I
ego

(continued)

Adelaide has found the bar, which, of course, is themed for the event and masquerades as a washroom. It is in a corridor off a corner of the lounge, opposite the real washrooms, so a great deal of fun is expected from the resulting confusion throughout the night. Nelson Duncan, the gay, grinning attendant and creator of this washroom bar, is rapidly collecting toothbrushes with one hand and pouring blue vodka from a mouthwash bottle with the other. Beer is either bottled and canned (and boringly traditional) or comes on draught through a faucet in the sink. Other forms of liquor have been rebottled, coloured and labelled so as to be thoroughly disconcerting. There is also a urinal filled with ice, should you need it. Never has a freight elevator been so elegantly disguised.

Adelaide finds momentary sanctuary from the crowd in a privileged position behind the bar. Nelson, she thinks, is king of his castle. He sits atop a couple of crates of beer, dispensing drinks with the fluency and precision of a Magician.

"My bet still stands that she'll take her clothes off," he says. "Three thousand dollars says she takes her clothes off."

He throws a cluster of toothbrushes into a garbage pail beneath the bar, pours a group of tequila shooters and motions to a container of talcum powder. Salt?

"I'd lose the bet," mutters Adelaide to nobody.

"Not that she doesn't have the body for it. No, don't get me wrong. I couldn't give two hoots for her beautiful body, only, it's just that when Beverley gets four thousand dollars from the Arts Council, it seems a shame the only creative thing she can come up with is to take her clothes off."

"She built the Installation, didn't she? That's creative." "That's not a creation. That's Armageddon. Excuse me." He turns back to his duties.

"But she'll give a wonderful performance, I'm sure," says Adelaide.

Nelson doesn't even look at her while replying, "She'll take her clothes off and splash about in the water."

Emily, wearing a large straw hat, pushes her way through the gaggle around the bar. She sports a fish-print dress and carries a matching purse the size of a small filing cabinet, which she deposits loudly on the bar. Her waist is cinched in tight with a wide tortoiseshell vinyl belt. She smiles at Nelson and Adelaide before pulling out a hand mirror to adjust her make-up.

"The dump sure looks different with people in it, doesn't it?" she says, fixing her lipstick and talking into the mirror. Adelaide is fascinated. How can she do that and talk at the same time?

"You are so right, Emily," says Nelson. "Emily, you are so right." "I get lost just standing still," says Adelaide cheerily.

Emily laughs. A sad, constrained laugh behind the mask of frivolity. Someone bumps her shoulder with a drink. Her fish-print dress gets a mark of liquid authenticity.

"I just want everyone to go home so I can go to sleep," she says. "These concrete floors are havoc on heels. I swear I have shin splints."

"So go lie down."

After all, thinks Adelaide, Emily lives in one of the seven lockable studio spaces in the gallery. She could escape the crowds if she wanted and take a quick lie-down.

Emily has been with the fugu since its inception but she has only just started living in the gallery, having moved in two weeks previous, at about the same time as Adelaide was being introduced to everyone. Consequently, the two of them share the newcomers' bond. For Emily, the move was an important one, helping her to escape from a relationship that had turned sour. She immersed herself in her oil paintings: the rigours of Art to soothe the pains of love. Occupational therapy.

"Go lie down?" says Emily. "Are you kidding? And miss Beverley's piece? Not bloody likely." She puts away her mirror and pushes a red plastic tumbler across the bar to Nelson, cutting in front of a slew of profferred toothbrushes. "Pour me another vodka, sir, if you'd be so kind."

"Where's your toothbrush?"

"Where it always is, next to my dental floss."

"No brush, no drink. You know the rules, Emily."

"Whose rules? Who's running this show? Isn't this a cooperative? I thought this was a cooperative. I thought we all shared equally." She leans closer to him. "If we don't deserve to get absolutely smashed out of our skulls for getting this show together, then I'm a Pekinese pissing up the wrong couch."

Nelson sighs, lifts his eyes momentarily towards the gods and pours out three drinks.

"You are so right, Emily," he says. "Emily, you are so right."