Sacha dragged herself around the city centre until she was weary of it; footslogging from one end to another, she grew weary long before the two hours and forty-three minutes allocated on her tram ticket were up. She didn't know whether to be pleased or depressed about the length of time it took her to off-load two dozen copies of her C.V. She hadn't felt particularly encouraged by any of the replies she'd received.

She was suddenly gripped by an overwhelming need to go back to her flat and run herself a bath, boil the kettle, and soak until she'd drunk her way through a pot of tea. Strangely, she didn't feel hungry: she thought with wry pleasure about the money this would save her. Speaking of money: on her way back to Collins Street she stopped at an A.T.M. to get out another $100. She declined the machine's offer of a printed account balance: she didn't want to know. It would be special, all right, to see the numbers in her bank account going in the other direction. She felt like something was slipping away, inch by inch, but she didn't know what it was.

On Collins Street a homeless man, perhaps in his forties, approached her at the tram stop and asked her politely if she could spare a little change, maybe a dollar. "Sorry" said Sacha, "I can't spare any." And it was almost true, she thought to herself.

Except that it wasn't: she knew that she still had several thousand dollars in her account. But she didn't want to spend it, not like she had been. But what choice did she have?
She suddenly longed for sleep. She couldn't think of anything else to do, and she wanted more than anything to escape from her own endless circling thoughts, to escape from herself. She felt paralysed: should she start cold-calling companies, hoping for a result? Should she 'phone some more temp agencies? Should she just wait? She didn't know. It was all too much to think about.

She could feel herself getting ill in a way she hadn't since she'd graduated from university several years ago: she was worrying and stressing herself towards the sick-bed. It frustrated her that she'd got to this point, and it frustrated her that she felt like she had partly driven herself there; and most of all it frustrated her that Rona, who despite all the obstacles Sacha habitually put up had clung to her like a barnacle and through sheer tenacity had created a friendship - Rona, of all people, had had the opportunity to open her up, to get her talking, to offer kind and comforting words when they'd gone to Victoria Street together - and had ignored her completely. Was she so unimportant?

And yet, grudgingly, Sacha realised that the one thing she needed most of all right now - other than a job - was company; and - other than an endless list of temp agencies and businesses and government departments - the only 'phone number she had for anyone in this entire city of three million people, was Rona's.

Sacha frowned to herself, while in the distance the tram approached from Spencer Street, and she dug her 'phone out from her bag. She called Rona's number. After a few rings Rona answered.

"Rona" said Sacha. "You doing anything tonight?"