, an unintended side effect? But I thought all of those spirits, like you, weren’t allowed to directly affect individuals still alive? How can this one do that?”

“We’re not sure what exactly happened, or the reasons why she would have done that,” she replied. “But she’s not one of us, so she’s not subject to the same restraints that the rest of us guardian spirits are subject to that limit what we can do. There’s still more that we have to look into, a lot about it I still don’t know. This is why I didn’t see you right after it happened, but there’s still more we are trying to find out. There’s the possibility that what she – her name is Kelly – didn’t cause that to get back at some random panel van driver, but did that to specifically target Janelle. So her death wasn’t just some stroke of bad luck, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We don’t know why, but until we find out more, I don’t want either of you driving along the Parkway, especially at night, and I would give it a miss during the daylight hours, too.”

“What?” Allison exclaimed. “That’s just crazy, why would anyone want to kill Janelle?”

“Like I said, there’s still more for us to find out, we may know in a few weeks. Anyway, that’s the ‘official’ part of my visit done, let’s go over there and sit down, talk and catch up.”

She led us towards one of the benches in the far corner of the beer garden, and we sat on the bench, Jillian between Allison and me.

“So, Will, how do you think life is going for you?” Jillian asked me.

“Me? Well, my personal life has been shit,” I said. “Apart from that, music is going well, I miss the regular performances at Crystal, but our last album was good. Work-wise, I really enjoy lecturing, and the thesis is interesting, challenging but rewarding. But the last two years of my personal life, ever since you died, it’s been completely fucked up. I mean, first you died, and then Megan and Lori left me to go overseas, Karen dumped me because I wasn’t a Catholic and now Janelle ... I haven’t been able to maintain any sort of relationship; it’s been one disaster after another. I wonder how I’ve managed to stay sane!”

“Do you really think so?” she asked. “There’s a lot of self-pitying bullshit in there, Will. Would you admit that you’ve grown a lot as a person, as a man, and learned a lot about life? You’re no longer the same self-absorbed, aimless guy you were two years ago. What about the great, close friendships that you’ve learned how to develop and maintain?”

“If that’s what it takes to make me grow as a person, then I don’t want to grow anymore; I think I’ve grown that way as much as I want to handle. I have to say, though, the counselling from Margaret Sleigh has helped me a lot. I couldn’t have made it through the last month since Janelle was killed if I was the same person that I had been before.”

“That’s why I suggested that both of you see her. But remember, she can only advise, guide you. You have to take the initiative and make changes to your behaviour. The way you’ve changed with your close friends, Allison, Garry, Mary Beth, Michelle; you are now being more open with them about your emotions and what you feel about things, what you want for your life. That’s why they were able to really support you when you needed them. Not like before, when Megan left, and Lori left; you almost had a complete breakdown then. At least you and Mary Beth sorted things out, and I think you and her both learnt a lot during the weekend you two spent together. At least you two know how incompatible you would be as a couple.

“That’s almost the same as what would happen if the two of you – you, Will and you, Allison – got together as a couple. You are great as good, intimate friends, and would be good as lovers, too. But as partners? A married couple? No, that wouldn’t work. But you have worked out how to have a great, close friendship where you can support each other. And it’s the same with your other close friends, Will. That’s probably the most important lesson that you’ve learned of late, and the best thing you could have done for yourself.”

“You know, Jillian, for a dead person you sure know a hell of a lot about how people should live,” I said. “And what is best for them. I don’t mean that in a bad, critical way, but you have lots of good advice for us.”

“One thing that I thought I mentioned about us spirits, we have the ability to combine our consciences and to tap into other people’s minds, so we understand their thoughts. It’s not like we can predict the future with a crystal ball or anything like that, but we just have a very good understanding of people, how they think and react, and what they are likely to do in any situation. You remember those books by Isaac Asimov, ‘Foundation’? The central premise was that the mathematician, Hari Seldon developed what he called ‘psychohistory’, where they could predict the future, but only on a large scale, at a societal level. Well, by combining our thoughts, and what we know of peoples’ behaviour, we can do that, but at the levels of individuals, based on how they react to events. That’s why I know that you two getting married, or living together, would be a disaster.”

