He checked his phone. Details from Terri of the DJs he was seeing. A rescheduled meeting with the publisher. Confirmation from 6 Music that his gig with them would start after his return. And a song, from Ali Connor. He opened the link and stared at this gift, this frank and open-hearted gesture, and felt a pulse of pure love for her for sending the Pretenders, and of all their songs, this song. ‘I Go To Sleep’. Love and lust and plaintive regret.

He knew she’d be there when he got to Adelaide, knew it as he’d never known anything before, knew it in his gut. Knew she was there now, too: thinking about him, thinking about her.

21

ADELAIDE,
3 FEBRUARY 2013

Michael had invited a couple of his friends for dinner, people Ali barely knew: Moira Thiemann, a newly appointed consultant paediatrician at the hospital, and her husband Greg Golding, who was something high up in the state’s Environment Protection Authority. So that it wouldn’t just be the four of them, Ali asked Cass to come along, and, as Cass was currently without a boyfriend, she asked Tahnee Jackson too, so the numbers wouldn’t be odd.

‘Tahnee Jackson?’ Michael said. ‘That’s a bit passive-aggressive.’

Ali said, ‘Why, because your mother will be spinning in her grave?’

‘No, because you’re pissed off that I don’t like your philanthropy scheme, which you’re determined to plough ahead with anyway.’

‘Michael, I didn’t invite her to score a point,’ Ali said, trying to keep her voice level. ‘I asked her because she’s become a friend,’ but Michael only laughed and said, ‘Sure, right.’ Then Ali told him to change his tone because it sounded ugly, and he said well, he couldn’t say anything right, so what the hell.