Ain't no fun waitin' round to be a millionaire

The following is a true story. Only the names have been changed… to protect the guilty.
- Bon Scott, AC/DC, 1976

It was a dark and stormy night.
- Snoopy

OK, so far so derivative. I realise it’s a fairly poor state of affairs when you’re plagiarising Charlie Brown in order to get your point across. Thing is, it really was a dark and stormy night. It’d been one of those really ugly, stinking hot days you get in south-east Queensland can get as spring turns to summer - clammy heat off the back of a oppressive westerly straight from the depths of hell, or at least Ipswich. To be followed on dusk, as if on cue, by a massive thunderstorm and a deluge of Biblical proportions. No way was I going out in that, and I hadn’t even read the Bible. My fiancée Bethany had other ideas. Seemed she had read the Bible on more than the odd occasion, so I guess she was prepared.

“You sure you want to go out in this weather?” I queried, . There was absolutely no doubt she was going out in this weather, but it was still my job to ask, or at least be seen to.

“Daddy says it’s meant to clear by eight,” came the cheery reply, flicked over the shoulder from the bedroom, ending further discussion. The zzzzzip of her gym bag confirmed Bethany’s prior commitments: she had a Pilates class to teach at the school hall in town. No need to mention she wouldn’t be straight home from school afterwards; her church had their regular Thursday evening service at 8pm, which like their Sunday morning gathering, was held in the school chapel. I wasn’t required, thank Christ (no, really I did.) Earlier in our relationship I’d made an attempt to humour Bethany and her family by coming with, but given that stepping across a church threshold as much as once a year put me at risk of spontaneous combustion, twice a week was probably out of the question.

She emerged from the bedroom in her usual carefully-controlled rush, kissed my cheek, slung her gym bag over her tanned shoulder, and ducked out the door into the truly foul night. I waited until the sound of Bethany’s VW Beetle - a New Beetle, or technically a near-new New Beetle if you want to be picky about it - had receded from the rises and curves of my street, before wandering downstairs to grab a cold beer from the beer fridge.

In fact I figured, considering the dismal stash of Boag’s Premium Light in the downstairs fridge (and around a dozen home brews which I was pretending weren't there), Bethany wasn't going to be back tonight. Church nights typically meant she stayed with her parents, even given our newly engaged status. Given that, and the impressive laser-light show which was being put on outside, I voted to kick back and spend the evening on the deck with a beer of three, watching Nature try to obliterate Point Lookout once and for all.

A quick shower later, I’d dug out an old black T-shirt and some faded boardshorts - standard issue slob uniform - and headed out onto the covered deck. It wasn’t until I caught my reflection in the glass of the sliding door that I recognised the shirt I’d exhumed from the depths of my wardrobe wasn’t plain black after all. I grinned at the reflection. It was an old shirt for kick-arse Kiwi band The D4 which I’d picked up at the Livid festival in 2002, emblazoned with the title of their first big single in large capitals. The fact that aforesaid single was titled Rocknroll Motherfucker probably had something to do with me not wearing it very often. Directly in proportion to the amount of time since I started seriously dating a nice Christian girl.

I sank into the ancient couch out on the deck, and kicked back. Sipping. Observing. Reflecting. Meditating. Wishing that I had something other than light beer in the house. Something other than my brother’s dubious home brew, that was. It’d been there for three or four months, since Jeff and Rebecca had brought the kids up in the mid-year school holidays - which had largely comprised Beck taking the kids to the beach and The Jeff and I watching the Euro 2008 football on Fox Sports (largely because it was on - or at least the daylight-hours match replays were) drinking beer and talking rubbish. I’d given up on the practice myself; it was too much stuffing around for one person. (Homebrewing I mean, not having kids.) Down home, Jeff had an extra pair of hands to help, in the form of the old man. Plus an extra set of taste buds lacking any discernable function to encourage their craft.