“Whatever the reason, you’ve been a massive help to both Will and me,” Allison said. “I never would have got through these last two years without your support and advice. The best was making sure Will and I remained good, close friends.”

“Oh, now don’t go getting all soppy on me, Alli,” she said. “You’ll both be wanting big sloppy kisses next!”

“I always want big sloppy kisses,” Allison said. “From you, or Will ... I don’t mind!”

“Well ... since you asked so nicely,” Jillian said, and reached around to pull Allison to her.

They kissed passionately and deeply for a minute or two. I was getting aroused watching them, and then Jillian broke off her kiss with Allison, and turned to face me.

“This will be our last kiss like this, Will,” she said. “You and I need to move on.”

She pulled me close to her, and pressed my face to hers. Her lips parted, and our lips touched. I could feel little tingles of electricity flowing between us; her tongue pressed forward, between my lips, and I felt a sudden jolt as our tongues touched. I closed my eyes, and felt a warm feeling flow through my body, starting at my lips where Jillian was kissing me, and going all the way through me to my finger tips and toes. Eventually, she broke away from me, and sighed deeply.

“I always loved kissing you, Will,” she said, sounding wistful.

“So did I, we have that special connection, Jillian,” I said.

“We did, but we both know we can’t be together, for all sorts of reasons. I know you’re hurting at the moment, and still missing Janelle a lot. But there’s someone special out there for you, you haven’t met her yet, but she’s there for you. I can’t tell you who she is, all I can say is she is very close to you, and there are events happening now that will cause the two of you to meet. I’m not sure when, but by the end of this coming summer, you will have met that person. And it’s the same for you, Allison, you are about to meet someone special, too. But meanwhile, the two of you need to be great, close friends to each other. Okay, time for me to go ... when I know more about the accident that killed Janelle, I’ll let you both know.”

She stood up, and slowly faded from vision.

“Well ... that was ... strange, to say the least,” Allison said after a few seconds. “I never know what to take of what she tells us; it seems impossible to believe that she can actually still be around and with us ... but that kiss was so incredibly real.”

“Yeah ... I’m still all ... you know ... from it,” I said.

She took hold of my hand, and we walked back to my car. She didn’t want to go directly home, so we drove up to the park on Mona Vale Headland, at the end of Hillcrest Avenue. We walked across to a bench, and sat there, looking at the view south along Mona Vale Beach.

“That was a pretty wild story that Jillian told us,” I said. “Do you think it’s true, about some ghost of a murdered hitch hiker that takes control of cars, and crashed into Janelle?”

“It does seem pretty far-fetched,” Allison said. “But why would she tell a tall story? It could be true, so what are you going to do about the lawsuit?”

“What can I do? Imagine if I told John or Martin, that the accident was really caused when some ghost took over the other car, and crashed into Janelle’s, because, well, she’s taking revenge on the guy who raped and killed her. And I know that because the ghost of a dead girlfriend appeared to me, telling me the story. People would think I had snapped, that I was crazy or delusional. No, there’s nothing that we can say about it.”

“Yeah ... but it’s a pretty wild story, although it does sort of make sense,” Allison said. “And what about the other stuff she said? That we both will meet someone in the coming months?”

“Yeah, I don’t know her, but she’s close to me. Talk about speaking in riddles. I mean, everything she says goes against my rational thought processes. Fuck, even the fact that she appears at all, that’s right out there; if I told anyone else that we had seen her, spoken with her, they would say we are crazy. Want to know what stuff we are smoking.”

“Yes, I can’t understand it,” she replied. “But everything she says, her advice is right on the money. Don’t ask me to explain things!”

“I guess we will see, she said by the end of summer I would have found the girl for me; no idea how that’s going to happen. But things are already underway to bring us together. I feel like I’m just a pawn in some vast cosmic game.”

“That’s how I feel, too. At least I’m due to meet someone special, too. Well, if in a few months, we both have new partners, then we know she was right about that. A shame it’s not each other though.”

