this jeanette came up to me at a party in 1982 or 83, i can't remember exactly now, and confided to me that phil was getting depressed lately because he couldn't get an erection, and he was worried about jeanette, worried that he couldn't satisfy her was the term i think she used. she said she didn't know what to do, he wouldn't believe her that she didn't particularly care about that. neither did i know what to say, i didn't even know why she told me this, without any preamble, without any other topic to bring it up, she just walked over to me and said so. she said it was probably down to the chemo, but in any case, i said back, he doesn't seem to have much energy anyway these days, i mean, he was in a wheelchair by that stage. he came to the party and sat in the loungeroom with all of us for a while, but then got wheeled into one of the bedrooms. by that stage, he wasn't very sociable either, would hardly answer you if you spoke to him.

i knew jeanette through stella (which wasn't her real name) who was going out with mark at the time, and mark shared a house with us in newtown. stella and jeanette were two of a gang of four, the others were called margaret and sue. they had all gone to the same school together. they were neo-mods, and dressed in short tight skirts and fishnet stockings, liked imitation leopard skin items and had short cropped hair. stella kept looking for a vanity case to carry about. they all worked as clerks in business or for the public service. i think that's where mark had met stella - at work. jeanette was blonde and reminded me of mia farrow but with bigger eyes. they all made me feel as if i belonged to an older generation, but i was only in my late 20s, 6 or 7 years older than them. phil was jeanette's boyfriend. he used to come to gigs with us and visited the house a bit. he was pretty quiet i guess. he started to get sick regularly, vomiting and feeling nauseous. they told us about it. the doctors did tests to see if he had an ulcer, but they couldn't determine the cause of the illness. to myself i remember thinking that it reminded me of the symptoms of a brain tumour, but i didn't say so. yes, but, two months later, that's what jeanette announced to us was the cause, and that phil was going to need brain surgery more or less straight away.

while he was still in hospital, it was pretty clear that he would need fairly constant nursing for a while, and even after that, someone would need to look after him until he got better. they were going to put him on chemotherapy as well. phil's parents had broken up, moved away from sydney, and he'd never been so close to them anyway, didn't want to live with either of them. so jeanette figured that the cheapest way to deal with the situation would be if she left her job and moved in with phil. to make it easier, they got married, which made the formalities of getting social security easier. she became a fulltime carer, and that way the allowance would cover their living expenses, whereas, if she kept working, they wouldn't be able to afford the cost of a nurse.

just before the party, one of phil's favourite british bands had been playing in sydney. they got tickets - managed to get a seat close to an aisle, so the wheelchair could get access OK. but it was a concert. so, everyone stood up, starting dancing. they were too far back, and phil couldn't see anything, had been confined in a dark human cocoon by bouncing bodies to the beat surrender. jeanette felt bad about it, so she called a radio station, told them what happened, and they contacted the band. paul weller invited them again, got them to come backstage, a ringside seat with a meet the band afterwards. chance of a lifetime.

jeanette knew at that party that phil wasn't going to get better. maybe she was telling me, to herself, that he was going to keep getting weaker and weaker. i think she was getting herself ready, talking about it matter-of-factly to everyone. i don't know. i'm never any good at asking or telling sympathy. eventually he could not lift his head from his pillow, and had to eat liquids through a straw. couldn't control his bowels. we didn't see much of her then, but stella visited them, told us details when she was at our place. from the time that phil first got sick, till the time he died, it was less than a year but seemed much longer. after that, jeanette moved into a studio flat in a converted warehouse with her brother, and found another job. she started to go out with the gang of four more often. nothing seemed to affect her cheerfulness, and i spose that's why i still wonder about her sometimes.