Eventually Rona realised that she wasn't going to get any more news about Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd from the T.V., so she turned to face Mal.

"Hey, great gig!" she said.

"Great?" Mal asked, clearly delighted with Rona's choice of word. Eric looked on sceptically.

"Well, pretty good" Rona demurred. "Actually I gotta say, you guys sounded a bit flat."

Mal and Steve looked at each other guiltily, but to everyone's surprise it was Eric who spoke up:

"Yeah, that's my fault" he said. "I've been away heaps. Up in Queensland."

"Hey," Mal said, speaking up as he recognised his opportunity, "Rona, do you remember Eric?"

Eric turned to glare at him but Mal was too enthusiastic to notice or to care.

"Yeah" Rona said nonchalantly. "Hi, Eric."

"You guys should talk to each other" Mal said.

"Yeah? Why?" Rona challenged him.

"'Cause . . . Um . . ." Mal looked down, and then looked at the bar as if suddenly deciding he was thirsty. "How many drinks do we get in the rider?" he asked.

"Three beers each" Steve said.

"Three? Man, that's tight as."

Ignoring him, Rona tried talking to Eric: "So Queensland, huh? Looking to get away from the winter blues?"

"Not exactly" Eric said, thinking how over-dressed he felt in the heat of the band-room, on an uncharacteristically mild June night. He'd been expecting it to cool down after dark; he'd been expecting to feel cold after getting off the stage, away from the lights. "But who knows, I might have to move up there before too long."

"How come?" Rona asked. Miranda was paying attention now, too.

Eric smiled - such a rare sight that Mal was briefly distracted from thinking about whether to get a beer or not and almost felt moved to comment - and said, at last, "Nah, you don't wanna hear about that. It's al pretty boring. So what about you? What's been happening?"