“But I think she’s right on us not really being suited to be partners, we would end up arguing all the time. But she did emphasise how we need to be great, close friends; well, we are already, and we have been for quite a while.”

“Unless she was pushing us to go that next step, to sleep together,” Allison said.

“Maybe. She was more obtuse in her comments this time that she has been in the past,” I said. “Before, she would have come out straight and said, ‘you two need to fuck’, or something like that!”

“You’re not wrong there!” Allison agreed. “I know, I would like that, for us to sleep together. Not now, not tonight, I know you’re not ready for anything like that, but I think our friendship is strong enough to survive us doing that. It’s something for us to think about, anyway.”

“Yeah, I’ll think about it. But not tonight, okay?”

“Of course, not tonight,” she said, taking my arm as we walked back to the car.

After I dropped Allison off at her place, I drove back home. I didn’t need Jillian’s warning not to take the Parkway, I still wasn’t ready to drive along there again. As I lay in bed, I thought about the story that Jillian had told us, the ghost who take over white panel vans, causing them to either run off the road, or crash into other vehicles. It seemed reasonable, after all, that stretch of road had been the site of many accidents over the years, it was so dangerous that a few years ago they had installed steel crash barriers along the sides, to stop cars running off the road and into the trees. All that managed to do was reduce the amount of space on the road shoulder, so if you needed to pull off the road, there wasn’t sufficient room. I wondered if Janelle had tried to do that, but wasn’t able to get completely out of the way of the other car, because of those crash barriers? But then again, if what Jillian said was true, then the ghost would just have aimed for her car anyway. None of it made any sense; not that anything to do with Jillian made sense. I was starting to seriously question my sanity.

Songs for Janelle

September - October, 1981

“Hey, Will, can I ask you a question?” Mary Beth said as I was having breakfast.

“You just did,” I replied, and received a flick from the tea towel on my shoulder.

“Smart arse! You know what I meant. Sometimes I wonder why I continue to be nice to you. I wanted to ask you something about the next album; I was talking with Fifa yesterday, and she suggested we dedicate the next album to Janelle, with part of the sales going to that children’s cancer charity in her name. She suggested we call the album ‘Songs for Janelle’, and have a bit of background on her in the album insert. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I think that would be a lovely idea, and the stuff we are working on for it, they are all in the style of music she liked hearing us play,” I said. “I heard from Martin that there have been lots of donations to that charity, the Good Weekend article generated stacks of interest. There was about ten thousand dollars donated at and after the funeral, the two biggest donations were from the Labor Caucus in state parliament – we can thank Paul Landa for that, about two and half grand, and just over a thousand from the computer science students and staff, too. I’m not sure exactly how much has been donated in total, but Martin told me it’s been well over a hundred and fifty thousand that was directly attributable to the article. Apparently they are setting up a special foundation, with Beth involved on the board, to manage the money, and make sure it goes to where it’s needed the most.”

“That’s really fantastic,” Mary Beth said. “I’m not trying to make light of Janelle’s death, but it looks like something good will come from it. She would be pleased with what you’ve done in her name and helping to carry on all the good work that she did.”

“I never really looked at it in that way,” I said. “It doesn’t make it easier to accept, but knowing that something can be done to continue the work she was doing is gratifying. I know Beth was talking about setting up scholarships for existing nurses to take advanced studies in paediatric nursing, training to get certifications in administering the various chemotherapy drugs, things of that nature. Ways to make sure there are more qualified staff working in that unit.”

“Anyway, as long as you are happy with the idea of having her name on the album, and telling about her connection to the group,” she said. “We didn’t want people thinking that we were trying to cash in on her name or the public sympathy for commercial reasons.”

At the rehearsal, Phil announced what the proposed title of the next album would be; everyone thought it was a great idea. Mary Beth had the latest sales reports from Fifa; the tracks that we had recorded in August were about to be released as an “EP” – two songs on each side. Sales of the album and previous singles were still going well; she expected the official sales figures for ‘Rockin’ the Antler’ to show we had achieved gold record status.

