‘Don might be right,’ I said. ‘And Lucille’s right as well. Upshot is, we’re fucked.’

Don took a cautious sip of his wine. ‘Steph?’

Stephanie Geller, ruby-lipped, kohl-eyed, in a sequinned top and a long skirt festooned with tiny mirrors, was pissed. She’s short-sighted and won’t wear glasses because she thinks they’re bad for her image. She squinted and smiled lopsidedly. ‘Zee cards…zee cards say Cliff’s right, even though he’s a fuckin’ sceptic’s sceptic. We’re fucked. Henri, get me another white.’ Steph forgets the accent once in a while.

‘You’re drunk, darling,’ Henri Baden said. Steph told me once that Henri is a con man who tells people what they want to hear. He’s one of those gays that seem to get gayer

by the glass.

‘Don’t darling me, you poofter.’

‘Steph!’ Lucille Harvey snarled.

It went downhill from there. Goodbye St Peters Lane, goodbye central location, goodbye cheap rent.

I was working from home and not liking it. My place in Glebe doesn’t lend itself to being an office as well as a house. The front room’s too small; the living space is filled with books and now holds a couple of filing cabinets. You can’t escort people upstairs, not when the runner’s worn and the spare room holds a bed, a computer and more books. I was reduced to meeting my clients at places of their or my choice. I was to meet Dr Elizabeth Farmer in her room in the Linguistics Department of Sydney University.

A day in early spring, clear and cool. I walked. The linguists were housed in a building that looked like a cross between a Nissan hut and a school demountable. It was probably intended to be temporary, but a creeper had grown over it, trees and shrubs crowded close and it was there to stay in all its grey, small-windowed anonymity. From what I’d heard about the way things were going at universities lately, maybe a low profile was a good thing. The bean counters and productivity assessors just might leave you alone.