Someone must have been spreading rumours about Z. They must have been spreading rumours about his financial situation behind his back, because when he was ‘bought out’, as the phrase went in those heady days when it seemed that nothing, no tender care, no sacred duty, no human relation, was shielded from the discipline of the markets, no-one could have been more surprised than Z himself.

Z was working in the Taskforce, a subsidiary of his State’s Treasury, as a junior bureaucrat diligently reporting to his superiors upon what remaining aspects of the State’s infrastructure and services could be privatised, subjected to competition, or otherwise exposed to the healthy rigour imposed by the market. Whenever Z thought of this it was as if he could feel a bracing wind blowing from the south, from the Antarctic, awakening his senses and at the same time numbing them. That was what competition felt like, invigorating and toughening. Strengthening the hardy, sweeping aside the weak.

Z felt competent and in control that spring morning when he returned to his desk after a Taskforce meeting with his counterparts from other States. He was on his way up. He had kept his meeting, with its long and controversial agenda, moving. He’d steered it to its conclusion within fifteen minutes of its appointed finishing time, no small feat with other, more senior men in the room.

When Z saw the letter sitting on top of the papers in his in-tray, a bolt of fear detonated in his bloodstream. When had he last received a real letter, on paper? Good news never came through the mail anymore. Crimson paper glared at him through the plastic window.

Red! He worked in Treasury. Red was never good. His heart was hammering shrapnel into the inside of his chest. Tap. Tap. Tap. This had to be a practical joke but where had his colleagues got hold of such a dangerous piece of paper? Z had only heard about this famous missive, with its severe typeface stamped in deepest grey upon the red. He’d never imagined he would see one.

Red.

Red.

Red.

In the red. He was in the red, everyone was, weren’t they, in debt, vulnerable, but someone had acted, someone had foreclosed upon him: how could this be?

Z snatched the envelope up from his in-tray. It was properly addressed and the great Seal of the Treasury was affixed to the back in red wax, proving the document was official. He could not open it here, in this open plan office with views to the glass curtain walls of the towers nearby, and with his colleagues just a grey partition screen away. Glancing around him, Z jammed the envelope, which rustled horribly, into the inside pocket of his suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair. Of course the envelope was too big to fit easily. It crackled and crackled, a series of small explosions which the entire Taskforce must be listening to by now. His hands shook, rendering his fight with the letter unequal. He mustn’t give the rest of the Taskforce the pleasure of seeing how frightened he was. Lightheaded, fearing he might slump to the floor, Z stood, gingerly put on his jacket and walked out to the pivoting sheets of bullet-proof glass the Taskforce used as doors.

The walls of Der Treffpunkt were grey-green, the tables topped in grey granite. Ordinarily, Z would not come here. His overlord, the Secretary of the Treasury, so high above him that Z had spent eighteen months in Treasury not once coming to this man’s notice for praise or censure, frequented Der Treffpunkt too often for comfort. It was the middle of the afternoon, however, and Z could reasonably expect the Secretary to be either ensconced in a meeting or with his Treasurer at the House.

Z stared at the frothed chocolate he had ordered, unable to imagine drinking it. Drawing the envelope out of his pocket, he stared at the red oblong panel with his name on it in brisk letters. These letters were sans-serif, they were unfettered, they were speeding into the future.

Z cracked the thick embossed seal. Pulling the letter out, his fingers slipped over paper dense and smooth as hotel linen. Treasury did not use this heavy crimson paper for any other purpose. This, after all, was a document that demanded respect. It carried weight. Information that wrecked a life had to leave the digital realm, had to manifest in physical form. It was not every day a man was told he’d been bought, his debts cleared by the person who was effectively now his master. Or in Z’s case, his mistress.

Z groaned and put his head down on the cold stone tabletop. There was her name, on the bottom of the document. Z lifted his head again quickly, not wanting to attract attention. Those celebrated initials, ESJ, looped elegantly above the typed signature block that he’d seen on so many documents. ESJ: the famously irascible Director-General of the Department of Administrative Services, now widely regarded as the most dangerous of the central agencies.

