The dinner was a strange affair. They were a party of twenty at La Travera, an Italian restaurant in Southgate, seated round a table overlooking the Yarra river. For a fine art lecturer, he had very conservative-looking friends. All had adopted the straight hair and austere attire of the Nineties. Harriet’s untamed black hair alone was enough to make her feel out of place. She had on a vintage flapper dress of shimmering red, thick black tights and flat leather shoes. She felt like a relic, but defiant with it, since it was she, and not they, who displayed originality. She who, in point of fact, portrayed to the world the artist that she was.
As the evening wore on, upon the strain of being in such staid company, she drank a little more Sauvignon Blanc than she was used to. Dessert was st
