‘Dave, I’ve got a new friend. Lucy. Just a friend. But who knows? I wanted to tell you.’ She pauses as if to recover. I’m trying to think why I’m not shocked by this possibility. ‘I’ll come and visit James in a few weeks. Make sure the house is clean. Bye.’

‘Bye.’ I would do anything to keep her talking, to keep hearing her, but I have long since destroyed our connection. She doesn’t have the will or the energy to put up with me anymore. And now she has a ‘friend’, as I knew she would. I knew it was coming. I didn’t know it would be a she. I wonder if it is a response to the blokey world of the farm that has so comprehensively let her down. I put the phone down and hammer my fist hard into my chest. It is important to think about something else.

I drive to the mailbox, the flat tyre thump-thumping beneath me. I must remember to change it. The box that I repacked and taped up is still there, underneath the mailbox. This is bad news. In the mailbox there are two new boxes. I curse in the most exotic forms that come to mouth. I wonder if I shouldn’t leave the boxes there, but then it would become the mailman’s problem. I can’t think what I should be doing, so I take the new boxes out of the mailbox, put them in the ute, leave the old box where it is, and drive home. I am thinking of Sarah and the way she is getting her life back on track while I am obviously still derailed. How is she managing that? How does she find enough meaning to get up and go to work? I didn’t even ask what she was going to be working as, or where. I don’t have the imagination to conceive of it. I don’t know who I am or what is worth doing.