Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

ÆSCHYLUS, EURIPIDES AND ALDRICH: WHY QUEENS LOVED WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

Robert Aldrich’s film caused a sensation on its release (1962) and was held dear by queens for several decades. Time and the advent of Queer has seen its significance wane. I would like to explain why it was so esteemed by queens for so long and why it is more than a grand Guignol horror flick with memorable lines such as But y’are Blanche, y’are (Jane [Bette Davis] to her crippled sister Blanche [Joan Crawford], after Blanche has complained Jane would not be treating her this way if Blanche was not in a wheelchair).

Will you accept the notion that every queen is lit by the near-surface struggles of a Femme sashaying and screeching and hollering to be the surface? Such a spirit probably resides in all men but the cost of macho is burying It. This accounts for that repressed air which is concomitant with macho.

The two principal characters of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? take on the aspect of the Femme at war with Itself. Blanche, wheelchair-bound, is increasingly oppressed; Jane, always apparently unrestrained, has begun to reel manically, fuelled by alcohol. The impulse which has set Jane reeling is the discovery that Blanche is plotting with Jane’s doctor to sell the cavernous family home and put Jane in a sanatorium. Jane is having none of this nursing home business; she has decided it is time for a comeback, for her to embrace life again after all these years of expiation looking after her crippled sister.

Jane confronts Blanche about her collusion with the doctor and barks that the house is hers, Daddy bought it with her money. A conflict ensues over this matter: Blanche counterclaims the mansion was bought with her money. And indeed in the segment of the film labelled 1935 we have heard studio executives talking about Blanche having bought the old Valentino place as a home for herself and her sister. Authority, autonomy are the fundamental things that the sisters are in conflict about - who is Mother; the family home has obviously become the focus for this. Despite the evidence provided by the Studio Executives, we have a lingering doubt … for all her egregious faults, we feel Jane does not lie to her sister, nor plot against her; it is Blanche who is devious. And Bette Davis gives the moment of confrontation over ownership of the house a ring of truth and sincerity – Daddy bought this house for me. More chillingly, she goes on to inform Blanche Y’aren’t ever goin’ to sell this house. And y’aren’t ever going to leave it, either.

Were we psychoanalytically inclined we might see the film as a battle between the Superego (Blanche) and the Id (Jane). Blanche’s realm is her upstairs bedroom from which elevation she glimpses the outside world; Jane wallows downstairs.

The Madonna and the Whore are locked in mortal coil. Jane, the Id/Whore, is the active principal, raging and reconnoitring for strategic strikes. Blanche, the Superego/Madonna can only observe from above, roll her eyes, weep, protest and plot to keep the Whore in thrall. When she does take action, dragging her crippled body down to Jane’s realm in order to seek help from external reality, Jane discovers her and immobilises her further and silences her. The Madonna is cursed if she takes action. Even when we glimpse Blanche in her glory as a great Metro star (a daytime television rerun of one of Crawford’s roles), she is a Madonna forced into Whore’s clothing ultimately revealed as her ‘true’ self, a Madonna robed in white, ecstatically supine and adored. When we glimpse Jane as a film player she is a tramp with a Southern accent, all gyrating energy going nowhere. The studio executives despair of Jane Hudson. She is only a player because Blanche has had written into her contract that for every film she makes, Jane must make one too. The martyr Madonna is adored, the vital Whore despised. The Madonna seeks to control the Whore.

Why wouldn’t queens love that? Here is a lesson worth contemplating: be silent, suffer and die a martyr, or rage to live, no matter what they think. We watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in an ecstatic confusion as to what it was offering us, for in those days we had not yet dared to spell out our lack of viable options.

Enter the Phallus. Hopelessly compromised in the form of Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono), recently employed by Jane as an accompanist. Jane decides he’s hers, consummately disgusting though he is.

The one other emissary of the wider reality who enters the Domain of the Demented is Elvira (Maidie Norman). Elvira is Black and works. She therefore has a dignity and decency beyond that of the protagonists and their neighbours (a mother and daughter, respectively desperate in their lack of meaningful employment and seethingly indolent). To continue the psychoanalytic schema … Elvira might be said to be the Ego, attempting to mediate the Id and Superego. Though she is a merciful and formidable emissary from a saner reality, once trapped amongst the Shades and Furies, she does not really stand a chance. Hers is not a fate for which we could claim tragedy, impressive though she is and terrible her fate, for she lacks sufficient stature in this psychodrama: Elvira is an unfortunate casualty in a struggle between larger forces.

Where are we? In a crumbling Spanish Mission mansion in a Hollywood itself in decline since the advent of television and the end of the studio system. We are emerging from the Fifties, still locked in the Cold War. Those in the know might feel Norma Desmond lives just down the road. The neighbours’ house abuts Jane and Blanche’s in a way that suggests the land on which it is built was once part of the sisters’ estate, sold off to pay the rates. The gangster twenties still linger in the presence of jodhpured cops, the Depression thirties in the line of villas in which Edwin and his mother (Marjorie Bennett) live. Jane herself, dressed for business in a style decades out of date and driving a car collectors would pant over, embodies the film’s anachronistic element caught in the swirling exhaust fumes now polluting Los Angeles’ air. Her powder is de ris and again, those in the know, might feel she just reeks of Je Reviens as she flirts with the newspaper advertising clerk in the sweltering humidity.

It is a noir world – cops, confidence men, eliding identities, dissolute and irresolute, violent … It is a world from which the past must be purged. And in every way, the film pursues that theme. The curse is laid in its 1917 prologue when the child Blanche (Gina Gillespie), comforted by her mother in the face of obliteration by the child star Jane, retorts I won’t forget, you bet I won’t forget! Later the Studio Executives warn that Jane is going to end up in a home one day. In awe of a car they have come across, one asks the other Tell me something, who do they make monsters like this for? The ominous answer is Blanche Hudson, that’s who.