Tonight's entertainment continued: lightning cracked over the headland, waves crashed furiously onto the rocks below. This was pretty much the best vantage point in Point Lookout, which was pretty much why the local real estate wankers were so interested in the place, judging by the bunched handfuls of flyers from the likes of LJ Hooker, First National and some lot claiming to be Professionals which were stuffed through my mailbox on a daily basis. From my deck, facing north-east through the trees, you could see all across the township in almost a 180 degree arc, from Cylinder Beach to the north, right around the headland to the south beach and the surf life saving club. And, unfortunately, the hideous new development which the biggest real estate wanker in the area was responsible for.

The biggest real estate wanker in the area was called Roger Crittenden - big enough that his independent agency’s local activities even eclipsed those of the major franchises such as Hookers - and his latest massive act of onanism was called Tuscany on Point. The development plans, which were somehow coaxed, greased and grafted through Redland Bay Shire Council, called for matching three-storey, Tuscan-influenced, pink villas - the sales brochure (also stuffed through my mailbox) suggested Sunbleached Terracotta, whereas I would suggested Gaudy Fucking Pink - with truly hideous neo-classical flourishes (Corinthian pillars, anyone?). These architectural abortions were currently under construction, recessed into the side of the ridge overlooking the south beach - revolting, environmentally vandalous, right in my bloody sightlines over the back of the ridge down to Main Beach, and all pre-sold off the plan to Stupid Rich Bastards for around a million of your Australian dollars, each.

Ah, fuck it, what can you do? Once the greenery grows up around and the Sunbleached Terracotta gets progressively more sunbleached to something which doesn’t look like the arse end of a lobster, it’ll be less of an eyesore, I figured. As me or anyone else from the NSW North Coast can tell you, the Big Prawn in Ballina was an equally heinous colour when it started its roadside life, in a much more prominent location. At this stage of my life (early thirties, since you asked) I wasn’t interested in wading off into battle over things like this. Besides, he who pays the piper calls the tune - Crittenden was a member of the same flock as Bethany and her family, and was a major financial supporter as well as sitting on the board of trustees of the private school where I worked. Hideous shit like Tuscany on Point indirectly paid my salary, bleating about it would be hypocritical. And though he’d made no attempt to hide his desire to one day ‘market’ my place of residence, he’d been the model professional when I’d holiday-let the place with his agency previously - which was probably what instigated his monumental hard-on regarding selling my house. Crittenden was a slick, self-aggrandizing arsehole, but could you expect anything less? Crittenden was a real estate agent, for Christ’s sake. Being a slick, self-aggrandizing arsehole was part of the job description. You could no more fairly accuse a fish of being damp.

Having successfull argued myself in circles, I was now (a) dizzy and (b) thirsty. I drained the bottle and went in search of fresh challenges, or at least fresh beer. Hmmm, only two Boags (Boagses? Boagi?) left. I was faced with the grim probability of having to indulge in Jeff and the old man’s brew after all. Ye gods. In preparation I stashed an old schooner glass, marked with the faded logo of some long-defunct Lion Nathan mid-strength beer, in the fridge for pre-chilling purposes (tip for those playing at home - helps in the pouring process) and grabbed one of the remaining Boags. Ascending the stairs from the ‘downstairs living quarters’ (or what non-realo-wankers would call the ‘spare room’), I heard probably the last thing on this Earth that I was expecting, short of Elvis flying past in a Hughes 500 with his arse hanging out the window, or Kyle Sandilands not saying something that made me want to punch his fat fucking head in: a knock at the door. Judging by the strident, increasing tempo of the tapping, it seemed I’d been oblivious to it for some time, downstairs or out on the deck or wherever. There was an insistence to the knocking, a familiarity, one might say maybe even an arrogance. One might also say I was massively overanalysing knocking which I should probably be getting on and answering about now, particuarly since it was almost definitely a wet and displeased Bethany who'd left behind her change of clothes for church and/or her keys. Which would make perfect sense if not for the fact that Bethany was more organised and efficient than a German defensive back four, and made elephants look forgetful.

“Alright, alright,” I declared, as the knocking turned to pounding and threatened to turn the door to splinters.

I opened the door to a soaking wet figure in a dark fitted trenchcoat, tall and striking, with long black hair lying in drenched strands over her face. She grasped a bottle of red in one hand, presumably her non-knocking one. She swept her free hand through her hair, revealing a broad, ironic smile of recognition.