He supposed he should feel flattered. ESJ had bought him. Presumably there were any number of other people she could have taken over. Maybe she had. Perhaps he was not the first. Lord knows she had the money. Although, the truth was that you couldn’t be too careful these days. Nobody could risk getting into debt, especially if they were high profile. You had to live within your means. The Secretary of the Treasury himself had sold his waterfront penthouse and relocated to a charming terrace in Glebe. Desmond (‘call me Des’), the Director of the Taskforce, had told Z all about it over Friday night drinks. Des had had dinner with the Secretary not long ago and such matters had been discussed along with the merits of the Pinot Noir.

‘We’re all debt-free now,’ the Secretary had joked, waving his hand around the narrow dining room of his Glebe terrace, indicating the high fliers at his table: the Director-General of Cabinet Division, Des, a few prominent lawyers and ESJ herself.

‘You should have seen the look on the DG of Cabinet Division’s face! Unimpressed he was. Distinctly.’

‘Really?’ Z had said, wanting his boss to keep talking. Insider gossip was potent currency; Z could feel himself fill with its glowing, secret power.

‘Really,’ asserted Des, gulping on his fourth beer. ‘He’d been forced to sell his Hunter Valley winery. Mightily pissed he was.’ Des paused for a moment, regarding Z blearily. ‘Then the Secretary said,’ continued Des, lowering his voice, ‘then he said, We three, and he looked at the DG and ESJ, we’ve got to be more careful than anyone.’

Des paused. ‘Know what the DG said? Must’ve had a bit to drink by then. He said, you’ve lost your bloody marbles. He said this to the Secretary of the Treasury! You and the Treasurer are fanatics, your war on debt has become a crusade. Then he laid into them. Every rational person knows that prudent levels of debt, for individuals, companies and the State, is the engine of growth, of capitalism itself. It’s a merry-go-round that must not stop. No-one can get off. Had to stop myself from nodding at this point. Imagine if the Secretary had seen me doing that!’

Z’s eyes were wide. ‘What did the Secretary say to that?’

Des laughed. ‘He said, dry as dust, that the DG was not an economist.’

‘And?’ Z prompted.

‘The room just about exploded at that point. The DG was halfway across the table, I thought he was going to punch the Secretary. Of course not. That’s the whole point! yelled the DG. That’s why I’m not completely fucking insane.’

Z laughed out loud.

‘Then the Secretary said in poisonous tones, you should’ve heard him, he said I heard you wrote the advice on the Cabinet Minute yourself, advising the Premier against my Bill for an Act on the Resumption of Personal Debt.’

Z shook his head. ‘Wow.’

Des nodded. ‘So the DG snarled Fucking oath I did! And the Secretary said, so quiet like he was pronouncing a curse, That is an act unheard of in Cabinet Division’s history.’

‘Ohmigod,’ breathed Z.

Des held up his hand for silence. ‘However, continued the Secretary, smiling in a way that chilled my blood, your advice was to no avail.’

Des looked significantly at Z. ‘And so, many fine and lovely things are being sold off throughout our great State. In order to purge the sin of debt.’ Des sighed and looked into his beer. ‘All very well for the mighty, who can slap cash down on the barrelhead,’ he said. ‘But the rest of us have to struggle to pay off our homes and cars and hope not to be noticed.’

Z hid the crimson letter back in his pocket. As he left the café he felt the envelope press against his heart, still crackling treacherously. He was numb. The most important thing was that no-one must ever know. His Treasury colleagues would pity and despise him, he would never be promoted and never be able to climb out of this mess. For the first time in three months Z was glad he’d broken up with his girlfriend. This could not be explained. As long as he was in this bind, he could not afford to be close to anyone.

