Census Night

I'm making it up, it will be fun

Ada Phillipot, 69 year old Liverpudlian, atheist pension who is visiting from the Northern England. She’d been out with her knitting nana buddies at the Slip 'Em A Mickey Arms celebrating the last days of their bus and truck tour of the Western Suburbs of Melbourne, saying hello to all the 10 poms as a representative from the motherland. 

The last thing she remembers was downing her second glass of peach schnapps. She came to on her own in the front yard of a strange house in Fitzroy. She is convinced that Ivan, one of the ageing members of the pension barber shop band, that entertained the "girls" during the evening, had spiked her drink. 

"He spat when he spoke," said Ada. "I should have been more wary."

Ivan said he had a bedsit in the commission flats, a box of claret and a packet of lamb-skin condoms from 1961 still unopened. He just wouldn't take no for an answer. The census booklet was still in the letterbox, and there were several pens amongst the bags on the front veranda ready to be taken to The Brotherhood. Ada has always been a civic minded lass, ever since her childhood on the sheep farm in Lamcashire, so she thought she might as well give it a go. She is suffering from amnesia, she has a nasty bump to the side of her head, but she will do her best to answer the questions, understanding that she finished school in grade 7.