HELEN SARGEANT
TIME WARP
I telephoned Jack's first wife and asked if she thought he would leave me for another woman. She said yes. I asked Jack's second wife and she said you bet. I didn't ask his third wife. He had left her for me.
I had figured he might, even before we were married. But then, every thing was baby pink love, and when you're in love, you do dumb things, right?
I wasn't in love now. I wanted to kill Jack slowly and thoroughly. I needed a Temporal Tamperer, and suddenly my mind went blank. I didn't know how to find one. Like all illegal things, you think you know how to get into the scene until you really have to. Then you relaise how Mrs Clean you are.
So I phoned Gina, my best friend. She was into everything back in the 70's, she had connections. She said "connections" the way I say
"chocolate mocha icecream". Wickedly, lasciviously, with a licking of lips.
"Hello?" It was Gina.
"Gina, it's Barbara. I need a favour."
I could hear her settling onto the chair she kept by the phone, ready for a long talk. "What is it, darling? Anything at all. You know I have . . . connections." Her voice lowered, and I thought of chocolate mocha icecream.
"I need a T.T." I said it fast.
"What?"
A T.T. You know, Temporal Tamperer. I—"
"I know what it is," she said. I could imagine her frowning in mock puzzlement. "What makes you think I know about them?"
"You know about everything."
"Well . . . "She was playing for time and I could almost hear her flipping through the pages of the secret list she kept under her chair. The one she goes to great pains to pretend isn't there.
"It's about Jack," I said.
"That problem again?" She was aghast, then reeled off a number.
"Ask for Bruno. Are you sure about this? How did you find out?"
I hung up, imagining the hours I would have to spend afterwards apologising and explaining.
I
Bruno, when he came, was a nice man. I looked at the greying hairs curling out of his shirt, and thought they were nice too. He explained about the T.T., and the people whose bodies were for hire.
"It's called Sidewinding. Going sideways in time." Then came the complicated bit, about how there are millions of universes, one for each person, built up by perceptions. And each one differs so fractionally from the other that we all consider ourselves part of one reality.
"Now, what exactly do you want to do, Mrs LaDell?" Bruno was busy twiddling dials.
"I want to kill my husband." I thought he'd flip, but he just shrugged and finished calibrating the machinery he had brought in from his car.
"Here, put this on," he said, handing me a helmet. "Now, are you right? All you've got to do is concentrate." He gave me a large glossy print of a woman. "This is the body you'll be transporting back into.
You'll have complete control of her for three hours. That's all we can guarantee. Just concentrate on the picture and you should be right."
I closed my eyes and strained inside, hard. Jack had started his affair two months ago. I was sure of that. It should be in full swing by now.
"Hey lady, open your eyes!" Bruno called from far away. "Look at the photo!"
I wanted to be in another body, but not some anonymous woman. I thought about Patti Trawley, Jack's secretary and 99 per cent sure lover.
"Hey lady . . . lady, the photo . . . "But his voice faded and I felt cold. There was a wind rushing past, and all my bones turned inside out.
Suddenly there was an explosion inside me that was familiar and yet so different, and I felt a heavy weight on top of me. It let our several moans and rolled away.
"Oh Patti!" Jack gasped.
I worked the unfamiliar mouth. "Jack," I squeaked. The small of my . . . her back ached. We were on the floor of his office. I turned my head and saw Patti's cheap, pretty dress flung over one corner of his desk.
"Honey, I love ya," Jack said.
I smiled widely, knowing Patti had bad teeth. Serve her right. "Jack, darling—"
"Darling?" He grinned. "That's a change about. Just keep talking like that sweetheart, and I think I can find you a pay hike."
Something contracted deep inside me. In my gut and some tiny part
had succumbed to her boss' blackmail. So had we all, as I remembered:
"Barbara, if you don't marry me, I ...11 kill myself." With just the right catch in his voice.
I wondered what line he had used on Patti, while I smiled like a death's head at him. He sat up and began to pull on his jocks - the ones I had given him for Christmas.
"Get dressed Patti. I've got a meeting at two," Jack said, busying himself with his shirt.
The feeling inside me grew and hardened. I fed it the black of my own hate, and a thought came to me: Killing was too good for him.
Jack reached over and kissed me. I wanted out. I pictured my own body and felt the wind in my mind again. Then I was opening my eyes and Bruno looked up from the sandwich he had so conveniently made himself.
"That wasn't long," he said.
I took off the helmet. "I saw what I wanted to. , ' Bruno shrugged. "That'll be two hundred dollars."
I paid and saw him to the door. The phone rang. It was Gina, and after her hello, there was a long pause on the line.
"Gina?"
"Darling, I don't know how to tell you, but I saw Jack down the street today." Pause for effect. "He - er - made a pass at me."
I invited her over, and then recalled Bruno. I also rang Jack's first and second wives, and Patti. I didn't ring his third wife. She still isn't talking to me.
It was Jack's night out with his mates, so we assembled at 7.30.
Bruno wired us all in series, then plugged in. He disappeared to make himself another sandwich. We waited. Jack came through the door at eleven, smelling of perfume from "the boys".
Then, we thought across time. Out of our own realities and into Jack's. We saw his "night out with the boys" lover. Felt, behind all the love-making and love-professing a long suppressed anger and hate for women. All of us.
We took his mind and soul out of his body and pushed it elsewhere.
His empty body collapsed, and we had a drink, clinking glasses. Bruno was paid, and neatly avoided the body as he left.
The police report read that Jack had dropped dead after arriving home. The coroner's report said natural causes.
We went to the zoo to celebrate. The gorilla stared at us balefully as we laughed and made ooking noises at him. He was the last of his breed and despite the frozen banks of semen and eggs in storage, no one had managed to produce a female gorilla to restart the species.
I knew it was against the rules but I threw him some peanuts. He turned away.
"Don't be rude," I said. "Is it my fault you're in a cage?"
Patti giggled. "Poor gorilla. All that masculinity, and nowhere to use it."
We all went "awwwhhh".
He turned back and snarled, and then studied our faces. memoris- ing them. As if he could forget. Then, the gorilla with Jack's eyes gave us the two-finger sign.
Maybe one day he'll figure Out how we did it, and then we'll be in trouble. Until then, we'll have a nice time setting up a rival agency. T.T.'s were good, but we could do better.
ANNEKE SILVER and RON McBURNIE
LETTER FROM TOWNSVILLE
"Townsville. Isn't that North of Brisbane?" Yes, Townsville is North of Brisbane, but by some 1500 km'S. It is much closer to Cape York. It is also West of Mt. Isa and the same latitude as Suva. This relativity of Townsville's geographical position could almost serve as a model for the relativity and diversity of Townsville artists' affiliation with particular artistic centres. Whereas art in regional centres often shows a tendency to follow the trends of the nearest capital, the enor- mous distance from any major centre in the case of Townsville, seems to have forced artists to look at a much wider variety of artistic sources and trends than is usual for a regional area. "Mainstream" stylistic devel- opments, historical references, crosscultural elements from all over the world are examined and recast in terms of the artists' own experience. It would be impossible, within the scope of one article to discuss all art in Townsville. This letter will focus on five practising artists who are also full-time teachers at the Townsville T.A.F.E. Because of their position at the inception of students' artistic careers they contribute in a basic and
