Mike Dixon

Sue Lynne said the old lady was in distressed circum-
stances. It was the same term his mother used when talking
about an aged cousin the family had rescued from a board-
ing house in Parramatta. She suffered from Alzheimer‟s disease
and was living in squalor although she had hundreds of
thousands of dollars in the bank. David wondered if Sue
Lynne was talking about something similar.
He approached a doorway and found a dirty, barefoot
infant playing at the foot of a flight of stairs. The child
shouted in a high-pitched voice and a taller figure appeared
from the gloom: a girl of about fifteen, with rouged cheeks
and a tight pink dress. She smiled at David and held out a
hand. The stench of cheap scent and stale sweat brought
him to a standstill.
„Hullo, da‟ling!‟ Her fingernails were painted bright blue.
David rejected the hand and reached in his pocket for his
wallet. The sight of expensive sharkskin produced an incom-
prehensible babble.
He took out a visiting card, printed on high-quality paper
and edged with gold. Doris‟ name
and address appeared on one side
in English and in Chinese on the
other. He held up the card with
the Chinese side facing the girl
who narrowed her eyes and stared
in silence. David suspected she
couldn‟t read. Then, a long blue
fingernail struck out and she
squawked indignantly.
„Yoo fuck old lady!‟
David felt oddly relieved.
„Do you know her?‟
„She up in pallor.‟
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