Jason lived on a steep hill, his house sitting on poles like a rangy mountain climber hanging on for dear life. I parked my VW outside his place with angled wheels, the way Dad taught me, and we walked up a broken concrete path through waist-high grass and scraggly lantana. At the bottom of the paint-chipped stairs I heard happy noises coming from the veranda, which was shaded and hidden from view, enveloped by lush tropical greenery.

We slouched about in Jason’s living room on couches draped in saris. The windows were covered with matchstick-thin bamboo blinds; the walls were decorated with movie posters – The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, Klute. The smell of weed and seagrass matting wafted through the house. We kept our drinks in a bathtub filled with ice. The day drifted past, steamy and loose.

Late afternoon, when Ryan and Jason had driven to the local pub on a beer-and-ice run and the others were strumming guitars out the front, Sal curled beside me on a sagging couch, her long arms wrapped around her knees.

‘Do you remember that day after our Victorian Lit final,’ she said, ‘when we were sitting on the lawn, and I said one day we’d do something meaningful?’

Meaningful. She locked her almond eyes on mine, a smile lifting rose-painted lips, and I thought, ‘Finally.’ I’d adored Sal since we met. In truth, I’d lusted after her even before we met. I’d stood behind her in a smoky night-time crowd, watching Railroad Gin at Cloudland. A tight t-shirt, a glimpse of upturned nose, feather earrings brushing her neck. We almost touched when she’d lifted her arms up, twirled her wrists – I felt the heat of her, inhaled patchouli – but I stood back a bit to watch. It took all my willpower not to reach out and pull her towards me. At the end of the night, as Ryan and I were heading for the exit, she called out hello to him (a shared class, how great to see you here). She recalls that moment as the start of their romance. I don’t think she noticed, or remembers, that I was there.

After that, and all through uni, we three hung out, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends. We spent Friday nights at the Red and Black, Saturdays at parties. Sundays were for FOCO, the club in Trades Hall where we’d watch bands or the DJ, hear poetry readings and political talks, buy month-old copies of the Cuban Communist Party newspaper. You know you’re part of something cool when a federal pollie calls your club ‘Australia’s most repugnant nightspot’. That’d been a five-star review as far as we were concerned. Naturally, it spelled the beginning of the end.

We found other places to go, went to a bunch of protest marches, racked up a million hours together. Whenever Sal’s parents went overseas, we’d have pool parties at their house, and I’d wonder why Sal was slumming it with us. But now, sitting on Jason’s couch on a summer’s day, alone, I felt sure this was the time to make my move. I touched Sal’s tanned thigh and she said, ‘A sanctuary. Do you remember?’ She gently lifted my hand back towards my lap. I felt my cheeks burn while she continued talking like nothing had happened. How had I got that so wrong?