But Blanche, with her subsequent great success and Baby Jane’s huge decline and now Blanche’s revival via television reruns, does seem to have forgotten her childhood imprecation. It is Jane who has gone on a rampage of vengeance, who seems to remember. It is with her once famous But y’are Blanche, y’are that she now defies Blanche’s attempt to control her with guilt.

Two narcissists have collided; Daddy’s girl is in conflict with Mommy’s. The sadist is revealed in the masochist and the converse. Robert Aldrich and screenwriter Lukas Heller, adapting Henry Farrell’s novel, gave us an elemental passion not broached in Greek tragedy – sibling rivalry. And it appears to be an act of hubris.

The casting is wonderful. Maidie Norman as Elvira conveys a determinedly not-bitter force of character and fidelity. Norman’s expression establishes without dialogue or any other explanation her key importance in the plot. Wordlessly she provides the film’s most thrilling moment. Victor Buono brings to Edwin Flagg (the names, oh the names) a perfection of slobbish greed, affectation and ruthlessness. Edwin was the epitome of a type we all dreaded we were or would become. Marjorie Bennett as his mother is a dwarf vulgarian with enough heart left for her son to run a dagger into. Together they presented to appalled queens an object lesson in the œdipal. Anna Lee as the Hudson sisters’ neighbour, Mrs Bates (Psycho Came out in 1960), is a tightly wound housewife struggling with the confines of a role Women’s lib is soon to challenge. Her daughter, played by Better Davis’ daughter B D Merrill, is a Los Angeles slut in the making. Robert Cornthwaite as Dr Shelby conveys a harried professional arrogance which dooms Blanche. They are all (with the exception of B D who seems just a bit extraordinary trolloping in front of the TV set) almost familiar in their rightness. And indeed they were familiar to viewers of the time from the actors’ many bit parts on TV as well as in film. They allow the film a remarkable economy. Nothing in this extraordinary enough context needed to be dwelt on or explained, it is there, as familiar and believable as our local shopping centre. Consider Jane placing her ad for an accompanist in the newspaper office: a poudre de ris monster with a heart-shaped beauty mark gouged into her drooping cheek expecting to be recognised and adored by clerks young enough to be her grandchildren. They shift slightly, barely exchange looks and politely indulge her. So too in the bank – the teller is worried by the change in routine and evidently intimidated by her bizarre client but deals with Jane professionally, if to no avail. Each player knew their place and delivered what was required of them. Aldrich’s touch was sure. We might also note Gina Gillespie’s brooding, fierce-eyed resentment as the obscured child Blanche – it resonates throughout the film. These performers created a context in which two once-great stars could, in a hitherto undreamt of occurrence, orbit in what was left of one another’s radiance: would there be an eclipse?

Crawford is almost always underestimated as an actor. Actually she produced many very good and varied performances. She developed her gift, frequently by taking on challenges a mere star would have balked at. She brought to Blanche, not only the evidence of her long and successful career – dignity and grace – but radiance and determination, then desperation and defeat. She brings to Blanche a sense of strength both physical (even though her character is in a wheelchair), and deceptively enough, moral.

Davis’ Jane is surely one of the great performances. Observe the ballet of her raddled, enraged character. Watch her on the stairs, the violence with which she deals with the insistence of Blanche’s summonsing bell and with Blanche herself. Watch her convey drunken calculating slatternliness as she delivers Blanche her horrifying lunches. And listen. To the coarseness of her fiendish laugh, her nearly-asphyxiated-by-booze-and-rage tones. Let me try to atomise its fascination: outrageous, operatic, fearless, finely calibrated across genre styles.

Both Davis and Crawford seem to belong, in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, to Greek tragedy, or Noh - Crawford with her character settled in thick eyebrows and set lips, her dull robe, Davis with her arsenic white face and bloodshot eyes, the matted tendrils of her once golden hair. Their faces are masks of ritual, expressionistic. This film declares itself outside the conventional styles of Hollywood cinema; it is neither realistic, nor entirely noir, nor can we categorise it as B grade, despite its originality and obviously cheap production (William Glasgow’s Art Direction seems to me outstanding). It has too many depths and perspectives for horror/thriller. It received five Academy Award nominations (it won one for Norma Koch - Best Costume Design, Black-and-White).

It provided queens with a shock of recognition: the bizarre interiors of conventional reality, the suppressed passion, the expressionistic acting out. The slow burning disguised hatred, the ancient oppressions and guilts. In those Cold War days it was said, ‘only homosexuals go to the movies’; the Family was supposed to huddle, hypnotised in front of the TV. On occasions such as this, the movies rewarded its faithful with rare glimpses of themselves.

How is this psychodrama to enact catharsis? The dying Blanche confesses, on a beach, to having deceived Jane about the accident which crippled her. In doing so, she suggests something about Jane which she has already indicated to us – You didn’t know my sister when she was young Elvira, she was – oh, so alive! – and which we may have not suspected. Jane, now pathetically, evilly raddled, and dreadful though her films might have been, had really been a star once, she really did have a riveting vitality. Blanche confesses to her sister You weren’t ugly then, I made you that way, I even did that. Jane had been so cruelly funny imitating Blanche at a party that Blanche flew into a murderous rage. The Madonna had taken action. And now she wants to confess. Jane’s response effects the catharsis; she does not even need to forgive Blanche the terrible revenge that has been Blanche’s daily study You mean all this time we could have been friends? Jane, now regressed to her child star self, scampers off down the beach to buy her sister an ice-cream. It is on this mission that she discovers her audience again. It is over for both of them; the past has been purged.

Let us say our Jane was one of the harbingers of Stonewall. It let us know: this is now the past.

This film did not fit any genre or category, did not meet any preconceived expectation. It took a huge risk on being merely absurd, it rose above schlock and defied the grotesque to uncover pathos. It had what all great drama has – a foundation in ritual, in myth. It was an astonishment. One left the cinema devastated and elated. That is why queens loved Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.