“George is suggesting we do the same for the next album as we did for those last singles,” Phil said. “They will bring their recording equipment here, and record the tracks over a few Saturdays. Apparently the sound they get in here is similar to if we were playing live, but without all the background noise. George reckons it makes us ‘genuine’ or whatever, something to do with the acoustics. But once we’ve got all the tracks sounding pretty good, polishing them up at live gigs, we can start recording here.”

Mary Beth had a proposed gig schedule; for the next few weeks we were playing every Thursday and Friday nights at various venues; the Antler, Lifesaver, Selinas, Chequers in the city. The regular places, at least. Some weeks we had three nights booked, with a few Saturday nights as well. Plenty of time to polish all of the new songs.

We spent the rest of the afternoon working on the new songs; the guys had written some really good stuff, songs with a good, powerful beat. They would certainly get the crowds going, I thought. The last one we worked on was an instrumental piece that George and Harry had written, it was vaguely reminiscent of some of the early 60s guitar instrumental pieces; stuff from the Shadows, or The Ventures, or some of the similar groups. After we had played it through a few times, everyone felt that it was a great piece; didn’t need any vocals as the music alone was sufficient.

“We do need a name for it,” Allison said. “At least something other than ‘That funky guitar one’.”

“Since the album is being called ‘Songs for Janelle’,” Paul said, “shouldn’t we name one of the tracks after her? What about if we name ‘that funky guitar one’, that we haven’t come up with a name for it yet, what you all think the name ‘Janelle’s Blues’? Will?”

I actually thought it was a great idea; even before Paul had suggested it, but I didn’t want to be seen as trying to dominate the album with memories of Janelle. But it was the sort of music that she really enjoyed; it was probably the best track of the ones we had for the album.

“Sounds like a great idea to me,” I said. “I think it’s a song she would have really enjoyed; I could have imagined her dancing in front of our stage as we were playing.”

With that agreed to, we then looked at what our set lists for the coming gigs should be. We wanted a mix of songs from the previous album, interspersed with the new songs so that we would work them up into something ready for recording. After a lot of discussion, and testing out how one song flowed into another, we had what we felt was a reasonable set list. We had a few days to work on the new songs before the first gig, so we felt we were in pretty good shape for those gigs and the upcoming album.

Over the next few weeks we refined the new songs at various gigs; the audiences seemed to like them. On the first Tuesday night after we had settled on the new album title, Phil, Paul and Allison were on Bob Hudson’s night time show on 2JJ, talking about the upcoming album and the gigs we would be doing leading up to it. They also mentioned how some money from the gigs and the album would be going to the children’s cancer charity, in honour of Janelle. Bob promised to promote all of our gigs on his show, doing what he could to make things a success.

It was great to be back into the swing of working songs up to the point of them being ready to record, doing regular gigs around town, and performing up on stage. I always got a huge buzz from doing that, being up there playing and singing, even some dancing on the stage with Allison and Fiona. I had noticed a subtle change in Allison’s behaviour towards me, I would sometime glance up and see her gazing at me. She would smile at me, and the tip of her tongue would just touch her lips, and then she would look away. Or when we were singing songs together, she would stand very close to me, so close that I could feel her breasts pressing into my shoulder or my back. She wasn’t too obvious about what she was doing, but every so often as we were talking, she would put her hand on my wrist, or touch my cheek. She was flirting with me, but being quite restrained about it; I actually liked what she was doing with me, not that I let on to her that I knew what she was up to.

Much like the previous album and the EP, the singing duties were shared between several of us; Allison, Fiona, Mandy and Rachel all had tracks where they were doing the lead vocals, it wasn’t just me all if the time. That helped during our live gigs, sharing the lead vocal duties help keep each of our voices fresh. I think the audiences liked seeing the different members singing lead; when we played at the Antler the usual group of local girls were at the front next to the stage, and didn’t try to hide any of their ‘assets’. Of course, the male members of the audiences enjoyed seeing the women in the group up the front; the stage costumes we had – their tight shorts and skimpy tops - were very popular.

