I got to Victoria Road where the traffic seems to get heavier from one day to the next. The walk hadn’t helped, maybe a drink would. The pub was boarded up, out of business. It was happening all over the city-pubs closing down, waiting to become something else. Even Glebe had lost one, the Harold Park. Were new pubs being opened? I didn’t think so. Wine bars maybe, with the beer at five bucks a middy.

Lily Truscott, my live-out lover, was waiting for me when I got back to Glebe. She knew I’d been to see Viv and pointed to the bottle I was carrying.

‘Are we celebrating?’

‘Not exactly, unless ridding the profession of an undesirable for good and all makes for one. Some people seem to think so.’

‘I’m sorry, Cliff. That’s tough.’

‘I’ll open this and soften the blow. Usually works.’

Lily is a freelance journalist. She rose to the top of the tree but found being an editor not as much fun as reporting. A bit like me really. So she took a pay-out and now does very well doing what she does best. She has a knack, not given to many, of making financial stories interesting. She has a house in Greenwich; I go there occasionally and she comes to my place, also occasionally. The occasions are pretty frequent.

We sat out in the pale sunshine in my tiny, badly paved courtyard where the weeds poke through and attempt to lift the bricks with a certain amount of success. We drank some wine and ate olives and cheese. It had rained the night before and water was dripping from a section of clogged guttering and rusted downpipe. Over the years, leaves and dust had built up in the guttering to provide fertile soil for a variety of botanical species.

I watched the drops for a while and poured some more wine. ‘Viv’s solution to the income problem is to sell the house.’

‘What’s his solution to the what-do-I-do-with-my-life problem?’