Ian MacNeill

THAT WOULD BE ME vii - serialisation of a chick lit (if you must) novel of neo colonialism and identity

THAT WOULD BE ME

Chapter Seven

in which our heroine substantiates her new identity and her bank balance, makes another ally and an enemy and is introduced to the horrors of Sydney’s North Shore

She had her hair styled so that she could brush it up for the restaurant at night. She kept dresses and shoes at the restaurant, cycling them through the week. No-one there seemed to think what she was doing extreme, indeed Mr Iriye and Michiyo seemed to think it appropriate.

'Is good for you,' Michiyo said.

Cal wanted to go to a university party.

'Not overdoing it, are you?' Therese asked.

Was there a hint of irony in the question?

Two or three times a week Mr Iriye would say, 'Special guest would like to meet you later.'

As her bank balance grew she began to worry about tax. She thought of going back to the jewellers and sinking the lot into a pair of earrings. Then she thought she might withdraw almost all of her thousands and hide it in her room. Then she thought that was asking for trouble so she consulted one of the advisers her bank proclaimed were ready to give her safe investment advice. She agreed to putting some of her savings in a fixed term account then said, 'What about tax?'

'It's taxed,' the woman looked surprised. 'Of course it's taxed, everything's taxed, no getting out of it.'

Anger flushed through her at this and she thought, 'We'll see about that.' She told the woman she was worried about having to pay two taxes - English and Australian.

The woman advised her to see a tax accountant.

Cal told her not to worry.

She did. How could she explain the money she was accumulating? She thought again about buying the earrings. She thought she should get diamonds, or emeralds, from a good second hand dealer. Then her eyes picked up 'estate jewellery' in the paper. It was an advertisement for an auction. Michiyo went to the viewing with her. They were both very impressed.

Over tea Michiyo said she might buy some pearls.

The auction was on Monday afternoon.

They had another hasty look at the items and marked a few possibles in the catalogue.

She found herself putting her hand up for a brooch she had admired. It was a platinum butterfly. A swirl of small rubies lay in the centre of each diamond-inlaid wing. The bidding went up. She put her hand up again. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Michiyo shift in agitation.

It was hers. For just above the lower estimate. But still nearly all she had saved. Darkness billowed in her head, her stomach went cold.

She let her head fall a little towards Michiyo. 'Oh good, ' she said.

Michiyo bid for some pearl earrings but dropped out quickly.

She thought they might just slip out of there but remembered she had filled in her name and address to get her bidding number. Why hadn't she given a false address?

As they moved towards the pick-up area a woman they had spoken to briefly during the viewing on Sunday said, 'You did well.'

She handed over her credit card with a little composure.

When she took the brooch out of its worn case over afternoon tea in a nearby hotel she was able to smile. It was charming. How the diamonds sparkled. The rubies suggested eyes set in the wings, they seemed to glow wisely with gentle passion. 'At least you can tell it's real. I love art deco.'

Michiyo didn't answer. Then she said, 'I will go to the next auction. Do you want to come?'

She said she would but she wouldn't bid for anything.

That night in her room she tried the brooch on. It was silly and looked far too good for her, she felt.

The next afternoon when she rang to check her account balance she felt satisfied that it no longer had an inexplicably large amount in it.

That night she pointedly examined the amount her client had placed on the table for her and had given him an annoyed and disappointed look. He grudgingly added two more large notes but as she made her exit she noticed that he looked pleased with himself.

In the taxi going back to Therese's she suddenly remembered an occasion when Michiyo had pointed out rock melons piled on a fruit barrow and told her that single ones were offered in special wooden boxes in some Japanese shops for very large sums.

'Why?' she had asked.

'For special gift, status gift,' Michiyo had explained.

'So,' she thought, 'I am a status gift.'

She realised she was becoming skilled at her profession.

She was sure Michiyo was entertaining clients too. How else could she afford to live in that apartment? She was so discreet. Her determination to keep her own career completely hidden hardened.

She would stop all of this when she knew what she was doing.

She ran into Beverley at the university. Beverley seemed surprised, studied her, 'You've changed,' she said after taking her in.

She felt that anger and apprehension bolt through her again. 'Have I? In a good way I hope. How?'

Beverley considered then said. 'I don't know ... You seem more grown-up, older - no! I don't mean like that, more like ... I don't know. It must be your new hairdo, it's really modern.'

Minh had got into Physiotherapy in the other university. 'I knew she would, she's so clever. They are. They're so focused. I try to be. I learnt such a lot from her. I'll miss her. We used to work together.'

'I'm here now, we can work together.'

Beverley nodded with a knowing sadness. 'That'll be good. You know where I sit in the library.'

Her fellow students were mainly young, though in some classes up to a third were mature age. She felt drawn to the latter but thought she should throw her lot in with the young ones. The harried computer woman who had been on her interviewing panel turned out to be a lecturer in Post Modernity and Issues of Identity.

She took a seat at the back of the lecture theatre.

The computer woman strode onto the platform and introduced herself - Doctor Barbara Barbarolli. 'Don't think this is just a wank where you can rave about your fave celebrity identities. I have no intention of training you to be feature writers for Who Wears What Weekly, though I suppose that's what some of you will end up writing for.' She grimaced around the auditorium in an effort to elicit collusive laughter. There was none. So she shrugged and pelted on. 'This is a course - probably the most so of all first semester courses - which demands the utmost in rigour and application. If you don't know how to reference you'd better find out. I believe Stefan - that's Dr Wyniarsky - will be taking you through that in Comms and Info. You have to get your theoretical underpinnings absolutely down solid. Zohra - Dr Nabhan - and I work fairly closely together to see that by the end of your first year you are cognisant with the writings of the main theoreticians in media and identity studies. You can't understand what's going on in the contemporary world without them. Obviously issues of identity are the most important feature in the post industrial landscape.'

