Madame M and the Glass Harmonica.

A good friend of Kate's, whom I will call Madam M to spare her any blushes, has been keeping an eye on me in Kate and Keir's absence. She was the one who originally collected me from the airport in an electric blue bubble car wearing a red knitted beanie at a rakish angle. Its a bit like spending time with Dorothy Parker. She has an arid sense of humour that utterly contradicts her girlish pixie like giggle. Last night she came over with some stuffed capsicums (what the Australians call peppers for some reason best known to themselves) and a bag with hiking boots in it. I noticed them halfway through my second glass of wine and asked if they were hers.

'No I borrowed them for you to wear whilst we're hiking in Nimbin.'

'Oh, right.'

That's how I found out we'd be hiking in Nimbin.

She breezes in, usually with some kind of food to share, and announces what I'll be doing tomorrow or next wednesday.

'So, we're going to a cigar and whiskey night at this place called Fumidor.'

'Okay!'

When we arrived we discovered that we were practically the only women there. A gaggle of cigar lovers and Che Guevara wannabes almost jumped to attention at the sight of her. All blonde and sultry with her pointy chin and razor sharp fringe. We purchased a couple of good San Cristobal cubans and made our way on to the roof where men fought over themselves to light her cigar with their special tiny bunsen burners. By day the Fumidor is a coffee shop and so this event was a BYO affair much to my dismay. Madame M produces her best slightly forlorn drawl:

'If only we'd known it was a bring your own drink affair....'

And immediately the men are tripping over each other to offer her their whiskey or perhaps the limoncello because it goes so well with a San Cristobal!

'I think I'd like to try that one there,' she smiles.

I could learn a lot from Madame M.

Last night we were in a bottle shop buying some wine and the old sod behind the counter explained in great detail how and why she should open the wine and leave it for thirty minutes before drinking it to open up the flavours.

'If ya gonna drink the wine straight away ya may as well just buy a four dollar bottle, ya'll get the same results as ya would from a twenty dollar one.'

Madame M's eyes go wide like Marilyn.

'Oh yeah?' She breathes. 'So I could open it and maybe go and take a bath or something before I try it?'

'Yeah,' he says wistfully.

When we leave the shop she rolls her eyes.

'Like I don't know what letting a wine breathe means. Honestly. And a four dollar bottle? As if such a thing exists in this country. I get so tired of old men thinking they have something to teach me.'

She then points at a building and starts giggling uncontrollably. Its the Brisbane Mormon Centre. It is palatial and roman looking and upon its highest tower stands a huge golden statue of a small boy with a bugle to his lips.

'I'm pretty sure there's several mentions in the Good Book about not worshipping false idols,' she says. 'When the place was first built the people of Brisbane just said “What the fuck!?” Some reviewer wrote that the inside was a perfect spiritual retreat.....for a gay man looking at a luxury spa holiday.'

'So, I'm coming to get you tomorrow, be ready at 9am.'

'Where are we going?'

'Wait and see.'

She texts at 9am the following morning.

'Make it 10. I had a lie in Xx'.

She texts again at 10am.

'Ok – 10.30. I swear!'

We head off in the blue bubble car, Madame M weaving in and out of traffic on the motorway. She drives like a boy racer and I find myself occasionally grabbing the seat beneath me. I am one of life's dedicated passengers. I do not drive, nor will I now ever learn. I have no sense of direction whatsoever and frankly don't give a damn about getting myself anywhere off my own steam. I feel like I'm travelling in a tuna can but its fun.

She puts the radio on and we listen to Gabriel Gatte, The Tour De France chef murmuring about dishes from different regions whilst the woman interviewing him sighs and gasps.

'This is like porn,' I remark.

Madame M giggles.

Between recipes they play songs that Gatte has chosen to reflect the region or a time in his life. We listen to Charles Aznavour croon about “Yesterday, when I was young”. It is very french, very sentimental and borderline histrionic. We laugh and laugh and laugh and attempt to sing along.

