"D'you know who organised this protest?" Brent asked Sacha. "I haven't seen anything about it."

"You're asking me?" Sacha looked at him incredulously. "I've only been in this town a few months. If it was in Canberra I'd be able to give you a list of the usual suspects, but here . . ." she shrugged. "I think it might have just been thrown together, or something" she continued. "I haven't seen anything about it either. Though I've gotta say, there's so much happening in this town it's hard to keep up with it all anyway. What?" Sacha had noticed that Brent was laughing quietly at her.

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that you're unusually talkative, based on last time I saw you and on what Rona's told me."

"Well what's that supposed to mean?" Sacha huffed.

"Nothing, nothing." Brent suddenly noticed Catherine joining him at his side. "Oh, hi honey!" he said warmly. "Sacha, this is my girlfriend Catherine. Catherine - Sacha."

Sacha held out her hand politely to Catherine. "Nice to meet you." She recalled the comments Rona had made to Hannah when they'd all been celebrating Sacha's debut column. This thought reminded her suddenly of how sunny it had been on that day: she took her glasses off to wipe the steam off them, and replaced them and looked up at the sky quizzically. "I can't believe how changeable the weather is in this place."

"I know!" said Catherine, eager to get a word in. "It's crazy, isn't it?"

"Mmm." Sacha's attention had suddenly been diverted by a round of applause that rolled through the crowd as the current speaker finished and the next one was announced.

"It's good to see such a range of people out here" said Brent. "It's heartening to think that there's so much support for the refugees out there."

"A lot of good it's done us so far" replied Sacha. "The government's just gonna keep lying its way back into office. Why change a winning formula? And it's not like the Labor party's gonna do anything about it."

Brent laughed again. "You really are from Canberra, aren't you?"

"Oh" piped up Catherine. "You're from Canberra? I went there once - it was freezing!"

"Uh-huh." Sacha didn't really know how to respond to this politely, so she just smiled at Catherine in what she hoped wasn't too condescending a manner. She turned to Brent. "Sorry, I missed what they said about this guy." She indicated the new speaker. "Where did they say he was from?" Brent told her. "Oh great" Sacha rolled her eyes. "A fucking Trot."

The speaker was talking about the recent motion by members of the government to soften the treatment of refugees held in detention centres. He started by unashamedly big-noting himself, talking about how he had been the person on the local council who had moved a particular motion in support of refugees. Sacha scoffed, and rolled her eyes again. Brent frowned, while Catherine watched him out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly, the speaker became animated as he started talking about the member's bill that had been proposed in Federal parliament, and specifically the members of the government who had proposed it:

"Where were they four years ago? Why have they been so quiet for so long? I say to them: too little, too late!"

"Oh, that's it!" muttered Sacha. "I'm sorry, but I just can't stand that kind of 'my way or no way' bullshit."

And with that she turned away and promptly stormed off, too angry to even say goodbye to Brent and Catherine.

"'Bye Sacha!" called out Catherine, regardless. She turned to Brent: "Is she always that rude?"