As Z walked through the high, empty foyer of his building, a surge of fear washed through him so that his knees buckled. He staggered, bile threatening to rise from his stomach. Z swallowed. It had suddenly occurred to him – how could he be so stupid! – that of course many people in Treasury already knew of the shameful alteration in his state. The letter was a Treasury document, generated in State Revenue Sector Division, a Division derided by those in the Taskforce. SRSD employees were nothing but clerks and filers, letter openers and cheque depositers. They wore cardigans, drank tea and went home at 4:30 in the afternoon to play with their children.

Z stared at himself in the mirror at the back of the elevator as it rose towards his floor. He tried to adjust his pale silk tie but his hands wouldn’t work. He clenched them into fists. Cardigan-wearers in SRSD knew of his humiliation. He now depended on their confidentiality. Dull grey people he despised were now happier than he. This was unbearable.

As Z swiped his card and pushed through the heavy Taskforce doors, he adjusted his face into what he hoped was an expression of cautious optimism, a good Taskforce-style expression. He passed the famous Dead Tree of Des, otherwise known as Des’s Dead Tree, drooping lifelessly in its pot, a few brown leaves clinging to its branches. People laughed at the Dead Tree of Des. So Treasury, they said. Couldn’t even keep a ficus alive.

Z sat at his desk, sweating, sneaking glances at his colleagues around the partitions. Were any watching him, trying to see his expression? Did someone on the Taskforce want him out of the way?

A submarine ping. An email. From ESJ! God no, already? Z wiped his face on his sleeve and checked twice, three times, that no-one was looking as he opened it. Of course it wasn’t from ESJ herself. It was from ESJ’s Executive Assistant requesting Z’s presence at a swank private address that evening. Must be ESJ’s house. Goddamn, was she not even going to give him one night to readjust? Was he going to have to move in with her? Was he going to become her toyboy? What did she expect?

Tears of salty rage needled at Z’s eyes. Blinking them away, he picked up the phone. He was in free-fall. He had to speak to his only friendly contact in Cabinet Division, a woman he thought of as his own Cabinet officer. She’d always made him feel he was the only Treasury person she trusted. Though he knew he was merely one of dozens of contacts in her network that didn’t change how he felt.

Z’s officer didn’t answer her phone. Sorry said the private-school wanker who sat opposite her but she’s at a meeting. Cabinet Committee. No. No idea when they’ll finish. Said in the indifferent tones of Cabinet Division, tones that cooled to ice as the wanker detected the whimper in Z’s voice. He had to speak to her: there was no-one he could trust in Treasury. There was no-one he could trust in the DAS; he didn’t even know what they did. He couldn’t trust anyone in Cabinet Division either with the possible exception of his contact. Christ, he had get a hold of himself. He would leave now. Core hours had just finished; it was 3:30pm and legally he could leave. It was odd, he’d attract attention, leaving so early, but he had to clear his head. If asked, he’d say he had a headache, no, a migraine.

He didn’t have to be at ESJ’s till 8pm.

Z parked outside ESJ’s at five to eight. Solar garden lights glowed in the soft grass in front of the stone house, lining the path winding between flowerbeds. The heavy scent of night-flowering jessamine and mock orange and salt from the Harbour flowed like breath into his nostrils. This was the most beautiful house Z had ever entered. As he was ushered into the black-and-white tiled hallway, speculation whirled in his brain. Maybe he would be required to live here? It was everything in Sydney to have the right address. But Z had not brought anything with him, not so much as a toothbrush, not wanting to signal either acceptance or presumption. He’d rehearsed half a dozen defiant speeches as he drove from his flat in Neutral Bay.

Z waited at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the party noise rising and falling like surf from the large living room that opened off to the left of the entrance hall. The susurration of talk gusted into laughter, fell away. He hung back, unwilling to enter the room, wondering if everyone there would know who he was, or worse, what he was. The stairs creaked. Someone was coming down. It must be her. ESJ! Get a grip. This was her house, who else would be coming down the stairs? He looked up, aware of black silk trousers shining in the hall light and a drift of perfume.

Z dropped his head to his hands, blocking out the noise of Der Treffpunkt. His Cabinet officer tilted her head, smiling, miming sympathy. ‘I’m so hungover,’ he moaned. He’d sworn his officer to secrecy. Cabinet officers loved to gossip but were better than anyone at keeping their mouths shut.

