‘Suicide’. He wrinkled his nose. It was a very attention-seeking word. And notion. James remembered the way he’d once had to stop the car because the radio reported that a friend of James’s celebrity passenger, Hamish, had ‘taken his own life’ in Los Angeles. Hamish had sat, thumping the window over and over again, while James reached back and offered him a hand, an intimacy he would never normally risk with a customer. ‘Suicide’ was for people like that: depressed millionaires, or rock stars. It wasn’t for people like James, people who went to work every day, feeling progressively more invisible, feeling fat and hot and useless. Nobody was going to sob in the back seat when they heard about James. No, ‘suicide’ was an overblown word for what this was. ‘Taking his own life’, likewise. Taking it from whom? You couldn’t steal from your own bank account, could you?

It was more like resigning, as you would from any job which you had proved unequal to. I resign from life, muttered James to himself, with a half-smile. It was almost fun, this. The sensation of a load released. And it didn’t really matter, in the end, what name you gave to what he was about to do. After it, there would just be a full stop, and relief.

4

MELBOURNE, 11:25

SALLY CHILTERN

Twenty minutes until the interview, Sally’s ever-eager phone reminded her. Twenty minutes till the Age journalist showed up. That was fine. She’d be at the office in ten. After that, the phone could say what the hell it liked, because it wouldn’t be with Sal any more. She would have given it to her personal assistant, Meghan, who would deal with anything that came up – any calls, emails – while Sal was busy. As usual, Sal’s husband Dec had all her appointments in his diary, and he knew not to send dirty messages outside what they called the Filth Windows, or FWs. He was much more into rude texting than Sal was, but she did miss it a little bit when the phone wasn’t with her. In all other ways, though, not having it for a couple of hours was a blessing. It was great having Meghan to shear through the weeds that grew ceaselessly in her inbox. Invitations to speak unpaid, for Christ’s sake, like she was still 21. ‘There’s no budget, but the girls would be so thrilled to have you and we’ll feed you well!’ Emails from struggling restaurants, her name dumped in the subject line in a hollow attempt at chumminess. ‘Sal, we haven’t seen you in a while!’ You had to turn down the background buzz, sometimes. Background buzz. I like that. I could use that in something.