Sarah and Hal shouted, ‘Hear, hear!’
Late afternoon turned into early evening and the group moved out onto the balcony, watching the yachts return to their moorings and the sun drop slowly behind the city. The fruit bats started their evening migration, filling the sky as they flew overhead in search of trees, heavy with juicy fat fruit, where they could feast through the night.
As the day slipped away the little party grew noisier. Their voices carried back into the lounge room, drifting up into the ceiling and along hidden wires to a mobile phone, tucked into the insulation batts.
Two-hundred kilometres away in the dayroom of a women’s prison, a young dark-haired woman with stern angular features sat tightly coiled in a broken armchair. She seemed to take up very little space and no-one else noticed her as she sat very quietly, clutching her coins in her hand and waiting for her turn at the telephone.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Linda Smith for all her help, Selwa Anthony and Cate Paterson for their faith in me, Bob Muscat, Ian Miekle and Clem Martin for their support, Kate Grant for use of her dining room, the person, whom I can’t name, for their expertise on bugging procedures, my sister Christine Ronaldson for her advice on hospital procedures and Mal Watson for his love and enthusiasm.
About Bunty Avieson
Bunty Avieson was born and raised in Victoria. She spent twenty years as a journalist working on newspapers and magazines in Australia and overseas. Bunty spent three years on newspapers in Fleet Street before returning to Australia where she became Editor of Woman’s Day then Editorial Director of New Idea. She is also a Williamson Fellow.
In 2000 Bunty took up fiction writing full-time. Apartment 255 is her first novel. She lives in Sydney.
The Wrong Door
The Affair
First published by Macmillan Australia in 2001
This edition published in 2016 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Bunty Avieson 2001
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
‘Fever’ by John Davenport/Eddie Cooley reproduced by permission of Warner/Chappell Music Australia Pty Ltd
Unauthorised reproduction is illegal.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia
Apartment 255
EPUB format: 9781760301194
Mobi format: 9781760301200
Cover design by Raewyn Brack
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