“Rock and roll, motherfucker,” she marvelled. “Dr Yobbo, I presume?”

And then Lena smothered me in a huge hug.

Magdalena was blessed with a tortuous Polish surname (which I’ll not even attempt to spell) that would have scored a metric shitload on Scrabble, had there been available sufficient W’s, Y’s and Z’s. She was also blessed with striking European looks and a wicked sense of humour. As unpronounceable as her last name was, many struggled even with her first, inevitably Australianizing it by pruning syllables. Over the years she’d been called Magda, Lena (pronounced Ley-na and/or Lee-na), Lanie, Luna, the Looney, Maggie, Mags, or basically anything short of You There. I’d known Lena (my preferred option, with an imaginary Y) for, let’s try to be accurate… a lot of years. Not continuously, though. I hadn’t seen her in years, actually. Which explained the dumbstruck silence, I guess.

“Talkative tonight, aren’t we?” offered Lena.

We were camped out on the deck, reclining in the ancient couch which was decomposing wistfully in the sea breeze. My wine glasses were still stashed away in storage somewhere downstairs from the last time I’d let the place out many months previous, so Lena’s peace offering of a big Italian red was being dealt with out of chunky old tumblers, in true Italian peasant style. Not that either of us were Italian peasants; she had Azzurri blood on her mothers’ side, but neither side of her family had ever seemed hard-up for cash.

“I’m in shock,” I admitted. “How the hell did you get here?”

“The ferry,” she responded, “how does anyone get onto this fucking island?”

“Cheers for that, Captain Obvious…”

She rolled her eyes. “So how’ve you been? What have you been up to?”

“Teaching,” I replied.

“Yeah? Really?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Don’t look so horrified. They’re not your children.”

She laughed. “Not what I meant. So what are you teaching?”

“Bit of everything,” I said. “I mean, I trained as a science teacher about a thousand years ago, but they have me doing a bit of everything - science, maths, music… Jack of all trades. Master of puppets. Pullin’ the strings... ”

She nodded, acknowledging the reference, ancient though it was. “Local school?”

“Yeah, private school in town.” By which I mean Dunwich, the bigger of the towns on North Stradbroke.

“Religious school?” She leant heavily on the word, with a smirk.

“…Yeah,” I finally admitted. “A bit.”

To which she howled with laughter, and offered me a cigarette. I didn’t smoke anything, let alone Alpine Menthols, for Christ’s sake, and was surprised she’d forgotten; I declined with a waved hand. “You sure?” she grinned wickedly. “Minty fresh…”

“You’re an evil bloody woman and a bad influence, Magdalena.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

Lena could have made huge dollars had cigarette advertising still been legal; she made the practice look incredibly cool, stylish and casual. Inexorably fatal, but cool, stylish and casual nonetheless. She dragged on her Alpine and looked in vain for a repository of ash. Reading the expression of mild horror on my face, she sidled over to the balcony rail and casually flicked her ash over the side. At least some things never changed.

“I have to admit,” she began, “I did know in advance what you do for a living these days - I just wanted to hear you admit you teach at a Christian private school in Queensland…” Smugly, she let this hang in the air. “So are you responsible for teaching them how to play the banjo with their toes, or does their kin do thayt back on th’ ranch, ‘tween inbreedin’ sessions?”

“Oh, fuck off,” I replied, which was as intelligent a response as I could come up with.

“Hey, touchy… You’re the one who used to bang on about them being a bunch of banjo-playing inbred fucktards - and that’s a direct quote. The verbal battles you and your man Dr Cletus used to get into…”

Dr Cletus, known to his mother as Mark Cleaver, was an old mate of mine from my uni days in Brisbane. I say ‘old mate’ when noone could work out how or why we managed to stay, or even become mates in the first place, given that he was a staunch Queenslander who drove a V8 Falcon ute with Rum Pig stickers and roo-shooting spotlights, and I ain’t. Dr Cletus was from Mount Morgan, which was near Rockhampton - the Ipswich to its Brisbane, the Penrith to its Sydney, the Fyshwick to its Canberra. Every city of any decent dimension has its Mount Morgan, and every Mount Morgan has its Dr Cletus - their one high-flying, all-star son to fly the flag for the hick locals. The fact that Dr Cletus was a world-leading early-career biomedical researcher and not a Maroons Origin rep was a bit of a downer for his regional profile though.

