Liesl

 Liesl was a fun friend, initially. We met in first year, in French class. She was South African, brown skin, a mass of long dark curly hair, a round face with a button nose and a cheeky look in her eyes. She loved to dance, sing and act. She was travelling in from Melton every day to get to Uni then she found out that I lived off campus with a British-French couple and they had a spare room so she ended up boarding with me.

This is all went really well until our landlords moved out to care for troubled kids in a halfway home and left us in charge of the running of the house. Then we added in a new stressor; we decided to work together in a call centre. So now all of a sudden we were living together, studying together, working together and playing together. We ended up having a massive fight in the middle of this and our landlady had to come home to resolve it. It was over something stupid, like me not standing outside watching over Liesl while she hung out the washing at night. I'm not afraid of the dark; she was.

At the end of the first year, I'd had enough and I moved on campus. It was great socially but my marks took a bit of dive from too much fun and not enough contact time. I think I had 12 hours of classes each semester and the college accommodation was right next door to the student union bar. Not that I was a drinker, more of a pancake maker after Thursday night bar night.

We remained friends all through university and then I got a job, actually two jobs, at university straight after third year and moved in with my first long term boyfriend. This boy was no good and he ended up cheating on me so I rang up Liesl and she came and stayed with me and we went on several revenge nights out at the night clubs in King street or wherever we damn well felt like it. Dancing, laughing our heads off, neither of us were drinkers, staying up all night.

At the end of that year I moved to Brisbane and met the man who would become my husband. Liesl moved to Sydney and she moved in with a friend of mine from Brisbane into a downstairs flat in Bondi Beach. We flew down to see them for New Year's Eve and a bunch of other friends flew up from Melbourne. More laughter, more craziness, it was all good.

I asked her about boys. She didn't have a steady boyfriend. She told me she didn't need one and then she told me she'd been sleeping with her friends' boyfriends behind her friends' backs. I was horrified. This was coming out of the mouth of someone who had been raised in a very strict Christian family! She said she couldn't help it. She was hell-bent on teasing out the flaws in everyone's relationships.

Six months must have gone by and then Liesl flew up to Brisbane to see and stay with us. We went to the rugby, more fun and games. Mark's brother had won tickets for VIP treatment in a special booth on the infamous "hill" at Ballymore rugby ground. Additionally we got access into the referees room. My sister in law is a much bigger drinker than me and she had been surreptitiously topping up my champagne glass and by the time we entered the refs' room I was completely blotto and so was Liesl. Ben Tune, a famous Wallabies player entered the room and he had the most erect nipples you could imagine sticking out of his rugby top. In stitches, I said to Liesl, "Let's tune Ben Tune" so we grabbed the fabric around each of his pointy nipples and started pretending we were tuning his radio. It was funny for us, not sure what Ben thought of two drunk 23 year olds harassing him.

Afterwards, we went to whatever was the best pub in "The Valley" at the time. The pub was absolutely packed, lot of dancing, more drinks going around. By this stage I was feeling quite unwell and after a trip to the toilets, decided, without telling anyone, to just grab a cab and go home. I sat on the edge of the gutter for a while and waited. A guy came and talked to me. We got in the same cab together and two other guys also jumped in. They all got out together and left me to make my way home. When the cab pulled up I remember being so inebriated that I couldn't even sign my name on the credit card slider the cab driver passed to me.

Apparently, Mark and Liesl had been looking for me and trying to ring me and I hadn't been answering the phone. I'd actually got home and gone straight to bed.

The next morning I woke up and I knew in my heart of hearts what Liesl had done while I was passed out on the bed. After a big row, I told her to call a cab and leave for the airport, even though her plane wasn't leaving until midday.

That's the last time we spoke.