ADRIENNE FRATER, Australia

Adrienne Frater has just completed Owen Marshall's Fiction Writing Course at Aoraki Polytechnic, and, having survived six months living in a motor-home, is in culture shock at being back at work and house-bound again. She juggles teaching with writing, (adult and children's short fiction) and her major challenge is keeping all the little balls in the air.

Moonshine
by Adrienne Frater

Each time the moon was full, Alice Winterburn developed an exaggerated sense of smell. It began a few days before full moon and built up as the moon swelled. She'd find herself walking on the far side of the footpath, picking lavender to ward off petrol fumes, avoiding the toiletry aisle at the supermarket, and forgoing espressos and making do with the mere whiff of beans. Then, as the moon waned, her heightened olfactory response waned with it.

"It's PMT," said Gemma, who shared Alice's office space and was often asked to remove the cut-glass vase of daphne from her desk.

"No, it's definitely lunar," said Alice, easing open the sash window. "My father was the same."

"With smells?"

"No, sex. Mother always said she had to watch out for him when the moon was full."

Alice fingered the collar of her white blouse and began to realign the paper clips on her desk.

A lunar month later, Alice accepted an invitation to an office party. The staff was usually tied down with sport and family commitments these days, so office parties were rare. And for Alice to accept the invitation was rarer still. The party was to be held on a Saturday rather than a Friday night, so she had the whole day to prepare.

Alice switched her alarm clock off, and this Saturday, woke at nine. She lay for a while breathing the cleanness of her sheets, inhaling the dust mites dancing the air. Then for some strange reason, instead of smothering her super-charged smells, on this particular morning Alice found herself opening to the experience.

She ran a long, deep bath, dripped in geranium oil and soaked a good long while. Heady with the after-taste, she stayed in her robe and mooned through her day. At sixish, she ate pungent sardines on rye and very blue cheese.

"Do you want Toddy and me to pick you up?" asked Gemma, ringing at seven.

"No, I'll come alone."

"What are you wearing?"

"I'm not sure."

Alice dropped her robe and stood naked in front of the wardrobe mirror. She'd not looked at herself for years. She breathed in geranium, sardine, blue cheese and quivered. Her flesh was so white and the curves of her breasts offset her angular hips. I'll wear silk, she thought, and perfume.

The silk sarong had been Alice's grandmother's and had sat in the Indian chest for years. Long ago it had been worn as a shawl and it still carried the smell of spice and hot earth. Alice knotted it at her waist and felt it swish as she pulled on a fine Lycra top. Her perfume, long held captive in its crystal bottle, exuded poppies.

Alice decided to walk to the party. It took forty minutes and she was one of the last to arrive.

"I thought you'd changed your mind," said Gemma, passing her a glass of punch. "You sounded a little strange."

"Thanks, but I'm drinking wine," said Alice pleasantly, and she poured a Cab Merlot, rich with plum and cinnamon. Then Alice stood beside the floor-length boardroom curtains surveying the group and saw things she'd never seen before.

The General Manager's wife had a distinct regrowth. Her dark stripe of hair eased into auburn and blonde, and gave a jaunty air. It went with her chartreuse trouser suit and the gold discs in her ears. Alice could smell her musk. The man she was deluging with opinions and good-humoured malice, was twitching his nose and holding his glass in his paws like a frightened rabbit. She'd seen him in IT, seen his ears flop from inside a computer. Trev. His name, as bland as his scent, smelt somewhere between lettuce and carrot.

"Alice," said Hunter Forrester, pronouncing the last consonant with a hiss. "Alice." Circling her gold sarong with one arm, he extended the other, and took the hand she'd so carefully manicured and moisturised and kissed it. Alice cringed from the garlic. Hunter Forrester was Deputy General Manager, but it was widely known he really made all the decisions and was biding his time. Tall, swarthy, with well-toned shoulders and chest, he smelt of Stag as well as garlic, and was currently single. Most women agreed that Hunter Forrester was an attractive man.

"Alice Winterburn, we don't often have the honour," he said, removing her wineglass. "May I have this dance?"

"I don't," said Alice, slithering from his grasp. "Dance that is."

"Oh, but you do," Hunter said, slipping his arm back round her waist. "Tonight you do."
And watching them, Gemma saw a snake dance a golden pheasant round the floor. It certainly wasn't Alice she was watching, Alice of the drawer of sharpened HB pencils and shelves of colour-coded files.

"She's a big girl," said Toddy. "Come for a twirl."

It was a beautiful evening, warm and moonlit, and when someone opened the french doors many of the couples slipped outside. Hunter led Alice to the far end of the deck, towards a screen of potted conifers. He drew her close, and Alice, breathing in moss, mould and slugs, stiffened. Then, as Hunter pursed his lips and thrust forward, a rogue cloud masked the moon. Repelled, Alice turned away, and Hunter lip-butted her cheek. Then, as his lips groped again, she stepped back.

"Alice." Hunter's voice sounded like ice.

The moon edged from the cloud. Alice shivered. She ran her hands over her sarong and quickly breathed in spice and red earth.

"It's late," she said, edging back towards the french doors. "I must go." And fortuitously, Alice caught Gemma and Toddy just as they were leaving.

"Can I still have that ride?"

"Sure," said Toddy.

A lunar month later when Alice Winterburn developed an exaggerated sense of smell, she didn't walk on the far side of the footpath and pick lavender to ward off the petrol fumes. She made a point of walking down the toiletry aisle to buy soap, and she indulged in drinking espresso as well as savouring the smell. But when the social committee organised another office party, setting the rare precedent of two in two months, Alice didn't attend.

"Didn't you enjoy the last one?" asked Gemma, arranging freesias in the cut-glass vase.

"Somehow I thought you did."

"Once is enough," said Alice, drawing the freesias close and inhaling their scent. Then she reached for a heavy black folder, opened it at section eight and began to underscore the pertinent points.