To be honest I was actually a bit surprised Lena remembered Dr Cletus (given she couldn’t remember whether I smoked or not), and said as much.

“Jesus Angus, of course I remember. He never missed a gig up here in Brisbane. You don’t forget a character like him. What kind of B-grade recollection of events do you credit me with, for fuck’s sake?”

“I forgot,” I remarked pithily, “you’re a professional journalist.”

For which I scored a thump in the arm. At least she was picking on someone her own size. She omitted the fact, which I now sketchily recalled, that Dr Cletus had once tried to hit on her when XXXXed up to the eyeballs at one shambolic post-gig shindig, too fucking munted to realise that (a) she was the girlfriend of my best mate, and (b), well, she was the girlfriend of my best mate, dammit. Once gently informed of his (and her) place in the scheme of things, he backed right off and was, to his credit, hugely apologetic. To be fair, he’d had enough Rumbos to sink a supertanker and would have had trouble distinguishing his arse from a hole in the ground at that stage, which explained (a) his booking for indecent exposure later in the evening, and (b) a lot of subsequent grief trying to get a working visa to take up a postdoc job in the States. As we were never great holders of a grudge in the band, we went on to write him his own anthem, in appropriate down-home yee-haw bluegrass rockabilly style, entitled Dr Cletus, I Presume.

“Yeah, I catch up with the Doctor occasionally,” I said. “It’s Associate Professor Cletus now, apparently. Moving up in the world. Don’t get over to that side of town much, but when I’m nearby the uni I try to drop by for a coffee. Or more usually a beer.”

A lot had changed since Dr Cletus and I had gone through science at the Uni of Queensland together in the mid-to-late ‘90s, indeed had survived honours together in adjoining research labs at the Centre for Molecular and Cellular Biology. Everything on campus was now seriously fuck-off-shiny and the old Rec Club had long since met its demise. More to the point the CMCB had been absorbed into the massive Bond-supervillain-hideout Institute for Molecular Biosciences compound on the site of the decrepit old CSIRO labs off Carmody Road. Despite all of that, he still called me Dr Yobbo, and I still called him Dr Cletus. Except that by now, he had long since earned the legitimate right to be called Doctor, whereas I’d bailed out of that leaky boat called the SS Research well before it sailed. Or to be fair, it had jettisoned me as non-performing ballast after scraping a second-class honours pass.

“Hang on,” I continued, “what do you mean you knew in advance what I did for a living?”

“I was wondering when you’d get back to that,” she mused. “Call it professional curiosity. I had an exhaustive background search performed on your current whereabouts and employment status. Spared no expense.”

“Google or Wikipedia?”

“Google,” she laughed. “More informative. But give me some credit, there’s a lot of Andrew Youngs out there, dammit. I figured the ‘Angus’ part wouldn’t be that informative.”

That’s me, folks. Andrew James Young. Sometimes Andy, very occasionally Dr Yobbo, though most often Angus. Not the real Angus Young, of course – need a lot more years and a longer record of abuse of the pharmaceutical benefit system for that. Besides, the real Angus used (uses) a fuck-off-shiny red Gibson SG with pointy bits, whereas I tended to demonstrate my craft on whatever I was given for cheap by overly keen guitar reps. Had a couple of interesting years in a moderately successful rock band called Flange Gasket (no, the name wasn’t my idea) back in the day. But that was a while ago and I still needed to eat, so I’d found alternative employment. Presumably Lena had found my alternative employment’s staff listings on the school’s newly minted website. Bloody information superhighway. Though out here on Straddie it was more akin to a rutted goat track full of potholes; for that we gave perennial thanks to little Johnny Howard’s privatisation of Telstra. Cunt.

I finally got around to asking the question which had been gradually forming on my mind since Lena had appeared on my doorstep, a tall, dark, mysterious stranger on a dark and stormy night. (Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to get more clichés into this somehow. May need a crowbar.)

“Lena, what are you actually doing here?”

