Why do I sleep with my eyes wide open? My Magritte dream: I’m sitting at my desk by the police scanner, forehead furrowed, sunrise behind me through the window which I never see, story story, scanner ticking. And then the 3.25 alarm. Awake, rise, work. Exactly as the dream.

Kings Cross. 3.45 a.m. Venus Club glowing, Tender Trap thumping. Eyes at me as I walk quick along the drag, incongruous in office clothes. Fear. A cabbie’s weariness as I squelch onto the plastic over the front passenger seat.

‘Jeez, you smell fresh. Just out of a shower, huh? Just washed your hair? You smell soo beautiful. Off to work luv, at this hour?’

I tell him I’m a radio reporter.

‘A reporter? Aren’t you a good little worker. There’s a big smash along Parramatta Road for you. Looks like a double fatal. They wouldn’t let me stop and look.’

I give him a big tip, on the cab docket, at the company’s expense.

‘Jeez it’s good to smell you,’ he says as I step from the car.

The phone rings early. It’s Jim.

‘I just wanted to say hello again, fill you in a little bit more.’

It’s the voice of a plumber or a mechanic or a man with a shed. There’s a sweetness in it. I’m not used to those sort of voices in my job.

‘There’s gonna be a hundred and two people on the ship. About twenty-four crew and then the rest are expeditioners. That’s what we’re called. Pretty grand, eh? And then among the expeditioners you’ve got scientists and tradesmen—boffins and tradies. That’s the lingo.’

I ask him where JAFOs fit into the picture.

‘Jafos? Aren’t they what you roll down the aisles?’

He tells me his name in Antarctica is Stiff. I don’t believe him. He says it’s true. He won’t tell me how he got it. How could I keep a straight face when I’m calling a man Stiff? I tell him I’ll be calling him Jim. I get the feeling that people turn into something else when they’re down there, and a new name’s just the start of it.

He asks if I mind him ringing up all the time, but it’s because he always thinks of new things to tell me. I tell him I don’t mind and he says good because he likes ringing me up.

I hang up, smiling again.

Family killed on the north coast. Six bodies, the mother and her five kids, all dead, all in the station wagon. Good story—kids are good, they use kids. On a holiday from the Territory. All in the station wagon. Five kids. Story story.