Free Eight Pieces on Prostitution by Dorothy Johnston, Port Campbell Press Page B

voice.
    Camilla had finished dressing Josef. Together they wrapped him in a blanket. It was a sombre procession down the fire stairs, and they did not make a neat job of it. Josef’s weight proved unpredictable and slippery; his body moved as though it still had a mind of its own.
    They staggered, nearly falling. A leg broke free of the blanket. Sue was within a breath of crying out. The steps had never seemed so steep and narrow, like rungs belonging to a ladder infinite in its extent.
    They slipped again, and would have fallen to the bottom in a heap had it not been for Camilla, taller and stronger than Sue, strengthening her grip, adjusting her footing, heaving with her shoulder braced against the metal railing.
    The moon was high and spindly, the night at last beginning to cool down.
    Josef’s car, a small red hatchback, was parked at the far end of the carpark. They squashed him into the back seat, and Laura into the back as well, where she folded herself into the furthest corner and pulled a blanket round her head.
    Camilla said, ‘I’ll drive.’
    Laura whined, but made no other sound.
    They left behind the concrete block with its steep and slipshod stairs. The moon was a skinny and accusing finger, poking out between clouds that had suddenly blown up. Sue stared out of the passenger window and could not shake the impression that the buildings at her back also loomed in front of them, or that they were still climbing down that frightful ladder. She did not ask where Camilla was taking them, but was surprised to see, the next time she looked, that the suburb had given way to paddocks.
    The three women were wearing rubber gloves; Laura had stared while Sue was putting hers on as if she did not know what they were. Each had a blanket to sit on, to stop her clothes from coming into contact with the car’s upholstery, but Sue worried that this wouldn’t be enough. Her hands inside the gloves felt hot and sticky, as though she’d been kneading honey.
    Bitumen turned to gravel. Summer grasses gave off a rich, dry scent. Wire fences in good condition offered up their own small gestures of security. Caught at their periphery, dark outlines could have belonged to the conscience of the city at their backs, rather than three prostitutes and a client newly dead.
    Camilla turned the engine off, but left the lights on, and got out of the car. Shapes across the fence were larger, longer than those that might have belonged to cattle. Sue stared at a camel and her calf.
    â€˜Whoever thought that there’d be camels out here? Who owns all this? Where’s their house?’
    â€˜How the hell should I know,’ Camilla said.
    They unwrapped Josef and positioned him flopped over the steering wheel, with the car’s bumper bar up against the fence. They decided it was better if the car was facing away from Canberra, as if Josef’s heart had failed him as he was heading out towards - well who knew exactly, or could say?
    Only then did Sue and Camilla realize that they had not brought another car, that they would have to walk all the way back into town.
    When Camilla rang next morning, Sue realized it was later than she’d thought. She hadn’t expected to be able to sleep at all.
    She heard the phone ringing from the bathroom, and went to answer it wrapped in a towel.
    â€˜You took your time,’ Camilla said.
    â€˜Sorry. How are you?’
    â€˜Scared.’
    â€˜Are you coming over?’ Sue asked. ‘I don’t think we can make decisions on the phone.’
    Sue found a clean white T shirt and some jeans. She threw the clothes she’d been wearing the night before into the washing machine, scrubbed the soles of her running shoes with a nail brush, then put them in the sun to dry. She found some Panadol in the bathroom cupboard and swallowed two with a cup of tea. She knew Camilla would be a while because she was picking up Laura on the way.
    Josef Kafer’s eyes