Fashion

Nullin's newest residents, masseuse Heidi Go and her screenwriter husband Beckett, have traded Sydney's fast lane for a fresh start in a picturesque little coastal town. Knowing what to expect from a sea change, they look forward to making the acquaintance of the odd local character. Or even the frankly weird ones, like the wild Blackpeters, the wealthy Bankston family, sexy handyman Damian Hill and an elderly anthropologist with an exotic past.

'I'm standing on the door of the Less Is More club, thinking about my fingernails. I'm up here, above the throng, a fashion leader, with the crowd below almost swooning at my feet, and I'm dressed impeccably from head to toe except for three chipped nails on my right hand. Three chipped nails! ...

'My name is Reality Nirvana Tuttle, and I was born in 1968. Nineteen sixty-eight was one of the great years in modern history. It was the year Yves Saint Laurent shocked the fashion world with his first see-through blouse ...

Berenger hovers on the edge of the hard mattress but making no dent in it. 'I was, like, cursed,' she says. 'Oh, come on,' I scoff. 'I saw how much you suffered. Trunks of couture gowns and Concorde everywhere and Spanish playboys following you in packs.' 'You don't understand.' She raises her arm and scrutinises it, as if she were seeing it for the first time. It looks like a jagged arrangement of chicken bones wrapped in translucent egg noodle. And then she turns those white china eyes on me. 'If I wasn't cursed, then what is this?'"