Chapter 4

"Pat?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I spend some money?"

"Sure."

"No. I mean a lot of money?"

"How much is a lot?"

"About $2500. Maybe a bit more."

"What for?"

"Opera subscriptions. Here's the brochure. They're doing wonderful stuff: Mozart and Verdi and Puccini and..."

"No problem. Let's look at it at the table."

"Got a calendar for the full year?"

In a few minutes we'd put together a list of seven operas and an alternate date for each.

"Are you home in the morning?"

"Yes. I don't have a lecture till 1300."

"Fine. Phone the box office number in the morning. I'm certain they don't open before 10, most likely not till 11. Have the list and the credit card in front of you. Place the order and have them send us the tickets. I prefer the Premium in the stalls or the circle or the A-reserve in the circle."

"I can do that."

"Oh, and have them round up a bit."

"Round up?"

"$200 times two times seven is $2800. 10% off makes that just over $2500. Tell them to put $3000 on the card and that the rest is a 'donation'."

"Bribery!"

"Yes. But make sure they send a receipt for tax purposes. Anyway, it's insurance."

"Insurance?"

"Look. They're doing Wagner's Ring next year. We'll be valued subscribers and donors when those tickets go on sale. And we're both interested in myth."

"Brilliant!"

"No. Just sneaky and devious."

"Serpentine, I'd say."

"Yes, dear."

In the morning I went off to a really boring lecture on the Labour Party's formation as a serious electoral force (it dates from 1891 in New South Wales, 1893 in Queensland and South Australia, and later in the other colonies). After Federation, the new parliamentary party first met in May 1901. Along with a lot of names, that was it. 1901 to World War I next time.

I was getting my stuff together when the sheila (yes, I know that's rude) in the next seat asked: "Do you ever go to the parties?"

"Sorry?"

"I see you here in class, but never anywhere else."

"Oh. I put on my cloak when I leave here. I take it off before I come in."

"What?"

"I'm usually invisible. It's one of my superpowers."

"Are you some sort of nut?"

"A pecan by choice."

"Let's start over, okay? I'm Allison."

"I'm Patrick."

"Are you concentrating in Government?"

"No, History?"

"Then why are you here?"

"In general, you'd have to ask my parents; in specific, I thought I'd take a variety of things."

"Very funny. Anyroad, you don't live in one of the residences, do you?"

"No, in a flat south of the campus."

"Sharing with a bloke or two?"

"Sharing, but not with a bloke."

"Oh-h-h. You married?"

"Not yet. But I'm not shopping. Sorry."

"Me too. You're kinda cute and you shave and don't smell from cheap beer."

"I guess the first is a compliment, the others don't sound like a high hurdle."

"Got time for a cuppa?"

"Sure. But let me buy."

"A big spender, too! Gosh."

I looked at Allison as we walked across campus. She was nice-looking with brown hair. She appeared to have a nice figure, encased in a tee shirt from an unfamiliar band and jeans.

"Are you in first year?" I asked when we were seated with cups of coffee.

"Yes. You?"

"Guilty. Are you from New South?"

"Penrith, on the edge of the Blue Mountains. It's really a western suburb of Sydney. You?"

"A bit further away: Perth."

"That's about as far as you can be and stay in Oz!"

"I guess so. And you live in a residence."

"Yes. I'm lucky. I nabbed a single in a suite of four. They're not bad, but two of them party more than they go to classes."

"What do you want to do?"

"I'm not certain. Maybe teach. Maybe go into one of the services. Your turn."

"I'm in a five-year programme that'll yield a degree in history and one in law. Then I'm going into aboriginal rights."

"Wow! That's something. You know, Penrith was Mulgoa land. Tench says they were very friendly. We killed them all. Smallpox."

"I don't know about the Mulgoa, but I'm familiar with several bands in Queensland. You might teach in an aboriginal school."

"That's what my mum says. My dad's very Brit. He's afraid I'll marry a black."

"Is he from England?"

"Far from it! One of my four-times-great grandfathers was Thomas Frost. He died in 1862 in Penrith. And we've each got 32 four-times-greats! No big deal."