'Obviously,' someone nearby muttered. This did raise a few collusive titters.

Doctor Barbarolli glared in their direction. 'It is no laughing matter if you can't - and most people can't - understand the factors which mediate your lives - your self of sense within the information environment which threatens to overwhelm post modern humanity and the manipulation - wilful manipulation in many cases - of media consumers so that they become unwitting victims of post national strategies by post industrial power foci ... this is obviously very different from and very much more than those simplistic notions of globalisation which so many of you seem to espouse these days.'

She noticed someone nodding sagely in the middle of the auditorium. Doctor Barbarolli had also noticed and dashed a contemptuous look in the wannabe's direction.

'I've designed this course to be as challenging as possible, to expand your horizons so that you see yourself as where you are in the twenty-first century. I'm told some of you feel knocked around by the journey we undertake together exploring how post modernity inflects and challenges our cosy senses of identity but the serious students, the real students, take away from this course - or so they tell me, inform me - a whole new way of looking at the world and negotiating with it. In short they came out of this course much more effective people. They thank me for not accepting late work, or taking three marks off for every day that work is overdue, unless of course there is an accompanying doctor's certificate - from a reputable doctor, naturally. That's one of the things you've got to pick up straight away - discipline. None of this excuses and mucking around.

I don't allow late entry to my lectures or seminars, you're either with me or not. If I can get in on time so can you. I want to see process journals with all submitted work. Plagiarism is a huge issue and I don't have the time to run a search on everything handed in to me. I'm supervising five Ph D's this year. You know what's being done to universities across the country and internationally except for some pockets of favoured compliance - I'm sure you can guess where they are and I can assure you there are one or two even in this university who ... some of you will find out ... I'm sure some of you are with me on that.'

No-one dared nod this time though Doctor Barbarolli again swept the auditorium with her predatory gaze searching out manipulative assent and the threat of reactionary dissent.

There was neither. A sea of troubled faces gazed back at her.

She tossed her head; she was more than satisfied.

She had had a few complaints - true, she had handled them as you would expect and it was really more or less her Department now, but Dennis Loeb had ... I suppose you could say, cautioned her. She was subverting his whole dreary approach. He was just another tired fag hanging on hanging in.

A guttural whinny issued through her mouth.

As she rounded on them again a retired psychiatrist taking the course so that she could talk to her son noted that the woman was a failed hypomanic. She'd take a bet the bitch wouldn't see the year out.

'I can't do whatever she was talking about. What can I change to?' the girl sitting next to her said as they rose to make their way out.

'Don't give up. Some of them try to scare you in the first lecture, that's all she was doing.'

'Are you sure?'

They decided to have coffee.

The girl's name was Allison.

In a blinding moment she hesitated over introducing herself as 'Michelle'. 'Iseult' came to mind. It was a name she'd once seen written on the lapel badge of a girl in a government office. She had longed to look and sound as Iseult had - warm, secure, confident, charming, smiling with beneficence. 'My name's Iseult,' she said, 'but my father always called me Michelle - after the tyres, I'm sure. Oh, do you have them out here?'

Their animated mutual discovery was interrupted by a friend of Allison's, Lauren. They had been at school together. Lauren barely acknowledged the introduction. Allison tried to obliterate the rudeness by telling her about the affront of Dr Barbarolli's introductory lecture.

'And I was hoping to get an identity out of it,' she proffered.

'What do you mean by that?' Lauren turned on her and demanded.

'The subject's called Post Modernity and Identity,' Allison explained, smiling at Iseult.

'I know that,' Lauren said, 'I might do it. I'm not sure Communication Civics is right for me.'

'Lauren's doing Arts/Law,' Allison explained.

'Who was in the lecture?'

'I didn't see Wynona - she's a girl who went to a school near ours, I used to talk to her on the train. I'm so glad I found Iseult. What have you got next?'

They had Media and Society which Lauren also did.

They went off together to look for text books before it began.

'Look at the price of this!'

She picked one up for herself.

'Are you buying it?' Lauren demanded.

'It's on our prescribed list.'

'They'll probably have it in the library or there'll be plenty of second hand ones. You must have money to burn.' Lauren paused at this thought and scrutinised her.

Lauren insisted on standing at the back of the lecture theatre to see where the people she knew were sitting.

The lecture theatre was filling so she told Allison she was sitting over there and said good-bye to Lauren.

'See you after the lecture,' Allison called as she made her way to a seat.

After the lecture Allison hurried to catch up with her. 'How did you find that?'

They stopped and talked for a moment about the lecture. When she made to move off Allison said, 'Wait. I said I'd wait for Lauren. We're catching the train together. Where do you live?'

'Elizabeth Bay. I share a flat there.'

'That's beautiful. My uncle used to have a place there. We could walk to Central together. Are you going home?'

At that moment Lauren arrived.

She explained that she was on her way to work.

'Work? Doing what? Not McDonald's I hope.'

She turned on Lauren. 'Actually I have two jobs at the moment. I work in a sweat shop making garments some mornings and afternoons and I work in a restaurant five nights a week.'

Lauren was a little taken aback but recovered quickly. 'You won't be able to keep that up now we've started. I've heard - Lou told me - ' she turned to inform Allison, 'I've heard the first year is the hardest, once you're through that and you've got less subjects then you can relax a bit.'

'I'm not sure he's the authority,' Allison said.

'I think he'd know.'

She moved away.

'See you tomorrow,' Allison called.

'Where's she from?' she heard Lauren ask. 'What school did she go to?'

As she worked in Mr Iriye's restaurant that night she thought about Allison. She knew Allison had been taken by her. She was the sort of young student she should mix with. She had spent too much time with Lyntie. They had got together too soon. She hadn't mixed enough. That was what university was for. She had to meet people, make real friends, somehow.

