The air was crisp and cool, with a greasy sharp tang of diesel. The night air still held its shape, not yet dessicated by clamouring noon. The two of them stood near the tracks, awkward, almost leaving, but not quite yet.

“I was like you once,” Melani said. She laughed and blew smoke in Josie, Joey, Jo-girl, Jospehina, Jojo's face – some bush blend full of teatree to cleanse the air and lungs. “I'd be like you again if I could be that stupid.” The ground shuddered as the heavy freight train roared down the hill towards them.

Mel patted Jo's arse as she left. “Savour it!” Mel shouted above the clangour. “You might as well.”

Mel hauled herself onto the last carriage with practiced ease; her lean arms always surprising in their strength. Jo imagined trying to follow, her arms wrenched out of their socket from the force, spraining her wrists and falling to the tracks. Dust blew in Jo's face, Mel's throaty laugh, rich with sixty five years of sass and spice coated the dusty wind and peppered Jo's tongue. Mel had sparkling green eyes, heavy powdered makeup and a face sun-scorched into dense wrinkles. She'd been a motorcycle stuntwoman with the travelling show and would still be doing it too if she'd had her way. She'd been a mother to more than her own blood, she'd been a revolutionary, the centre of numerous scandals, love affairs and dumb arse stunts.

When Mel fell from the train onto the tracks, her head splitting open on the shining steel tracks, it wasn't just a fiesty old woman with attitude that died. With her died stories – rich, complex and varied. With her died a wealth of knowledge, ways, meaning, learning hard won that could never be duplicated. Jo did not know Mel was dying from the sharp crack of skull against tracks, her first response was to laugh, a sharp high retort at Mel – playing pranks again and not yet ready to leave.