“Just… passing through. Remembered the place, and I…”

“…Am full of shit,” I finished with a bemused smirk. “No one ever ‘just passes through’ Point Lookout. It’s a long detour out of anybody’s way to come here. Particularly if you haven’t been here in several years.”

“Okay, okay. My appearance isn’t entirely…” She searched for the words. Lena? Searching for words? Whafuck? “Not entirely random, I guess. It’s not that I didn’t want to keep in touch… it was just awkward, you know.”

“Lena, we both know that with your complete lack of tact, fuck all is awkward for you,” I quipped. But she was right, I understood why she couldn’t keep in touch. What I wanted to know was why the sudden change. And asked as much. She didn’t look like she wanted to fess up, but realised that despite the interval since our last meeting, I’d known her too long to be misled by her seamless bullshit. And it was a bloody long way to come out here and not actually say what she came here to say. Eventually she conjured an opening line.

“Look, I don’t know how much you keep in touch with band stuff…”

I shrugged, noncommittally. To be fair, any reasonable guess would have put ‘band stuff’ somewhere in the subject field for why Lena had turned up out of the blue (OK, the black, and green, and purple, and whatever else those clouds were brewing up.) The royalty cheques, as marginal as they had become, went into the bank as regularly as they ever had. All balanced out, once record company advance repayments, legal fees and tax repayments were taken out, it was roughly enough to afford a carton of beer every week. So long as it was light beer, since (a) it was all I was allowed, and (b) it was all I could afford.

“…Anyway, your back catalogue has been released by Intercom.”

“Released, as in ‘placed in retail shops for purchase by members of the public’?”

“No, released as in ‘let go of’. You've officially been given the arse.”

“Oh,” I said. It was all I could think of. Apart from the realization that my beer money was about to dry up. If Lena had expected disappointment or anger, she wasn’t rewarded - at that stage of my life I can’t say I really cared enough about our ‘artistic legacy’ (ha!) to be pissed off over our mangy old cattledog finally being put to sleep. Losing a carton of beer a month, however, would take some dealing with. Unfortunately I couldn't afford therapy. If I could, I'd probably have just bought more beer instead.

Long story short - US-based recording giant Intercom were our second record label. We’d started out seeking fortune and glory (it's a short song but it's one hell of a story) with Exocet Records, who were a small independent outfit based out of Sydney and specializing in emerging Aussie and Kiwi bands of the rock and punk varieties. Because everyone likes money, and Exocet had less than Intercom, we changed horses mid-stream at the end of our initial Exocet deal. Intercom were part of a large multinational media conglomerate based in Atlanta, Georgia, which at one time or another was part-owned by the presidential Bush family’s oil firm. Despite this, Intercom were relatively decent people to deal (relatively being a relative term in the music business) and had so far retained the rights to our back half of our back catalogue, other than our first couple of albums with Exocet. Which, judging by my cut of the proceeds, were now not worth the dust they were collecting on retail shelves.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she continued. “They were doing two fifths of fuck all with it. And they’ve sold the rights back to Exocet.”

“Bonzer,” I remarked flatly. “What'd Richie pay for it, a couple of wet beer coasters and a Cabcharge voucher?”

Lena smiled. “He didn’t pay over the odds, let’s say.” Greg ‘Richie’ Richardson never did. Stingy bastard. “And, just quietly, despite all the water under the bridge, he’s still a fan.”

I had to laugh at that. “Callow and shallow?” I reminded her.

Reminding her, specifically, of a scalding thirty-point-all-in-capitals headline quote in the music press, heralding Richie’s response to being outbid by the Septics for the irreverant garage punk act he’d dragged out of oblivion and made into heroes, only to be royally shafted by our defection. Our ‘callow and shallow’ defection, that was. Then again, as we pointed out in response in an Intercom press release at the time, if Richie was as generous with his deals as his adjectives, we’d have had no reason to fuck off elsewhere. Flange Gasket contract renewals were good times for the music press, that was for sure. Kept the journalistic likes of Lena in lip liner and handbags, that was for sure.

“...Still a fan of the music, anyway. The individual personalities, maybe less so.”

