I left the library and walked through the Domain and Woolloomooloo to my office in Darlinghurst. The morning had been cool with a southerly breeze and clouds banking up to the east; now the sky had cleared and the air was still. It was hot and I carried my jacket over my shoulder. I sweated freely but my wind was good on the upgrades. I wasn’t a candidate for the City to Surf, but I’d back myself for two lengths of the Bondi promenade against Cy Sackville any day.

Thoughts of Bondi were much on my mind as I turned into St Peter’s Lane. You hear of people who have lived their whole lives in the one house and you shudder, but right now I was yearning for a little permanency. The building that houses my office was up for renovation. I didn’t want to be renovated or to pay a renovated rent. A few of us tenants-such as the painless depilator and the iridologist-had got together and made an approach to the owner. The result had been an avalanche of paper-notices from various bodies declaring the building unsafe and unsanitary, reports indicating how many provisions of the wiring and plumbing regulations were being violated, and the threat of a rent hike anyway. Since then the iridologist had left and my footsteps in the corridors were sounding more and more hollow. I didn’t want to move, but I had had a very attractive offer of a place in Hastings Parade, Bondi.

‘Afternoon, Cliff. Love your hours.’ The depilator, whose office was next to mine, was a fiftyish woman named Paula. Paula had dyed red hair, scarlet fingernails and a mouth painted to match. She always wore red clothes and if her throat got cut some day, it would be a while before anyone noticed.

‘Don’t get the wrong idea. I’ve been at work all night.’