When Joan arrived back at the flat at around six that evening, Bernice and Jess were already busy dressing up for a night out, talking nineteen to the dozen as they swapped hats and jackets and complimented each other’s appearance in the pockmarked baroque mirror that hung over the fireplace, another incongruous reminder of Bomora’s soon-to-be-cut-short days of splendour. Stirred up by all the excitement, the cat sharpened his claws on the divan bed and bounded around the room with yowls of glee.
‘What are you two up to?’ Joan enquired, puzzled by the air of girlish giddiness in Bernice’s bedroom. Bernice was in one of her high-spirited ‘theatrical’ moods, full of grandiose pronouncements as if addressing a crowd. ‘Life is the farce we are all forced to endure!’ Joan recognised the line from Rimbaud. It was one of Bernice’s favourites. Joan then noticed a ‘sniff’, a shilling bag of snow, cut into lines on Bernie’s bedside table. The girls were doping themselves up for a fun night on the town. A bottle of sparkling burgundy, more than two-thirds empty, also stood on Bernie’s dresser next to three drained brownies of Tooth’s.
Was Bernice embarking on another of her terrible, self-destructive benders? Please God, no, prayed Joan. The booze alone would take Bernice down the all-too-familiar path of maudlin and argumentative drunkenness, which sometimes led to frightening fits of rage and blackouts; she had been escorted home more than once by a police officer. Combined with the cocaine, it could even trigger one of Bernice’s full-blown manic episodes. But who was Joan to judge? How else was Bernice meant to handle her grief over Ellie’s death: with dignity and self-possessed grace? Not bloody likely!
Joan had expected to come back to a scene of deep sorrow following Bernice’s visit to Tempe that morning, but she should have known better. As Bernie loved to tell anyone willing to listen, being a bohemian was about more than just living in squalor and dressing cheaply; it was about confronting life in all its raw beauty and terror. Bohemians did not recoil from suffering. As pilgrims seeking the life force, they knew it was unavoidable: the taste of divine nectar one moment and a draught of bitter poison the next. And so Bernice and her fellow bohemians lived fully in these moments, at the whim of famine and feast, cavorting with happy abandon today, dancing in the embrace of death tomorrow, all to escape the soul’s enslavement to the deadly soul-numbing bourgeois ‘money system’.
‘Going out, are we?’ Joan asked.
Bernice snatched a lovely feathered cloche from the mess of clothes on her bed and tossed it to Joan. ‘Get your kit on, dear. Laszlo has invited us all for a shindy at the Big House tonight. Everyone will be there!’
The Big House was, of course, the once-grand mansion down on Onslow Avenue overlooking Elizabeth Bay. The caretaker, Mr Griffiths, had taken it upon himself to rent out rooms as studios and bedsits; the lion’s share of this cash income went on alcohol so that he could stay roaring drunk most days of the week. Thankfully, his intoxicated laissez-faire attitude allowed for the hosting of (according to general opinion) ‘the wildest, most fabulous parties in the Cross’. Bernice was right: everyone who was anyone in Sydney art circles would at some point grace tonight’s revels.
‘I’m too tired, Bernie,’ Joan pleaded. ‘I barely got a wink last night.’ ‘Come on, Joanie. It’s what Ellie would have wanted!’ Bernice kissed her flatmate on the forehead. Of course! Tonight was a wake for Eleanor. Bernice and Jess had clearly decided there was no better way to mourn their friend than to throw themselves headlong into a night of reckless pleasure. Bernice was probably right, Joan conceded; it was exactly what Ellie would have wanted.
‘Can I borrow that green dress?’ Joan asked, pointing at a backless emerald satin number draped over the bedstead. One of the advantages of living cheek by jowl with the rich in Kings Cross was that their cast-offs sometimes ended up in the second-hand clothes shops to be scooped up by Bernice, who had a keen nose for a bargain and was surprisingly adept at fixing, sewing, trimming and dyeing.
Bernie handed her the dress. ‘Have a sniff. Jessie’s shout.’
Joan was not a regular user of cocaine as she did not want to risk a habit or let it interfere with her writing or daytime work, but she was tempted to indulge tonight. The world looked so bleak in the wake of the events of the last twenty-four hours.
The rush came on fast, and the shabby flat took on a lovely sparkling clarity and warmth, appearing as beautiful as any mansion or flashy apartment in the sky. Joan slipped on the satin dress and admired herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece.
Tomorrow and all its uncertainties could wait, she decided. She and Bernice and Jessie would drink and dance and dance and drink all night long.