Drink then?

Soundcheck at St Michael's Unifying Church, Melbourne. Four pm

Madeleine: Is it time for a drink yet?

Kate: (Whilst massaging throat with vibrator) Let your own conscience be the judge of that.

Pause.

Madeleine: Yeah, it seems like it might be time for a drink.

Madeleine has joined us for the weekend as Kate's backup singer. It is the day after the Melbourne gig and we are stood outside a coffee shop in Bendigo having a smoke.

'So, how long have you been with yours?' I ask.

'Coming up for thirteen years now,' she smiles. 'What about you?'

'Uh...twenty? God yeah, twenty years,' I say taking a drag on my fag and wondering if he's stuck to his electronic cigarette on the other side of the world.

'You must miss him,' Madeleine says. 'I miss mine. We're trying to make a go of things long distance at the moment.'

'Must be hard.'

'Yeah, but its been a while now and we talk a lot. How did you meet?' Madeleine has this lovely conspiratorial quality that makes you feel like you've known her forever.

'University. You?'

'Same. He came up to me on the first day and said his bum was hurting.'

We both laugh.

'Those early days are so special aren't they?' She looks wistfully into the distance.

'Yeah,' I think back to those heady drunken times. 'Does yours have a partner?'

'No, not right now. Yours?'

'Yes, he's been with a lovely chap for a few years now. They're settled and happy. It's what you hope for isn't it.'

'It is. I don't know where I'd be without my gay.'

I overhear her on the phone to him later:

'I love you my darling. How's it going? That's amazing. Of course...yeah...yeah...sure. Awesome! I'll call you tonight. Love you.'

My conversations go slightly more like this:

'Yes I'm wearing make up. Yes I have put a brush through it. No I am not wearing the 'good' bra. Uhuh. Uhuh. No, no I haven't shown anyone my feet. Shut up. No, I am not going to end up like that chick in Wolf Creek. Yes I have stopped eating everything in sight...no I'm not going to be my own excess baggage weight and unable to afford to come home ….I miss you too.'

As my Grandmother says; There are all kinds of marriages. Mind you, she also says; Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.

We have been having a very civilised tour. Not so much Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll as Coffee, educational podcasts and fine dining. And oh my have we dined. Kate orders delicious little things and relishes them. It doesn't matter what Keir orders, he will always wish he'd ordered whatever someone else at the table is having. And he will almost always go to bed with chronic indigestion under a cloud of regret and Eno salts. Adrian approaches the menu like a vandal. He has the unique gift of picking something that sounds incredible and getting them to alter it to the point where it is as close to something you could get from Maccy D's as is humanly possible. I sometimes fancy I can hear the chef weeping behind closed doors as he self harms with the pointy bits of his Michelin star. I order and eat like someone is going to take it away from me. I noticed myself hunching over the plate the other day. I don't want to talk about it.

So, bearing in mind that we have not had any particularly excessive nights, imagine my surprise when we finished the show in Melbourne and I found Keir rocking on his heels looking mischievous with a mostly empty bottle of Shiraz in his hand.

'What's up Mr Nuttall?'

'I'm meeting a friend round the corner for a quick drink. Wanna come?' He swigs the dregs from the bottle in a devil may care fashion and then pops it responsibly in the bin.

I don't want to intrude on his evening and start to demur when Kate interjects;

'Go! Let some steam off, we're not in Melbourne for long.' I know for a fact she is heading home to ginger tea and an early night and I'm not tired.

'Sure, okay, great!' Keir and I head off to The Carlton Rooms. We are initially horrified by the sheer volume coming from within. And everybody is being turned away at the door because its too full.

Keir approaches the security guards in his cardigan. I follow, in mine.

'Hey. We're here to meet John...?'

The bouncers immediately nod and step aside.

'Wow, John must carry some weight around here,' Keir observes.

We enter Dante's first circle of hell. Whatever the young people in here have done to warrant this cruel and unusual punishment they can't possibly deserve it. The room is dark, heaving, loud and the walls are sweating. Two overgrown foetuses are attempting to flirt by standing very close and screaming information in to each others faces.

'He just texted to say they're on the roof,' Keir communicates with a mixture of sign language and despair.

We head up. The second floor is still heaving but the lighting is better. We continue onwards and pass the ladies;

'CLAIIIRE! CLAAAAIIIIREEEE! AH AHM SOOO WORRIED ABOUT SHANAAA. SHE'S BEEN IN THE TOILET FOR AGES AND HE'S HERE WITH THAT OTHER GIRL AND SHE'S BEEN SLAMMING THE SHOTS AND AH Reckon she won't come out cos remember that time she got really fucked and fell asleep with sick all over.......'

We continue on up. The roof turns out to be a massive relief in every way.

Its an open air tiki bar, some heat lamps and god help me if tears of joy didn't form in my eyes– ashtrays.

'What are you drinking Keir?' I ask flourishing my purse and rolling a cigarette simultaneously.

'A glass of shiraz please,' he smiles.

'Seriously?'

'I think its best to stick to the same drink.'

That was at around eleven pm. Two hours later I can be heard asking John, Anne and Keir if they want the salt too or just the lime. I remember Keir's sage riposte:

'Noooo no no no no no no Thea! No No No (Slam, bite, swallow, slam) no no noooooo. No.'

At around three thirty I find one of Keir's eyes looking directly at me and his urgent insistence that; “We have to get out of here. Right now.”

We marched with singular purpose straight in to Hungry Jacks and ordered a couple of bags of Too Much and a portion of Completely Unnecessary.

Keir spent the whole taxi journey home telling the increasingly nervous driver jokes interspersed with some very soul searching questions about his spiritual beliefs.

When we got back home Keir told me that he'd mentioned to John how we had only managed to gain entry by using his name. John said he knew no one on the staff or in that building. We can only assume that wearing a cardigan, giving a specific name and looking bewildered will get you in anywhere. Give it a try.