‘So,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘She’ll be the death of me,’ groaned Z. ‘SES are so hard-living. She’s kept me up drinking every night till at least two. The party that first night went until three – the Secretary was there – didn’t recognise me of course. That wasn’t good enough for ESJ. Oh no, she had to point me out to him, let him know she’d bought another of his staff. Another! Who do you suppose they all are? Love to know. He didn’t look too happy about it.’

His officer sat up straight, suddenly alert.

Z continued to spill his own misery. ‘I’ve had to stay over but that’s because we’re drinking so late. I have to listen to her. For hours. It’s exhausting. She likes it though. Having a captive audience.’

‘You’re a male geisha!’ exclaimed his officer, then clapped her hands over her mouth in mock horror. ‘Sorry but…listening, laughing, attentive. Pouring her drinks?’

‘Yeah. I did work it out for myself, thanks.’ Z grimaced. ‘Oh my god, I’ve still got so much work to do. People will start to notice. I’m so tired they’ll think I’m drunk.’

‘You’ve seen my DG there?’

‘Oh yes. He doesn’t like going to ESJ’s parties but can’t afford not to. Got to be there, make sure ESJ and the Secretary don’t gang up on him – ’

‘Oh,’ interrupted the officer. ‘Look.’ She pointed with her chin. The Secretary and the DG of Cabinet Division were entering Der Treffpunkt together. The DG nodded gravely at his officer but the Secretary didn’t seem to see Z. Preoccupied, he headed straight for the back of the café.

‘Strange,’ said the officer. ‘They despise each other.’

‘You know what the Secretary always says, I keep my friends close, my enemies even closer. Anyway, I must go,’ said Z.

‘Ring me,’ said the Cabinet officer. ‘I can have lunch next Thursday.’

Again Z stared at himself in the mirror at the back of the elevator. The last few nights were starting to show: skin grey, hair dull, eyes dark-ringed. He’d been able to pick up clean clothes from his place but every other element of his routine was shot to hell. He had no control over what or when he ate, he was drinking far too much and worst of all, he hadn’t been able to get to the gym for a week. He couldn’t impose discipline on his life. Now it was Friday and he had no idea what would happen on the weekend. He couldn’t make plans, couldn’t go away, couldn’t even go out for dinner. ESJ might well let him off for an evening but the thought of having to request her permission galled him so much that he refused to ask.

‘So,’ said Des, coming over to Z’s desk that evening, where Z sat staring at the same page he’d been trying to absorb for the last twenty minutes. ‘Coming for a drink?’ Z looked up. He hadn’t even thought about Friday night drinks but of course he had to go. He’d always gone. No plausible excuse not to. Just one or two then.

Their regular watering hole, as Des called The Left Bank, was a high-ceilinged Art Deco cavern. It had indeed once been a bank; the massive slab of the vault door stood ajar at the back of the room. The interior of the vault now stored expensive bottles of wine racked horizontally. Management had cannily left the inside of the door unpainted. Patrons scrutinised the copperplate of clerks now antique or dead. It had never occurred to Z before that bank tellers scrawled opening and closing balances on the vault door. He leaned over, peering at the rows of numbers and dates, sipping his beer. On the last date, the final day of the room’s existence as a bank, the clerk pencilling the ultimate tally had scribbled the closing figure and written It balances! Last day of the O Street Branch. Goodbye!

Z’s throat thickened painfully at the thought of those long-gone workers. Gone where? Long time passing. Sparkling alcohol dripped melancholy release into his bloodstream, release dimmed by his over-indulgence already that week. Even so, it was the first drink of the week he’d enjoyed. For a few seconds he’d felt like his old self. The man he’d been before his buyout, the buyout which had stripped his confident adult self away, reduced him to the frightened boy he’d been on the first day of primary school.

