When Ikea/Zaynab went, her position was rolled into Lorna’s and filled by Lyric. They’re young and super-efficient and they walk softly in big white sneakers. I recognised their perfume straight away. It’s Chanel’s favourite, too, and it’s called Beware. Chanel describes it as ‘intimate and incredibly emotional as well’.

What has me stumped is Lyric’s ethnicity. I don’t like to ask and I can’t figure it out. Half their hair has been shaved off, and the rest might be blue with orange spots – the colour changes every few weeks. Their skin is bronze, you could cut yourself on their cheekbones and their long eyes have a tilt. Some days those eyes are topaz and some days they’re aqua and some days they’re pumpkin-seed green. Their brows are soft and full, and so are their lips. Their face is as smooth as glass. In certain lights, it glows.

I described Lyric to Mel, and she said, ‘Da-ad! That’s Instagram Face. I did a whole episode on it, like, weeks ago.’ So I googled ‘Instagram Face’, and it was just like looking at Lyric. Where do their people come from? Latin America? The Middle East? Spain? Their only name is Lyric, which is no help.

I used to envy Danes but now I envy Lyric more. Their look is a whole new take on belonging. It makes it impossible to pinpoint their background, it mixes everything up. According to Mel, ‘It takes serious makeup to do Instagram Face. You’re talking, like, twenty different products.’ But I don’t think Lyric is wearing makeup, although I don’t dare look too closely. Beware, I think. Beware.

Maybe everyone will resemble Lyric one day. Maybe it’s a mistake to look to place for their origins and I should look to time instead. Maybe Lyric is a post-racial delegate from the future. What could be better? Chanel got it right on the plane coming here. Don’t look back. It’s not the Australian way. That’s the problem with Aboriginal people – they’re a living reminder of the past. Who feels comfortable facing up to old mistakes? It’s the reason why pictures of environmental degradation are banned. If I knew any Aboriginal people, I’d tell them, ‘Please stop reminding everyone that you belong to the oldest civilisation on earth. Don’t you see what a disadvantage that is? You’re history.’ The whole point of Australia is a bet on the future. Lyric has got it nailed.

It’s always been my policy to make myself indispensable to the head of Evaluations. Since Russ’s appointment, I’d estimate that in addition to my own work, I wind up doing twenty per cent of his. I believe he looks on me as something like an extra function key on his laptop. He can tap it and make work disappear.