Defensively cocky, I offered, “Given the metric shitload of coin we brought into his fledgling outfit back in the day, Richie Richardson would remain a fan of his only Triple J Hottest 100 number one outfit to date, you’d want to hope...”

“First,” she corrected. “Not only. Exocet went one-two last year - your little mate won the thing, as I’m sure you’re aware.” I wasn’t, but wasn’t intending to admit it. “And second was KillSwitch.” Again, no idea, but this time my covering-up wasn't as convincing. “You’ve heard of the ‘Switch… course you have… they do Mic Check And Mate…” Blank looks on my part. “Jesus, Angus, don’t you get Triple J out here?”

I shook my head. Actually we probably did, I just didn’t listen to it anymore. “Do Jay and Lindsay from Frenzals still do breakfast?”

Her turn to shake her head. Evidently we were alternating. “You are out of the loop, aren’t you,” she observed, explaining that KillSwitch were a hip-hop crew from Ipswich, hence the ’Switch reference.

“Sounds like Hilltops or the Herd to me,” I suggested sagely, trying to sound intelligent, groovy or with my finger somewhere in the neighbourhood of the pulse, dude. In truth, they were the only white Aussie hip-hop artists I could remember. They were ascending as we were... un-ascending. Or, more accurately, exiting stage left with our trousers on fire.

Lena acknowledged the ‘conceptual similarity’ between the acts. “The ‘Switch aren’t all white guys, half the members are Murri. Comparable subject matter though, I’ll admit.”

“Yo, bro, sup G, keep it real mah niggahs, west sayeeed, motherfu…”

“What is it with you with every hip-hop artist having to sound like Ali G?”

“Well,” I argued convincingly, “they do.”

“To you,” she contended.

“Not this again,” I muttered. “The great white-boy hip-hop debate. This dates back to when you were claiming Mike Skinner from the Streets was a genre-crossing visionary and not just a pasty fucking geezer who sounded like an extra from a Guy Ritchie gangster movie.”

“And who was proven right?”

“Geezer, guvnor, innit, right royal Cockney barrel of monkeys…”

“Is that supposed to be Mike Skinner or Barry Sheene?” she giggled.

She did have a point. As an impressionist I made the Twelfth Man look good, even with the ponytail.

“Getting back to what you’re actually doing at my house on a Thursday night…”

“Yeah, so Greg Richardson reclaimed your back catalogue for Exocet, and because he’s a beardy mentalist with a penchant for busted-arse old rock bands, bizarrely thinks there’s some commercial gain to be made in the process. He’s putting together a compilation for release in a few months. Working title The Least Worst of Flange Gasket.”

“Don’t think much of the title,” I muttered, though I would have admitted it was appropriate.

Richie was the enthusiastic, hands-on pocket dynamo behind Exocet, which by the late ‘90s was a young, independent outfit in the mould of fellow Australian record companies Shock and Modular. A long and colourful career as an ‘industry identity’ - rock musician, record company gopher, A&R guy and music journalist - led him to start his own label in the mid-90’s. Fairly successfully, all told. As you’d expect Flange Gasket, being a bunch of irreverant pisshead bogans from the sticks, were pretty much the only folks who saw the inherent humour in calling him Richie Richardson, for no better reason that the name fitted him (despite being short, hairy and white rather than big, shiny and black like the former Windies skipper.) For his fortieth we bought him an enormous maroon cricket hat (as per the real Richie) and signed it from all of us in the band.

Despite all that, he was STILL a fan, allegedly. The guy had tenacity, that was for sure.

“So how do you fit in to all this?”

Lena stalled by topping up both our glasses, emptying the bottle. “Greg asked me to get in touch with you regarding the situation with the back catalogue and the new compilation.”

“What, he's asking for our permission?”

“Doesn’t need to,” she replied, which I knew anyway. Of course we would have bugger-all say on whether a greatest hits (snigger) compile went out - that’s why record companies spend money buying the rights to such recordings in the first place. “But he’d prefer it had ‘input from key creatives’, as he termed it.”

“And are you a ‘key creative’?”

“Nah, I’m just the washed-up street-press hack who’s been contracted to write the liner notes,” she mused.

