NOBODY LOOKS VERY comfortable. There are four faces, angled inelegantly, only one inclined to engage with the camera, the attached bodies mostly submerged in a hot, foaming tub. There are two men and two women. The picture is from an age before digital cameras were everywhere, so the image hasn’t been altered and as far as I know exists only in slowly fading semi-gloss hard copy. It is a scene more awkward than salacious: only one drink is in evidence and the expressions of the four twenty-somethings reflect self-consciousness more than any release of inhibitions. Everyone is wearing bathers and there’s nothing scandalous to see here. As one of that group, I remember the night wryly.

I can’t remember much else about that weekend, probably pleasant enough, with a dozen or so other young lawyers from Perth who had travelled the three-hour drive ‘down south’ to a rented spa retreat somewhere... Read more