…We're all up at the crack of dawn. Beachy's mum is fussing over me, giving me a towel and saying breakfast will be in five minutes. Breakfast! And cooked for me. The excitement goes to my head. I'm in the bathroom, leaning against the basin for a closer look in the mirror, and I don't see a drawer under the basin until this vicious scissor-type weapon leaps out of it and stabs me. The room reels. Blood squirts everywhere. And the pain. Indescribable. My sex life flashes before my eyes. Cut off in my prime. Knackered.

I hobble out to Beachy's kitchen, making more clutches than an Australian cricketer. ‘Where's a doctor?’ I ask, casual like. It got quite a response. About a hundred clutches later I'm steered into a cubicle.

‘Take your trousers off and lie under the sheet,’ a nurse says in my ear. She has to be kidding. What if they're loose in there?

I ease the daks down with considerable care and caution, and lie on the bench when in walks this lady doctor. ‘Just let's see what's happening here,’ she goes, whips the sheet off with one hand lifts them up. Turns them around. At least they're still attached.

She dabs them with cotton wool and looks at me. ‘Mmm,’ she goes and gives them another twirl. ‘I don't know why there's so much blood. It's only a little prick.’

I'm out of there before she decides it's not worth keeping.

Then Mum's at me, ferocious like, about not going to the interview…

…I'm woken by a crash and bang and squealing and clanking, and someone's stumbling down my path. I glance at the clock. 4.37. There's only one person it could be.

‘Perr. Oh, Perr. I've knocked the dustbins and I'm so unhappy, Perr, and they're all rolling down the road and I can't stop crying,’ and Sonya falls through the door and flings herself across my bed.

‘Don't worry about it,’ I mumble, minimally embarrassed, and pull her up the bed a bit.

‘I can't help it,’ she sobs. ‘I've tried to forget you and I can't, Perr.’

This bungalow attracts crying women. I'm wiping her face with my doona when there's more racket outside and Mum's clomping up to the door.

‘What on earth are you doing here, Sonya?’ she's yelling, which makes Sonya cry louder.

‘But,’ she blurts, ‘I love him, Mrs Merritt.’ My ears are electrified. It's loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear.

‘I think you've been drinking,’ says my mother. Like, the old Son's totally off her face…