She felt overwhelmed by what lay before her and very sad and was fighting back tears when Mr Iriye brought a special businessman to meet her after he had bowed the others in the party off the premises. She was very polite and ingratiating but suggested perhaps they could meet for a relaxing drink some other time, perhaps later on in the week if the businessman did not have other more important things to do.

She examined herself in the mirror when she got back to Therese's. Was she starting to look coarse? She couldn't go on drinking like this. Could she arrange for the bar tender to keep cold tea in a whisky bottle? That's what she'd always thought bar hostesses drank. Did Japanese businessmen really expect the hostesses to get inebriated with them? She could act it, she was sure.

The businessman she had been too sad to entertain turned up late the next night. Mr Iriye cast her a worried, commanding glance.

She saw the look of relief pass over his face as she moved into hostess doing special favour mode. She would deal with Mr Iriye and the cold tea tomorrow. Now she dealt with her client.

She had developed a routine which worked with most of them. She never left with anyone who was actually drunk. She never appeared to be hurrying them; she had discovered that if she did the clients almost immediately slowed down and control became an issue. She kept eyes downcast and smiled unless the clients were practising their English then, as she looked over their shoulders or at their ties, she assumed a very serious and impressed expression and told them how good their English was. She tittered at anything she thought might be a joke. She affirmed anything they said about Australian girls and what they liked. In the taxi she made sure they had money. To do this she would get out her own credit card and look at it and shake her head sadly. 'Can't visit hotel unless cash to get taxi home,' she would say. She watched as they tipped the cab driver, it was an indication of whether they were big spenders. She was constantly worried she would be recognised. She felt the cab drivers would be less likely to remember her somehow if they got tipped generously. She managed an anonymous look and a smiling Japanese type nod for reception staff. Only one drink in their suite. If they looked like they wanted to get drunk with her, she'd say, 'I must go home in a taxi after you have had two more drinks. The taxis late at night are very, very expensive and I do not have any money.' If they did not understand she would shrug while keeping her eyes downcast and reaching for her purse to open and show that she had no money. She slipped a shoe off if they had not made a move after the drink. She would get up to leave if that did not trigger an advance. As much as possible she discouraged them from touching her, going from caressing to blow job as smoothly as possible without interference from them. She always tried to initiate the next stage of the action without seeming to do so, however if they made the move she had leaned it was better not to respond too quickly. If she felt the money was not enough she sat down again and pretended to look for something in her purse. This always worked, occasionally spectacularly.

She rehearsed stories in case anyone said they saw her with a Japanese businessman last night. She thought about buying a wig as some sort of disguise and went to try some on but felt they only drew attention to her.

She wore mainly black or sombre purple with a series of discreet scarves which she thought possibly looked like a uniform provided by some international company.

How could she be a friend of a nice girl like Allison when she lived the life she did? Then she thought of Lauren whom she had instantly disliked and been in awe of. She resolved to be as she had been in England and before she ran away, simple, nice. But she had been no more than an idiot battered by every influence and she had really never been as innocent as people had taken her to be. No, she could not go back to being such a victim. She would gradually get command of her life. She took the butterfly brooch out of her drawer. This was the start of her new self. She would be strong. She would be clever. She would take her place and belong in it. This all now was a means to an end, it would be over soon. She would forget it, these would become merely the years she had to work to go to uni. She could see a job, a really good job ... maybe in television production, she might even take some role in front of the camera, she would work for News Limited, Rupert Murdoch had been an Australian, he stilled owned everything in the media in the country, she would be able to travel the world, she would more than likely end up in New York. She would get away from this. No-one - only Mr Iriye, Michiyo, no-one else really knew - would ever tell on her, they wouldn't dare. People always made up stories about celebrities, in any case no-one really seriously believed them. This was white water, fast and dangerous, soon it would shoot her into a great serene lake.

She and Allison became friends. Lauren continued to regard her with suspicion but her hostility lessened with the adjustments to university life and the fact that they were often in one another's company. One day they found themselves walking away from the university together. She told Lauren about Mr Iriye's restaurant. Lauren thought her father entertained clients there sometimes. 'But what are you doing in Australia?'

She told Lauren that her mother had never travelled and was determined her daughters should see a bit of the world.

'That's like Allison's mother - though she's travelled. She wants Allison to meet people other than her school friends. She thinks she ought to get to know how the other half live - not that you're the other half, exactly!' She hooted a laugh and touched her shoulder impudently. 'That's why Allison's taken you up.'

'Oh and I thought it was because she liked me,' she said.

And they walked on in silence.

She told Mr Hidalgo that she couldn't come in to Polka Dot as much now she was at university full time but would he please ring her if a rush order came up and think about her for holiday work?

All the girls were watching. As she came out of Mr Hidalgo's cubby Leni came up to her and put an arm around her waist. 'You come back, come to see us.'

She told everyone she still wanted work sometimes, if they had a big order, to help out, help everyone out.

'I remember,' Francesca assured her.

She walked away feeling close to desolate. She felt she was severing her last tender with reality.

On the way back to the university she slipped into a remaindered book shop. She came across a book about Elizabeth Taylor's jewellery collection. She bought it.

Sitting up in bed that night flicking its pages she had an idea for her first essay for PoMo and Iss Idseoeout  and on about it afters. she would write about how Elizabeth Taylor used jewellery to confirm - create? - an identity.

Allison looked dubious when she told her. Lauren said it sounded ridiculous, where would she find the references?

She said she already had one.

When she was sixteen a local cinema had advertised National Velvet at a Saturday kids' matinee. At school Gemma had gone on and on about it after seeing it on video. That Saturday had turned horrible with her mother weeping over her father's gambling on the football so she had sneaked off to see the film for herself.

It had transported her. Something in her had leapt at and clung to the fierce determination of little Velvet Brown. She had been unable to suppress her weeping when the Pie appeared out of the fog after the last hurdle in the Grand National, Velvet's mother in the grandstand on her feet with anxiety for her daughter's well being.