Z straightened, looking over the heads of his roaring colleagues. The irony of the bank’s transformation into a bar was not lost on these Treasury types. The most stolid, stable institution was melting into thin air before their eyes. Vanished into the circuits of computers and humming of lines. Bank transactions were now as fluid, as evanescent as the electricity that powered the relentless flood of data. Gone were the stately cathedrals of finance, of marble and iron more beautiful than any modern church. Gone were the armies of clerks, standing between the people and the quicksands of easy credit. The squares of sober rectitude that once imposed on street corners were abandoning them.

The vault itself was a charming relic of ancient history, when cash was cold and hard. Now money was flinging aside its armour to ride the shivering wastes of air: the chill bars of metal, the solid light of jewels, the milled rims of coins, the crisp crackling of notes – oh money had been good to the touch, heavy in the hand – all were now irrelevant. Now money was dancing. It was flying!

Money could only be understood from out of the corner of the eye. It melted into mist if you looked straight at it. It was wherever you were not. It inhabited realms of abstraction beyond the senses. It was more elusive than atoms, which left their smashed and bubbled trails of debris on photographic plates. Money was, more than ever, a matter of faith. It was out there. Somewhere. Flying on wires between the stars and the earth. Fizzing in the waves sent up to satellites and back.

But now, with their Resumption of Personal Debt Act, the Secretary and the Treasurer had contrived to bring the flying messenger crashing down to earth. They had climbed the furthermost spire of power offered them by their exalted posts in a provincial government and from this modest vantage point they had sought unilaterally to lasso the mischievous god Hermes, to snare him, lash him down. They did this by reminding citizens, businesses, yes even government itself that the numbers flashing through waves and wires were real, tied to objects you could touch, such as pebbles. Shells.

Z sat at the foot of a long table, transfixed by his sudden understanding of the brilliance, the utter coherent insanity, of the Secretary’s and Treasurer’s vision. It was heresy. A schism in the one true faith.

Z stared at his colleagues bellowing in the Friday night din. Powerful fans poured chill air over them. Z’s colleagues understood budgets – well, at least some of them did – and a few understood finance but, he wondered, did they really understand money? Did anyone? Perhaps money should have been left at shells. Lumps of gold. It was too much to expect people to cope with virtual nuggets streaking past them at the speed of light. Of course we all spend it wildly, knowing without even being told the truth of the saying: Owe the bank $10,000 and you worry; owe the bank ten million and the bank worries.

Everyone had always known that money meant freedom. Now citizens were to be schooled in the tightness of that relationship. The Treasurer had determined in his wisdom that people were not to use money belonging to others for that freedom. The Treasurer was certainly mad. Money always belonged to other people. It was always just about to hit the road. Locked up, it pined. It dissolved like fairy gold. Even its physical incarnation as currency did not belong to any one person; it was the property of the State. Its true home was the future.

Z looked at his watch. Should have left for ESJ’s by now. The second beer washed a tide of boldness into his veins. He would not go to her place.

An hour later, as Z was sharing a joint with a woman from the Taskforce in the backyard of Des’s terrace, Z felt his mobile vibrate. He froze. Only one person would call him at this hour. Z had just decided that his life might be bearable if he spent the rest of it drunk and stoned but his vibrating phone shattered that illusion. This was his electronic leash, as suffocating as any chain.

Z moved away from the woman and hid behind Des’s pink-flowering frangipani (apparently there existed at least one tree Des hadn’t managed to kill yet). Z fished out the mobile. He remembered his pride the day Treasury had given it to him. Too important to be uncontactable. Shame burned him. He’d been so easily tricked. It hadn’t taken long for him to realise the truth: the powerful were those who could not be reached.

Z glared at his phone. A wild impulse to fling it over the paling fence into the alley tugged at him. Now, said the ancient part of his brain that urged him to run. Destroy that phone and it’s all over. All of it. Run. You must run. No going back.

He took the call. It was too much. He could rebel at any time in the future but not now, not without thinking it through. He would plan it properly.

Z was sanguine. He lay on the grass in the Botanic Gardens. It was sunny and he hadn’t had a drink for the past five days.

