Lily Sycamore skitters down Stuart St in sneakers that save her minutes (and, as it transpires, her life) so that at quarter to midnight she is texting ‘Where are you?’ to Chloe from St Paul’s steps, not crossing Smith St in the path of Carlos Wilkins’ Nissan Skyline as it flies through a red light at 83.
In her hillside cottage with a harbour view, Lily’s supervisor Dr Maura Cockcroft, who will for six days in October undertake jury service hearing a charge of dangerous driving against Carlos Wilkins, inspiring a career-enhancing journal publication on the disproportionate influence of legal academics on the outcome of jury trials which will create a flurry of media attention and spark debate on law reform, refills her guests’ Moet and squints at the clock.
Maura’s dearest friend Angie Galbraith steps outside just as the sky lights up behind her. In ten minutes she will be home to shower before a celebratory Glenfiddich and a final edit of what will come to be regarded as her finest poem, the title piece of the first anthology completed since leaving Rory. Anew, she thinks, and liking the music of it, shouts it to the year’s first hour, her voice lost as a Nissan roars past driven by Carlos whose victim she will nurse in ICU for 23 autumnal days.
In his boathouse, Rory sleeps entwined in the abundance of Sheila McIlraith. Awake and listening to his soft exhalations lapping like wavelets, she offers up a prayer for the safety of her beautiful son Isaac, who as first officer on the scene at Carlos' Easter hit-and-run will give evidence at the trial and by spring will have moved in with a law student called Lily who kissed him playfully in the Octagon on New Year’s Eve.
Rosemary McBryde
In her hillside cottage with a harbour view, Lily’s supervisor Dr Maura Cockcroft, who will for six days in October undertake jury service hearing a charge of dangerous driving against Carlos Wilkins, inspiring a career-enhancing journal publication on the disproportionate influence of legal academics on the outcome of jury trials which will create a flurry of media attention and spark debate on law reform, refills her guests’ Moet and squints at the clock.
Maura’s dearest friend Angie Galbraith steps outside just as the sky lights up behind her. In ten minutes she will be home to shower before a celebratory Glenfiddich and a final edit of what will come to be regarded as her finest poem, the title piece of the first anthology completed since leaving Rory. Anew, she thinks, and liking the music of it, shouts it to the year’s first hour, her voice lost as a Nissan roars past driven by Carlos whose victim she will nurse in ICU for 23 autumnal days.
In his boathouse, Rory sleeps entwined in the abundance of Sheila McIlraith. Awake and listening to his soft exhalations lapping like wavelets, she offers up a prayer for the safety of her beautiful son Isaac, who as first officer on the scene at Carlos' Easter hit-and-run will give evidence at the trial and by spring will have moved in with a law student called Lily who kissed him playfully in the Octagon on New Year’s Eve.
Rosemary McBryde
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