“Oh, Carol, thank God you’re alive!” cried Jim.   He raced over and grabbed her by the neck to help her to stand.   “Thank God!   Thank God!” sobbed Jim, holding her head against his chest.

There was a fourth great eruption of air bubbles, and then a long, slender arm and delicate hand floated to the surface.

“What the…?” asked Jim.   And for the first time he realised that it was only Carol’s severed head and neck that he held against him.

“Carol!” sobbed Jim.   Air bubbles continued to erupt around him and his wife’s other arm and hand appeared.   Then her left foot and leg, and finally her right foot and leg.

*      *      *

The tall, handsome, coffee-coloured man stood in the corridor watching the biology class through the glass door.   An attractive, leggy brunette stood at the front of the class, hurriedly scrawling what could have been Mongolian for what the Aborigine, Joseph Garbarla, could tell on the blackboard with chalk.

Garbarla waited till the class had filed out, then knocked on the glass and entered.   “How about letting me take you out to dinner tonight, if you’re not busy?” he asked.

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Geraldine Gleeson, the brunette.   “How about coming back to my flat to let me cook us both some pizza, then we can make passionate love all night long.”

“Even better,” agreed Garbarla.

“How did your class go?” Geraldine asked.

“So, so,” said Garbarla.   “At times I think I’ll never get anyone in this area interested in learning about Aboriginal culture.”

“Give them time, honey,” she said, “they’ll come around.”   She knew it was difficult for him as a half-breed.   Abducted by his white grandmother, Garbarla had been raised in Western society until returning to his tribe in 1982.   Nine years later, in July 1991, he had grown to feel that he didn’t fit into black society anymore than he had into white Australian society.

*      *      *

It was shortly after dawn the next morning when Garbarla and Geraldine were awakened by a heavy hammering on the door of her Lawson Street flat.