And hither we had now repaired, the excluded ones, to the garden of a coffee house overlooking Town Beach, waiting to be instructed in the conventions of a cafe parlant by a Frenchman called Philippe who had blown into Broome only a few days before.All I know about Philippe is that that's what he does He makes cafes parlants happen in the bush He brings Parisian cafe society to the outback Don't ask me why Last week Kununurra, the week before Darwin, now Broome. But it was when we got up to go to the cafe parlant at Town Beach that I lost confidence in my appearance I would be bound to talk Talking is what I do, what I have always done. But never before in a frock and topknot.Did I say a cafe parlant? Well I have to admit that I was mystified, too.It was by now nearly 10. The tropical night was soft and sticky on our skin, like silk pyjamas. The moon was high and full, the ticking tide out, the crocs snoozing in the creeks. For some mango-related reason the flying foxes were low over our heads, squeaking, their anxiety palpable, malodorous, as sickly sweet as a kindergarten in a rainforest.

Aboriginal laughter drifted in from the town, dark and rich - the party no white man ever gets invited to, the party you will never have. "Look at you!" one of them would occasionally remember to say, by way of testimony to the transformation that had come over me in my time in Broome, and I asked for nothing more than that - a little bit of complimentary notice. So I put on my most sensual sarong - a blood-red Krishna with flabby pecs and bells around his ankles - and had my hair done up in a Samurai topknot.Excellent for the dinner-party element of the evening, when I could sit musing under the genitalia trees, under the swaying gonadial boab nuts and mangoes, knocking back purple Shiraz and flapping my skirt to cool my thighs, while the warrior women fought. I have a suspicion I made a poor job of my last night in Broome. You know what it's like - you want to make a final splash, give them something to remember you by. I've bottled out.

Couldn't take the heat and the light and the red sand and the insects and the crocs and the circles of abrasive women. Suddenly got city longings on me and hopped on to a plane to Melbourne. And a man who hops on to a plane from Broome to Melbourne deserves what he gets, eh? Well, whether I deserve it or not I've got it It's cold here. Unseasonably cold And dark. I don't expect you to sympathise where you are, but you choose to live in a dark cold land, whereas I have opted for heat and light.So why didn't I stay in Broome?What are you, the voice of my conscience or something? I didn't stay in Broome because it was getting too hot OK? Now can we drop the punitive stuff I'm feeling flat Pinched And a bit stupid as well.

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