“Because you were there at the time, I guess?”

“Yeah, partly. Though mostly because I’m cheap.”

“I’ve heard that,” I nodded. “In fact I think I saw it on the internet…” Ducking the inevitable swipe, I added, “Gonzo journalism at its finest – can’t say you weren’t part of the story, you were banging the lead singer for five years…”

“Was it that long?” she replied archly, and suddenly I realised, Brett Lee style, that I’d woefully overstepped. I retraced my run-up and marked my approach again. “What’s he want? The real story, or the nice shiny-happy-people version as per usual for greatest hits compilations?”

“He said he wanted it to be a comprehensive and valid history. A true-to-life, warts and all, evocative, compelling and engaging account of the rise and fall of a great Australian rock band.”

“Should probably write it about someone else then. Powderfinger would be my suggestion.”

In the dim and distant past of the late 1990s, Richardson had been Lena’s boss at the street press where she’d cut her teeth as a rookie music journo, having studied journalism and communications at the Uni of NSW in Sydney. For quite some time, while Exocet was struggling to get off the launchpad (ahem), Richie was working as both editor of the Drum Media as well as CEO, CFO and Managing Director of Exocet. It said a lot about his standing and credibility in the industry that the inevitable protests about his obvious conflict of interest were pretty muted. (Though it also says that these sorts of incestuous dealings are pretty much standard operating procedure in the local industry.) Then Exocet was off, as was Richie; thus concluded any conflict of interest.

Lena’s worrying hyperbole aside, it was nice that Richie remembered us - if only for the contribution we’d made to his company’s early success and subsequently the size of the swimming pool at his new mansion. Actually, that wasn’t fair; every dollar Richie had made, save for the laughably small amount he spent buying dodgy retro T-shirts and the even smaller amount he cautiously nudged our way, went straight back into the company. And in truth, the stories of Flange Gasket and Exocet were intertwined, co-dependent – we’d effectively begun our journey together. The fact they'd comfortably outlasted us wasn’t lost on either Lena or myself.

What had been lost on me, so far, was that I hadn’t even gotten around to asking Lena what she was doing for a living these days. Presumably, given her current assignment, still in music journalism? Or just doing a favour for Richardson? Only one way to find out. And that, of course, depended on whether I had any wine left in the cellar downstairs, to continue the interrogation…

In the past, Lena had served loyally (and rather too enthusiastically, truth be told) as freelance relationship consultant for yours truly on the subject of Women of the Late Twentieth Century, Function and Operation Thereof. Not that I really needed or even wanted the help, but she was selfless enough to offered her insights on my selections regardless. Now Lena was evaluating my selection regarding Women of the Early Twenty-First Century. The photoframe under Lena’s gaze, which took pride of place over the living room décor, captured the moment straight after I’d popped the question.

(Well, to be accurate, straight after we’d got back from the largest and most prodigiously expensive jewellery store in the Brisbane CBD, the morning after I’d popped the question. Word of advice to the lads out there: proposing on the spur of the moment is a Bad Thing To Do. In a word: Don’t. The issue wasn’t that I didn’t mean it. The issue was that I’d done so without a ring, offering to pick one out next day. Result: disappearance of a sum in the high four figures from my dwindling savings reserves - one month’s salary my arse. As well as heavy scratches across my chest whenever Bethany rolled over in bed. Sums in the high four figures are capable of securing very impressive diamonds, I learned. Impressive, massive, sharp, fuck-off-pointy diamonds. What was left of my savings was being invested mostly in Dettol and Bandaids.)

“She’s very… slender,” Lena offered, after we'd negotiated around the customary compliments re the massive massiveness of the massive rock which threatened to overbalance my poor little girl as she leant into me, as captured on film. Not the overwhelming positive affirmation I was hoping for, but I forged on regardless.

“Athletic,” I concurred, or perhaps corrected. “Needs to be, she teaches phys-ed at the school. Runs Pilates and Yoga classes as well - which is what she’s up to just at the moment, actually.” This wasn’t discussion. This was prattling. I prattled on, waiting for the inevitable shot across the bows.

“Office romance?” teased Lena. Bogey locked-on, incoming.

