Last September, Emily had been made redundant from her subediting job on the features desk of The Independent. No reason was given as to why she’d lost her position instead of some other colleague. No one at the paper had ever faulted her work—or not in her presence. Occasionally her headlines were changed down the line, because she hated puns and some section editors felt differently, but that was no big deal at a broadsheet. She put clean copy to the page. In a five-minute meeting, the managing editor thanked Emily for eight years of service and explained that advertising revenue had been falling. When Emily asked why they didn’t sack someone else, the managing editor said they had to choose someone, and it had to be a full-timer on the subeditors’ desk. When Emily asked again why she was that someone, the editor said Emily was being made redundant yet she wasn’t literally redundant, in a professional sense, but rather out of a job.

In the months after Emily’s departure, she received emails from ex-colleagues, subeditors and reporters, whose messages seemed more probing than well wishing, as if they were worried they might be headed towards a similar fate. To one email she replied: ‘I’m feeling fine. And let’s be honest, half the office will be out of a job in ten years.’

She applied for full-time work she didn’t get. She wrote to production about gaps in their casual roster. During her five months of unemployment Michael did not once mention their rent. He did not suggest a new career. He did find her a fortnight of temping shifts at the social work branch where he was employed as team manager. All day, as Emily discovered, he sat at his desk with a gelid expression on his face, absorbed in email and phone conversations and client interview transcripts. Even with his wife present, Michael ate lunch in front of the computer. Emily was surprised by how little he moved from his desk; it was like sanctuary for him, like an escape, like a parallel life. During lunch hour on her last shift at the social work office, she pitched an article to her dear friend Liam. You probably expected one of these emails, her message began. She’d always wanted to write something for the New Yorker. She intended to write an essay about an obsolete restaurant franchise in Australia, its rise and catastrophic fall. Emily wrote the pitch in fifteen minutes, which was her way of underinvesting in the New Yorker fantasy, and in return she expected a kind rejection email from an old friend.

Liam called her that night. ‘Emily,’ he said, ‘I think this is going to work.’

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