Bruce muted the TV. He knew by heart what the anchors were saying. What else could they say? This had to be the most spectacular reversal of fortunes they had ever had the ghoulish pleasure of reporting. The catastrophe that had overtaken Bruce had (in his opinion, anyway) the stature of a Greek tragedy – with, he was forced to reflect, all its attendant ironies.

Hubris, pride, comes before a fall. When a person is so big, so bold, so beautiful, that they come to believe that the rules that govern others no longer apply to them, that’s when fate sticks the boot in, and you can’t get any bigger, bolder or more beautiful than winning the ‘Best Director’ Oscar.

Bruce’s house was back on the screen. No cops now: it was the ‘before’ shot, serene, tranquil, to make it absolutely clear to morning America just what Bruce had lost. A gorgeous piece of footage from a video guide to the homes of Hollywood ’s elite. He remembered the helicopter coming over taking the shots and what an outrageous invasion of privacy he had thought it. Again, proportion. He was a man for whom the notion of privacy no longer existed. He was public property. His lawn was on the TV and there were cops all over it. Every news agency in the world owned him. They could fly a helicopter up his backside and say it was in the public interest. Bruce stared at the beautiful home where his life used to be. He glanced around the bare room where he now sat.

What a journey he had made.

In twentyfour hours.

For the manacled young woman in the adjoining interview room her current surroundings were something of a step up. There were no cockroaches in the room, no fleabitten dogs poking around trying to get at the food. There were no abandoned cars and no burstopen plastic sack of garbage with rats fossicking about in them. This young woman did not hail from a mansion in the Hollywood hills. Her home was a beatup RV in a trailer park in Texas. She, too, had come a long way.