We’d been at the party about an hour when my boyfriend disappeared into the kitchen of the South Yarra flat. It was 1986. Jane had invited us.
She’d been fearless leader of the arty crowd at school and I loved her to pieces, but geez the night was pretty slow. By our standards anyway. Both cadet journos, we loved seeing The Church at Chasers and the Gurus at the Palais fuelled by Jim Beam and Coke, fried rice and the belief we were cool.
The Meredith Gift is held each year at the end of the annual Meredith Music Festival. Credit: Jason South So the arty crowd’s more sophisticated vibe – including at one stage a small group loungeroom performance of a madrigal followed by The Sounds of Silence – needed shaking up a bit, my beau decided. Without fanfare, he reappeared, gently sliding through the murmuring crowd.
On his travels he’d picked up a platter of roast chicken and lost his clothes. Nude, the gap in his front teeth flashing in a genial Mine Host smile, he proffered the chook. Nobody knew what to do.
Or where to look. Not many were keen on the chicken. A few game sorts made light bon mots as Paul completed his circuit.
“Babe,” he said. “I think that’s the high point of the night done. You fine to go?” Loading Tropical Loveland was kicking off on the CD player as my fella scooped up his clothes and we showed ourselves out.
He got dressed on the landing. Neither of us could stop laughing as we headed back to Carlton. Decades later, the memory still mak.