She had wanted to sit in her seat and weep and weep after the film but the elderly usherette knew her mother and would have talked about it so she got up with the few kids and shuffled out. 

On the way home she thought Velvet shouldn't have fallen off at the end, she wouldn't have. Velvet should have won.

She wondered if she should try to be like Velvet's assured sister, Edwina.

When she got home she looked at her mother and her heart had sunk. There would be no gold medal from swimming the Channel to give her to get to whatever Grand National awaited her.

She borrowed an Elizabeth Taylor biography from the local library and spent Saturday afternoon in the university library reading it.

On Sunday she took the National Velvet video around to Cal's to see if little Elizabeth Taylor wore jewellery while cantering around on the Pie.

Oh Monday she took the articles recommended for the essay out of Closed Reserve in the university library.

Allison and Lauren came across her. 'You haven't started that already?' Lauren declared, but the statement wavered into, 'Have you?'

She had.

'But it's not due till two weeks after Easter.'

She explained that she didn't know what her work load would be like so she felt she had better get started.

She skipped through the main articles required for their first assignment. They were responses, adjustments to the peripheries of the standard works. She barely understood them but took a few notes where she felt they were relevant. The next day she brought the main text to the library with her and began a dash through its impenetrable pages.

She took verbatim notes from Dr Barbarolli's lecture.

Allison and she were in the same seminar group. It was the one Dr Barbarolli took herself. At close quarters Dr Barbarolli managed a kind of patronising, placating enthusiasm. Nevertheless no-one dared contribute. 'Well who's actually read it, then?' Dr Barabarolli demanded of the group cowering about her after she had pronounced vigorously on the topic for the first twenty minutes.

She thought she had better speak now or she would never find the confidence to. 'I understood Pachmann as saying that identity is created through family, culture and in modern post industrial societies through media and aspirations.'

'Media is culture in post industrial societies, I was hoping we had got beyond that.' Dr Barbarolli swept the group. 'Someone else must have ...?'

Her face reddened. Allison's hand came out and touched her own for a moment.

Dr Barbarolli noticed. She began a tirade about how the media promulgated 'culture'.

She took up her pen and began to take notes in order to compose herself.

Dr Barbarolli's discourse shuddered to a mid sentence stop. 'Usually we do not take notes in seminars, you can do that in lectures. Seminars are for discussion. You do the reading and we discuss. Usually someone reads a paper and leads the discussion but as we are just beginning I thought we could all discuss Pachmann's notions of modern identity formation. That's why it's essential to read the prescribed readings for the seminars.'

'I see,' she found herself saying very firmly and loudly. 'I was just noting something that had not been made clear to me. It was not my intention to violate any code. Thank you for making that so very clear.'

The silence was phenomenal.

Dr Barbarolli stared at her then she smiled her patronising smile. 'That's what I'm here for. We're all here to share in the process of clarifying and refining ideas.'

'Oh I didn't mean the idea, I meant the code. As a new comer I had no idea that one couldn't jot an idea down on the wing as it were, in seminars.'

'You're from ... I remember your interview, you transferred from another university didn't you? Which one was it again? You were lucky to get in. Which are you?' Dr Barbarolli consulted her class list.

'Can we get on with this?' the psychiatrist thought they'd better give this appalling woman a bit of a thrashing straight off or they'd be in for it all semester. 'I'd like the opportunity to talk about what we have to do for this first assignment. I think we all get that you can't take notes in seminars but I don't think we all get what this assignment entails exactly.' She intended to impress her son by doing well.

'Can I record it?' a boy asked.

Dr Barbarolli found she had quite a lot of explaining to do.

'Wasn't it wonderful when that boy Royce asked if he could record it?' Allison said over their coffee debrief.

The several from the seminar laughed.

'I loved it when that older woman said, That's news to me, when she said that thing about reality T V and personality formation.'

They all hooted.

'Wasn't that utterly?'

'At least it was interesting.'

'That's one way of putting it.'

'She's such a heavy.'

'What are you doing for your assignment?'

Someone said, 'You're joking.' when she said she was doing Elizabeth Taylor: Jewellery and Identity.

They all stared.

She shrugged.

Allison said well she was doing Sydney Anglicanism and its contribution to the formation of identity.

The session broke up in doubt.

She wrote the essay on her laptop in the library. She took bits from Dr Barbarolli's lectures, fitted them to the obviously related bits from the required reading and took pleasure in selecting which of Taylor's pieces of jewellery she would discuss. It all began to make sense to her. She believed it. She was a convert to the words of the theorist. Her discussions with Allison were intense. She had been unfair to Dr Barbarolli, the woman was committed. She would go and see her.

Dr Barbarolli was astonished to see her. No other first year student had come to see her during the time allotted for individual consultation. She had come to think of it as a blank in her timetable to be used for her own purposes - she was struggling over a paper she might offer to a conference coming up in Amsterdam next year. Dr Barbarolli listened to the questions and found her hostility towards this reactionary and clueless girl overwhelmed - she was so sincere. The harried woman became entranced by her own dealing with this new acolyte's doubts. Dr Barbarolli watched her leave with a warm sense of pedagogic satisfaction: every now and again - not often but every now and again - one of them almost made you feel it was worthwhile.

This was Dr Barbarolli's second year of teaching at the university. She was one of its graduates herself. She had just got her Ph D and wanted to turn the opportunity given her to earn a bit of money into an established career. Her goal was tenure; then they would see.

She walked away determined never to bother again. The interview had given her a headache.

She was delighted to discover she got a very high mark for her assignment into which she had taken pleasure scanning coloured photocopies of the relevant examples of Elizabeth Taylor's jewellery.

Allison also got a high mark and a recommendation she broaden her outlook in the next assignment. The psychiatrist complained about her mark. Dr Barbarolli amended it after she had checked the student profile, Perhaps I was a little severe on your analysis and application of Westbrook to the influence of magazine advertising but always remember most studies have shown adolescent boys do not read much, especially magazines. The psychiatrist, who had specialised in troubled adolescents, snorted a laugh at this, mainly because her mark had been raised from thirteen out of twenty to eighteen.

