"So you haven't been here before?" asked Rona.

"No, haven't got around to it yet" replied Sacha. "So this is Richmond?"

"Yep" said Rona. "More or less." She waved her arm in an arc for Sacha's benefit, "And this street we're currently walking along is Victoria Street."

"I thought it was a Parade" said Sacha.

"Sorry?"

"You said Victoria Street. I thought it was Victoria Parade."

"Oh, no no, that's back there, where we were on the tram. See where the road has a little kink? At the intersection? From there on it's Victoria Street."

"Right . . ." Sacha shook her head. "Fucking roads in this town, I'll never figure it out. It's like Ainslie on a massive scale."

"Like where?"

"Canberra suburb, northside. Never mind." Sacha paused, then decided to continue. "What I mean is, take Lygon Street for instance. Or even Nicholson Street or Brunswick Street or fucking any of the main streets that go through a whole bunch of suburbs. Now I can handle a street being really long and going through more than one suburb - but the thing that gets me is that the numbering starts from the beginning every time. So like on Lygon Street, there's a whole series of addresses that are number one Lygon Street, and so on and so on. I mean it's fucking stupid! Either you change the name of the street, like in Canberra, or you continue with the same set of numbers. It shits me. And now I get out here to Richmond and suddenly there's Victoria Street and Victoria Parade? Which is another thing: did they only have a limited pool of street names to choose from or something? I mean the way street names are repeated in Melbourne you'd think the city had to pay for each one or something." She stopped to take a breath.

Rona giggled. "You caught a taxi and got lost, didn't you?" Sacha didn't say anything, but just glowered at her. Rona didn't take it seriously. "Anyway" she continued, "technically we're in Abbotsford here. But fuck it, it's all Richmond to me. Come on then, let's see what we can find."

"And what, exactly, are we looking for?"

"Nothing in particular." Rona paused to look in a shop window. "And also a friend of mine, who works in one of the shops along here."