‘I’ve even been able to get to the gym,’ he told his Cabinet officer, who looked away towards the herb garden below them. She seemed unsettled by what he was saying. ‘Look,’ he said, irritated. ‘It was good we had that blow up last Friday night. You know ESJ was even going to call the cops?’ This had the desired effect. His officer looked back at him, startled into laughter.

‘Anyway, things are clearer now,’ Z went on, aware that every word was increasing the distaste on his officer’s face. She was looking at him as if he were damaged. Sick. She thought he was accepting his situation.

Z had to continue explaining. His officer must understand, must not look down on him. ‘I made her see it from my point of view. We’ve got a schedule and at least I know what I’m doing, what’s expected of me and what time I’ve got free.’

‘How?’ said his officer, in spite of herself.

Z laughed. ‘Quite clever, really. I threatened to give up my flat. Said that if I had no time to myself and was always expected to be at her beck and call, then I couldn’t see any point in wasting half my salary on rent.’

His officer raised an eyebrow. ‘Risky.’ She was impressed.

‘Risky for her,’ said Z. ‘She couldn’t have a gigolo moving in on her. You just don’t know anymore what lengths people would go to to live in a nice place near the Harbour. Besides, she could see what was coming next. Give up the flat, next thing I’d be threatening to leave my job. Couldn’t serve her and work fulltime, something’s got to give. My only value to her is that I work in Treasury.’

‘What? What on earth do you mean?’

‘All in good time. I think I know what her plan is and I’m going to help her.’

His officer stared at him. ‘Really.’

‘What is it?’ said Z.

‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘Rumours going around Cabinet Division. No substance yet but…’

Z waited. She would tell him or she would not.

‘The rumour is that a few people in Cabinet Division have been bought out,’ she said finally. ‘One or two quite senior. DG’s beside himself. They were all warned, told how to avoid this but I guess they weren’t fast enough or couldn’t bear to sell lovely houses they only needed a few more years to pay off. The security and confidentiality implications are horrible.’

‘Depends who’s done it and why.’

‘Can’t be a good reason.’

‘Might be. Wonder if it’s ESJ? It must be.’

‘Geez, she’d have bloody deep pockets,’ retorted his officer.

Z shook his head. He was about to say, she’s got backing, then swallowed his words. He’d learned discretion from this very Cabinet officer. It was better to keep his own counsel. For now.

When it was all over, the Resumption of Personal Debt Act was repealed to general relief after an embarrassingly brief life, and both the Secretary and the Treasurer escaped to highly paid consultancy work, their prospects none the worse for the farce they’d engineered. Z reflected that he’d done well out of the bizarre episode. He’d been promoted: his work analysing the disastrous economic multiplier effects of the Act had seen to that. The Dead Tree of Des had even been entrusted to him, as befitted his new status in the Taskforce.

ESJ had made good use of the material Z had gathered for her, including information from more senior Treasury bureaucrats who knew what he was up to and approved. Were these the others ESJ had bought out or just allies? He would never know. She had rewarded him with a substantial bonus when she’d handed him the documents confirming his freedom. Z now had a tidy mortgage on a small flat overlooking Middle Harbour, despite Des’s oft-repeated wisdom that it was always better to rent than to buy.

As one of the chief advisers on the now reviled Act, Des maintained his serenity over its repeal too easily for Z’s taste. ‘That Act was all wrong for the times,’ he opined with imperturbable gravitas to a group of Treasury advisers over Friday night drinks. ‘Last thing you want is to be even more responsible for your bloody workers. It’s all outsourcing. Mad to go around buying up people when you should be contracting out as much as you can. The whole thing would’ve imploded even without ESJ’s machinations. She just brought it down faster by buying up key Treasury staff. Do you know they still haven’t released a list of who they all were?’

Z smiled. ‘Is that right?’ he said.

Later that night Z returned to the Taskforce offices to pick up an important brief. A flash of lemony green caught his attention. He bent over the Dead Tree of Des to touch the one new leaf unfurling from its uppermost branch.