“Well, where else do you meet people?” was my considered (read well-trained) response. To be honest I was just glad she didn't go for the obvious one. She'd seen enough Red Dwarf to remember the line about Holly's IQ of 6000 being the equivalent of 6000 PE teachers.

Lena was kind enough though to offer her opinion on the contents of the refrigerator, in particular mentioning the prevalence of trim milk, green leafy vegetables and other frighteningly healthy-looking items of food in place of the cold pizza and couple of dozen beers which she’d always thought came as standard fitment in any fridge of mine. In the same vein she noted the predominance of photoframes, flower vases and other cutesy items of bric-a-brac around the house, reflective of a fundamental lack of what she called ‘characteristic Angusness’ in the décor. By which I presume she meant dog-eared car and bike posters, commemorative brewery mini-kegs and lad-mag girlie calendars.

“Your point being?”

She smiled broadly, as if to suggest she intended no malice. “Angus, all I can say is - you must really love this girl. I’ve seen you compromise on little things, but never the big stuff. Trim milk, that’s… that’s a serious commitment right there. I’m proud of you, buddy.”

“Don’t patronise me, you skanky wog ho,” was my response. And her response to that, in turn, was an evil cackle fit for the Wicked Witch of the West.

“You love her, though?”

“Of course. Are you kidding? She’s a babe, and she adores me.” I don’t know why I admitted the next bit. Lena always had the ability to get me to spill more than I should, particularly after a few drinks too many. I think I was trying to show off in the fidelity-and-commitment stakes, which bluntly is not a race I’ve traditionally had a horse in. “When you love someone, you come to terms with small stuff like this. Like trim milk... light beer... having your sole supply of sex cut off until March...”

Her eyebrows raised. “You mean…”

“Yeah, that’s the wedding date,” I diverged. Fuck. What did I admit that for? Was I hoping for a medal or something? “Can try to score you a late invite, though we’re pretty tight on numbers.” Largely because Bethany’s folks were paying the bills, as per tradition, and therefore had veto rights on the guest list.

Lena inhaled sharply. “Born-again virgin, huh?”

“Um, yeah. One of those Christian things, apparently,” I said by way of explanation. In fact, there had been some suggestion/inference/parental pressure that our current cohabitation should cease until the wedding, not just our sex life (about which they knew as little as possible for obvious reasons). Bethany used to escape to mine a few nights a week, had made herself very much at home, and seemed to cherish our ‘cohabitation’ for the independence it gave her from her parents. As regards the sex thing, I couldn’t see the big deal with continuing to sin against God, given that we’d definitely been there before (dear Lord, had we been there before - and Lord only knew where she learned her stuff) but Bethany clearly could. As I said, one of those Christian things, apparently. Not something I chose to understand, but something I could deal with. Which Lena, bless her, seemed to think she could see straight through.

You see, Lena and I used to be close. Not close in a pants-off sense, of course. Thank Christ. Truth is, or was, I loved her to death - but only platonically. We’d never even drunkenly fumbled close to doing anything silly with each other. Put bluntly, she was not my type. Or perhaps she was far too much my type. Lena, simply, was a great mate - and the masculine overtones of that are intentional. She was quick-witted and feisty, a tall, confident lass with very few pretentions about her despite her affluent Melbourne background, and a laugh like a thermonuclear explosion. Courtesy her ethnic extraction (Polish and Italian, as she used to say, just like John Paul II) and more specifically, courtesy having older brothers of ethnic extraction, she knew about music, football (European), cars and motorbikes, and all the other most important things in life.

Lena was also more than acceptably hot and had big tits, but that was of more concern for my old friend and colleague in league, Uncle Sam McCarthy. If you remember Flange Gasket (and if you’ve shelled out anything close to RRP for this load of arse I dare say you do) you’ll remember Uncle Sam. He was the guy out the front who played guitar better than me. Could sing, too, the little bastard. For a little while there, he was going to be the biggest thing in the local alternative scene. The next great Aussie rock frontman. The next Tim Rogers, the next Bernard Fanning, or at the very least, the next Kram from Spiderbait.

Needless to say, it didn’t quite happen like that.