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‘Work? And leave behind the rollicking social life of Middle Point?’
    ‘You’re too young and way too good a journalist to be down here entertaining me. What’s your plan, Stan?’
    Joe picked up his tea and took a sip. The simple truth was he didn’t have one. Almost twenty years of work had counted for fuck all when he’d been made redundant. Redundant. What a weasel word that was. He’d been sacked, just like the cavalcade of other people whose jobs had disappeared in the twists and turns of the modern economy. His newspaper, the one he’d lived and breathed for the best part of two decades, was on life support and getting thinner. It didn’t matter that his face was on page one or page three next to his by-line almost every day with the latest breaking story. When it came to the crunch, he was a number like everyone else – albeit an expensive number – and he’d been marched out the door on a fateful day the previous October with thirty of his colleagues. It had all been done politely, of course, with a cake for the dear departing and speeches and tears, time for a farewell column, which had ended up full of bullshit like ‘new adventure’ and ‘spend more time with my family’. Joe would never forget the haunted look on the faces of those left behind in the newsroom, the look that said ‘thank God it’s not me’ but which really meant ‘Oh God I could be next’.
    In true newsroom style, he and his mates had hit the nearest watering hole and drowned their sorrows, feeling a sudden and searing sympathy for all the workers whose job losses they’d covered in the previous couple of years. When it was other people losing their livelihoods, it was simply the ebb and flow of the market or a correction in the economy. When it was you, it just sucked.
    Joe lowered the paper on to the table and crossed his arms over it, trying to read the next quiz question but it was all a blur. Harri’s probing wasn’t easy to deal with but she wasn’t asking him anything he hadn’t asked himself every day and night since that day. What was he going to do? There simply weren’t the same number of jobs for journalists anymore. People didn’t need to wait for their daily newspaper for reportage or an opinion on what was going on in the world. News was instant and online these days. Although Joe had understood this brave new world better than most, at the end of the day, that hadn’t mattered. Maybe they thought he was too old school, even though he was four years shy of forty. Without his work to define him, he wasn’t sure who he was anymore.
    ‘Well?’ Harri demanded. ‘Cat got your tongue? Maybe you reporters don’t like it when the tables are turned and someone gets to ask you the questions, huh?’
    Joe couldn’t hide his smile. She was right. It was always easier to ask than to answer, to deflect than to admit. Especially when you weren’t sure of the truth. ‘I dunno, Harri. Maybe I’ll become that toy boy the whole town’s talking about. Do you reckon I could make a living serving the needs of the Desperate Housewives of Middle Point?’
    Harri hooted with laughter and slapped a hand on the kitchen table. ‘You’re a cheeky bugger.’
    ‘I could be the Fleurieu Peninsula’s man for hire.’ Joe threw her a wink, trying not to feel the hollow open up in his chest. ‘What do you think?’
    Harri eyed him up and down over her reading glasses. ‘While you’ve got the charm and the looks, as you well know, you need to get back to what you do best.’
    Joe sighed, reached for the teapot and filled their cups. ‘Harri, stop your nagging. Next question. Where was the 1994 soccer World Cup?’
    ‘The United States.’ Harri grinned. ‘Suck it up, smartypants.’
    Later that night, the black dog hit Joe. It snuck into his bed and curled up next to him, heavy and unmoving, as the wind picked up outside and howled along the Middle Point coast. He lay with his hands under his head and stared at the