Michiyo reminded her the next jewellery auction was on. Michiyo bid more than what she had paid for the butterfly brooch for a string of small pearls. 'It is a very good idea you had, jewellery is an excellent investment. No tax,' Michiyo said as they sat in triumph over afternoon tea again.

She was very pleased she had managed to stop herself from bidding. 'We should think about art too,' she replied, 'they say it can be a very good investment.'

Michiyo sipped her tea and took a bite of a scone while she gave this serious consideration then she nodded, 'You know about it?'

She wanted to laugh but she nodded seriously back, 'I have an idea - anyway I can find out. No big bank accounts, no tax, that's our aim.'

Michiyo nodded slowly again and smiled at her.

Michiyo excused herself.

Her mind swung to her major assignment for PoMo and Iss Ids. By the time Michiyo reappeared she was absorbed in the search for a suitable subject, something not desperately original. As Michiyo sat down she noticed she was wearing the pearls. She was impressed: her friend betrayed no self-consciousness, it was if she always wore them.

She decided to do eminem.

This time other students looked thoughtful rather than askance when she told them her chosen topic - was their chosen subject too straight for this course?

She called it eminem - 'Would the Real Shady Please Stand up?'.

Allison asked her to her home for lunch one Saturday. They could spend the day working on their assignments together.

She looked up from poring over one of the theorists to find Mrs Blackmore, Allison's mother, standing at the door, staring at her. She suppressed an impulse to nudge Allison and look in the direction of the door as if at a bizarre and disturbing occurrence, instead she smiled and nodded encouragingly.

Allison looked up and tried to introduce her mother who had advanced into the room but her mother had already begun, 'You must be Iseult, Allison's new friend. Allison tells me you are out from the Old Country, what part are you from?'

Allison interrupted the interrogation by telling her mother they were just in the middle of getting something clear.

'I'll see you at lunch then,' Mrs Blackmore said to Iseult.

Iseult smiled a warm smile.

'But Mum Iseult and I ... I thought we might make sandwiches and have them with a thermos in the Old Paddock, it's such a lovely day and Iseult doesn't know this area at all.'

'Haven't you been up this way? Allison told me you live in Elizabeth Bay, did she tell you that my husband's brother - he's no longer with us - used to live there? It was such a lovely flat. I can't remember the name of the building. Where exactly is your flat?'

She explained.

'Does it have harbour views?'

'No. Unfortunately.' She smiled warmly again but more firmly this time.

'Allen's flat had magnificent views. The young boy he used to share it with couldn't keep it on after ... we heard. The rents must be a fortune these days?'

She ignored the question.

'Allison said you work - was it as a waitress?'

'Yes. And in a garment factory.'

'Really? You could help Allison take up some of her hems, the length she has them makes her look dowdy, don't you think? She has no fashion sense, never has had. You might help her - .'

'Mum, Iseult hasn't got all day, she's got to go to work tonight. We have to hand this in before the end of semester.'

'I'll make the sandwiches. There's chicken left over from the other night.'

''I've already made them.'

'What did you use?'

'There was smoked salmon and I used some of the chicken.'

'I was keeping that salmon for a special breakfast treat for your father, I was going to do scrambled eggs and - '

'I'm sorry. I didn't use it all.'

'You didn't use the chicken and smoked salmon together, did you?'

'No Mum.'

'I'll check what you've done. They're in the fridge I suppose?'

Allison nodded.

When her mother had gone she started to cry.

'Don't worry,' she said, laying a hand on Allison's, 'all mothers are like that, she's just trying her best to do the right thing.'

'No they're not! She's so oppressive. I wish she'd get her own life.' With that Allison pulled herself together and refocused on the work in front of them.

Mrs Blackmore was waiting for them in the kitchen. A travel rug lay in front of her on the kitchen table and there was a basket with a thermos sticking out of it. She was wearing a jacket.

'Ready? Allison is such a serious student, I never had to make her do her homework, she was away in her room as soon as she got home from school. Didn't reappear until I called her for dinner. I'm so glad she's found a friend who's more worldly than she is. Lauren Toogood's been a bit of a blessing - someone to go to uni with but I'm not sure she lives up to her name. Does she?'

'I'm sure she does ... ' Then, 'I haven't known Lauren very long.'

'You've known her as long as you've known Allison.'

'Yes. That's true.'

Mrs Blackmore rose. 'I've made us café au lait and Iseult and I can have some of your father's fudge with it.'

Mrs Blackmore swept up the rug and handed it to her, 'Allison can help me carry the picnic basket, it's quite heavy.'

Allison rallied from utter defeat. 'I thought we might walk. We'll put these things in the car and meet you there.'

'We can all walk. Good idea, it is such a lovely day, you were quite right.'

'But the basket?'

Mrs Blackmore took the rug back from her daughter's guest. 'You can manage between you, strong young girls like you what with Iseult having to rush round with heavy trays and you riding all the time. Let's see your shoes - yes, she can walk down the road in them. They're lovely dear, where did you get them? You could take Allison along when you go shopping next.'

Iseult was rather enjoying herself parrying Mrs Blackmore's impertinences or ignoring them. The air sparkled. A tiny cool breeze flicked her hair. They had walked past stately homes. All was quiet and ordered. She had seen a house that she imagined was the original for the painting in Lady Tierney's foyer. She could see the view from the room at the back into the garden. It might even have been on such a day as this. She felt at ease.

The Old Paddock proved to be a park which commanded a sweeping view. They settled at its further edge.

There was a piercing scream. A dog started to bark.

'I wonder what's disturbed the Richardson's peacocks? That Amber Gelter will be on the phone to the Council, again' Mrs Blackmore laughed. 'Is Louis Richardson part of your clique?'