Two and a half hours later we arrive in Lennox Hill. Australians think nothing of hopping in the car and driving hundreds of miles for a great doughnut. In the UK we'd call it a day out. In Australia its popping out for a snack. We meet a couple who are friends of Madame M's for lunch. She has mentioned in advance that the husband is a Life Coach 'of sorts' and doesn't expand. After speaking to him for an hour or so I mention this and he cringes. It takes a further thirty minutes to establish that he is in fact a sort of psychic healer. He is horribly embarrassed by this and finds the whole business of spirituality and the characters it draws to to it hideous. I find this hilarious and spend the rest of the day calling him the reluctant ghost whisperer whilst he stares balefully in to the distance. It never stops being funny. To me.

After lunch we drive down to Byron Bay and have a walk on the beach. Its a beautiful little spot and upon entry there is a sign saying 'Switch off, calm down, chill out.' I take exception to it. There are signs everywhere in Australia telling you what to do like you're some idiot child with no internal gauge. 'Don't Forget To Drink Water!' No shit Sherlock. 'Don't Be A Tosser!' This next to a public ashtray. 'No Butts!' In case you didn't get it from the first message.

We mooch around some shops and Madame M buys a tiny black dress that makes her look like a felony. 'Is this suitable to have dinner with my grandparents?' She asks turning slowly from side to side in front of the mirror and knocking the earth off its axis. 'Yes, absolutely,' I answer. 'Maybe with a shawl.'

She takes me up to the lighthouse and I stand on the most easterly point of Australia watching the water crash against the jet rocks. I watch it for some time, dolphins appear and disappear, the sun starts to set and I have that feeling of returning to a place I've never been to.

A fair few of Kate's friends in Brisbane have been calling to invite me to things, from markets, to concerts to protest marches. I don't know if this kindness and inclusiveness is an Australian quality of nature or the result of Kate emailing them from the UK saying: She needs to be walked twice a day. Don't leave her locked up in the house for too long or she'll start scratching at the furniture. And if you do have to leave her then crack a window because she's bound to smoke.

This morning one of Kate and Keir's neighbour's called me. Mr Wild is a terribly talented musician. He plays several instruments the primary one being the violin. He joined us for a few gigs on the tour and he is breathtaking to watch. He has a booming baritone voice and shouts at you when he's chatting as though there's an entire orchestra playing in his head, which I suspect there is.

'THEA! MORNING! DO YOU HAVE COFFEE?'

'I do! Come on up.'

He bounds through the door all tall, wild haired and wired on exhaustion. He grabs the coffee and starts pouring like a crack addict on the hunt for a fix and rolls a ciggie.

He always seems to be working on 74 projects simultaneously.

'So, what are you working on at the moment?' I ask, noting how tired his eyes are.

'A performance in the city on thursday night. Come. If you want. It'll be good.'

He has a staccato way of speaking that I like.

'What instrument will you be playing?'

'Glass Harmonica. Invented by Benjamin Franklin in the 1880's. Based on the wine glass thing. You know?' He makes a circling motion with his finger as though running it around the rim of a glass. 'Franz Mesmer used it. Fascinating. Madness really. Literally. The sound is so pure you see. They believed its pureness sent people mad. Come. If you want.'

I sit there thinking; Remember this, remember every detail, you'll want to write about it later. I miss the next two minutes of what he's saying as I repeat the words 'Mesmer', 'Franklin' and 'madness' over and over.

'...and she was the first Australian opera diva which is very interesting.

Damn.

'When did you start learning to play?' I ask. I am deeply envious of anyone who plays an instrument and constantly make bargains with the devil: Take my German, I hate the language, just take it and give me piano instead. I'll practise every day, I promise!

'Piano at nine. Guitar at ten and violin at twelve. Which is very late actually. I wasn't really interested until I was fourteen.'

I sit amazed.

'Is that it?' I ask.

'Well,' he reels off a list of instruments and ends with, 'and Banjo.'

'Right.'

'But you know I enjoy them all in different ways, I get interested in one more than another for a while. But violin is my main as you know so I have the most complex relationship with that one. That's the one that can produce anger and hate.'

He laughs and I think the windows will implode.

'Anyway, thursday. Come. If you want. Let me know. Look up the glass harmonica. Its fascinating.' And then he's gone in a whirl of sound and frenetic energy and I go back to contemplating my naval and missing B.