Melbourne, 30 October 1868
Lola stands in a squalid room at the foot of a rickety bed, watching Edward bestow a passionate kiss upon the mouth of her naked friend. Marie’s white arms and legs are flung out anyhow, her dark hair crawling over the pillow. Edward lifts her up from the bed. He puts his ear to her nose and lips. He slaps her hair-streaked face.
No, thinks Lola, no.
She pulls off her shawl and tries to wind it around her friend’s body. The beautiful skin is clammy and cold, a toad skin. Edward moans, pushes Lola away. He smells of brandy. He flings Marie down, pummels her chest with his fists, then drags her into a sitting position.
‘Hold her,’ he says.
Lola wants to shout at him to take his damn hands away, but the urgency in his voice pushes her to the other side of the bed. She puts her arms around Marie, presses in on her shoulders, digs her fingers into the wool of the shawl. Her dainty friend is suddenly so heavy. She bends at her tiny waist. She flops forward like a badly stuffed doll. Edward shakes her, and a reeky yellow liquid oozes from her slack mouth. A great hank of hair slips from her head and falls down her back to the pillow. Dear God, some poison has set off a galloping mange.
He opens his bag, draws out a long rubber tube, pushes it into the little O that was once Marie’s perfect rosebud mouth. Now the O is swollen, chapped, purple. In and further in goes the tube, a serpent devouring from inside. Lola feels her own throat constrict and choke.
Marie convulses. Lola holds her down on the bed. Edward opens a flask and pours dark liquid down the tube. A bitter smell of coffee. He attaches a bulb to the end of the tube, squeezes and releases it. The liquid comes back with a sickening suck. He tips in more coffee, squeezes and releases. The liquid splashes onto the floor, and now it has a sickly-sweet chemical smell.
Marie falls limp. Glazed eyes in a waxy face stare at Lola without recognition.
‘You’ve killed her,’ hisses Lola…
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