'No Mum, we don't have cliques.' Allison turned to her friend, 'You know Lou? That's where the noise comes from. They have peacocks, some of the neighbours complain. They can be quite noisy, as you heard.' She had gone white.

'Are you all right?'

'I think I'm getting a migraine.'

'Why? You haven't been eating oranges. Did you have any of that chocolate I left for your brother on the breakfast room table? Let me look at you.'

Mrs Blackmore decided they had better get Allison home to her tablets.

She dashed the curtains across in her room. 'Lie down. I'll run Iseult to the station. Don't move. We can get this before it starts.'

'It's already started.'

'I was hoping she might have grown out of that,' Mrs Blackmore said in the car. 'Princess Margaret used to get them.'

At the station she turned to Iseult. 'I'm so glad Allison's got a friend like you, she needs bringing out of herself, she's so like her father - he's the quiet type too. Her brother's more like me. Boys have to be pushing ahead. See if you can encourage her. I'll come shopping with you. We'll get her a nice winter coat. Sometimes my heart sinks when I see her going off in the morning, she looks like a strapper at the races. She could lose a few kilos. I'd better get back to her. I'll call the doctor, he'll charge a fortune for a visit. This can go on for days. She has to use suppositories, can't keep a thing down. He might give her an injection if he thinks its bad enough.'

She almost jumped when the woman grabbed her forearm in an intense grip. 'Remember, I'm counting on you to show her a few things, she's so naive I could scream.'

As she stood on the pavement outside the station watching the car screech off she realised she hadn't thanked anyone or even said good-bye.

Therese was draped as if dead again that night when she got in.

She carefully opened the window to allow the night air to disturb the fug but closed it again because it was cold and she was worried Therese would get pneumonia. Though she was exhausted she lay awake worrying about the woman. She was getting worse. She was incoherent at times and she looked dreadful. She hardly seemed to eat at all. She didn't know what to do. She thought she might consult Lady Tierney but then decided that was not a good idea; Therese would be sure to find out if Lady Tierney said or did anything at all and would regard it as a betrayal. Should she call an ambulance now and tell Therese later she thought she had collapsed? She could ring Kath, it was an emergency of sorts.

She felt sick herself. The cold tea ploy did not seem to be working. The waiters ignored the bottle she had carefully prepared and pointed out to them. It had disappeared after two nights. The customers often poured huge drinks for her from the bottles they had bought and were insistent on her drinking. Tonight her potential client had not been able to make up his mind and she had lost patience and smilingly excused herself, saying she was not well. The customer had been offended and Mr Iriye had looked annoyed.

What an awful day, she was getting a headache herself. She should stay away from Allison, it was all too complicated having friends. She couldn't invite her back here and there was that demand her awful mother had put on her. What did she think she was?

She suddenly felt sick and rushed to the bathroom. She vomited and vomited to the gall. Her head began to crash.

She crept past Therese and into bed but had to go back to the bathroom to get a headache tablet. Therese had not moved since she had arrived home. Perhaps she really was dead this time.

She got up late still feeling sick. Therese was still slumped in her chair. She went over to her and examined her.  She leant forward and touched her. Therese jumped awake at her touch and she jumped back.

After a moment's confusion Therese said, 'I must have fallen asleep in the chair.' And gave a sort of laugh. Therese hauled herself up, staggered, shouted, 'I'm all right, don't touch me! Never touch me,' and swayed towards the bathroom.

She retired to her room and waited for Therese to leave the bathroom then she showered and escaped to uni.

She rang Mrs Blackmore. Allison's brother answered the phone and said Allison couldn't talk, she had a migraine. She asked to speak to the mother. She thanked Mrs Blackmore, trying not to be perfunctory. Mrs Blackmore asked her to get any notes Allison might need from the lectures she was missing.

Then she rang Kath. Mort answered the phone and said, 'What happened to you on Christmas Day?' He hardly waited for an answer before shouting for Kath. She heard herself described as 'it's that girl who lives with Therese Sullivan in Elizabeth Bay'.

Kath was ready to hand out punishment. 'Yes? Who is this?'

After she had explained herself Kath snapped, 'What do you want, Michelle?'

She told Kath she was a bit worried about Therese and -

'What's the matter?'

She trod carefully. 'She seems to be drinking a little bit more than is good for her, lately.'

'Wouldn't be the first time. How bad is she?'

'Pretty bad. I think.'

'I don't know why you're ringing me, I can't do anything about it, you're the one who caused a rift between us.'

Now that this moment had come she gave it a moment's silence, 'I'm sorry about that,' she declared, 'but that is not the issue here, I'm ringing to see if you have any advice. I am quite worried, obviously.'

Kath took a while to consider this, 'The only person she will listen to is her old doctor - Skelton. I haven't got his number but his practice is in Bondi Junction.'

'Thank you Kath, I'll look it up.'

Kath hesitated now. 'It's the only thing. She's been off the rails before. He fixed her. If there's anything I ... She has to get really bad before she'll snap out of it, they're all like that. I believe. What stage is she at?'

She said she had no way of answering that question, thanked Kath again and said good-bye.

Kath put the phone down feeling cheated out of her right to indignation.

She retired to the university library to worry. Would Kath rush over to Therese's? In her present state Therese would more than likely resent the intrusion. Kath would tell Therese that she had rung her. What would the implications be for her? She made a note of the name 'Skelton' then added 'Bondi Junction'. How did Michiyo manage the whisky thing? Once or twice she had noticed Michiyo was inebriated herself when they said good night. Maybe it was just part of the job.

Her mind sought relief remembering how lovely Allison's neighbourhood was.

She got up from the desk to find out about peacocks. She had pictured one swaying about on a sunny lawn behind a wall which protected the house and its garden from exposure to the quiet, leafy, serene road Mrs Blackmore had marched them along to reach the Old Paddock.