After two weeks playing at various gigs George, Harry and some of the others turned up one Saturday afternoon at our rehearsal, and we went through every song. They made a few suggestions; minor changes in arrangements, or tempo, much like they did with everything we recorded. Their experience and knowledge was incredible, it was amazing just what a difference to our sound their suggestions made. Everyone felt that we would be ready to start recording next weekend; that would give us at least three whole Saturdays, and the weeknights between to get everything on tape.

The first weekend in October was the Labour Day long weekend; and it marked three weeks before the end of the second semester at uni. A number of us spent a few days reviewing the proposed exam questions, not just for Computing I, but other subjects as well. David, Claude and I felt that there would be a better pass rate in Computing I this time around, particularly with those retaking the subject after failing in the first semester. The evening class, with the part timers, were doing better, and I couldn’t anticipate any of them failing the subject.

David and I discussed ways to get feedback from the participants in the programming clinics, so we could determine if it was worth continuing them in future years. We put together a short questionnaire asking whether they felt that the time spent in the clinics was worthwhile, what topics they felt should have been covered in greater depth, what could be cut back on, and if they felt that attending the clinics had helped their overall knowledge. We would make the surveys anonymous so no one would feel intimidated, and we would get hopefully more honest responses.

On the Tuesday of the last week of semester, we had the questionnaires ready to hand out.

“Well, we have today, and next Thursday as our last two meetings for this semester,” I said. “Let me say, running these clinics were an experiment; I proposed it at a Computer Science departmental meeting during the mid-year break, and Professor Allen asked David and me to run with the idea. I hope you have found attending these sessions worthwhile, and all we ask is that you take one of these questionnaires at the end of today’s session, put your comments on it and return it on Thursday. You will notice there’s no space for your name or student number, you can be completely anonymous, and say exactly what you think. Your comments will help us improve what we do in subsequent years.”

Today’s session was talking about how to manage multiple users all wanting to update the same file, and how to prevent one person’s update from obliterating changes others may have made. I was incorporating a similar feature into the router administration software; since the administration facility was accessible both ‘out of band’ via the serial console port, and ‘in band’ though the IP address for the device. The solution Doctor Dunworth and I had arrived at was to get the file ‘last update’ time stamp when a configuration file was read, and just before any updates were written the time stamp would be checked again, and if it wasn’t the same, we could assume the file had been altered in the time between the program read the configuration data and when it was about to update it.

“So, what happens if you find the file has been subsequently updated?” one of the students asked. “Do you try to update other parts of the file?”

“Well, this is where understanding the business requirements is critical, and how you design the application will determine what should be done in this situation,” I said.

I described how the router software configuration settings would be stored in several files; each file for a particular aspect of the configuration, or a specific hardware interface. That way, the chances of two people needing to update the same file at the same time would be minimized. And while it might be possible to determine what changes were made to the later version of the file, and continue those through the new update, it was a rather risky process.

“It’s safer to reject the update based on the older file, and have the person make the changes to the newer configuration,” I said. “By fragmenting the configuration files, and encouraging people to make a series of small updates, the problems are minimised.”

“What about making the file ‘read only’ when the first person goes to update it, and only allowing that person to turn it back to write enabled, when they go to update it?” another person suggested.

“That might work, but then you would have to allow for situations where someone looks at a configuration, and never intends to update it at all” I replied. “But what you are talking about is common in database software, they talk about ‘locking’ data, which could be done either at a table level or a row level – where just one data record is locked. What you have to be careful of is what we call a ‘deadly embrace’, there are two processes updating the database, one locks one record, and needs another resource, but that is locked by another process, that is waiting on the one the first process to unlock it’s resource. When you get into a study of operating systems, you will see how detecting and avoiding that is critical to operating system design. But that is well beyond the scope of what we are looking at here.”

“So how do you avoid that?”

“In an operating system sense, when you go into a wait state on a resource, you have a timer; and if you don’t get what you want in that time, an exception will occur,” I said. “When that happens, normally the process will terminate – at least to the point where it will release all the resources it is holding, and after a short time, start up again. That allows for other processes to get what they want, and finish, releasing resources they held. And that’s probably all I can cover on deadlocks without earning the ire of Doctor Lions; I need to keep something back for you to look forward to next year!”