The loser
Felix was “overweight and out of breath” but he was “proud” to be “sued, reviled, scorned, to be called a loser by the rewriters of press releases.” The journalist “took comfort from it,” for there was comfort “nowhere else.” Quite predictably, “as would be confirmed in the weeks ahead,” none of Felix’s so called old friends were going to rescue him from “the slow soul-destroying grind of unemployment.” He didn’t have strengths to fight. Felix was “an ageing breadwinner with a ridiculous mortgage.” This imagery evokes a feeling of perplexity, nervousness, and exhaustion.
Dark secrets of the past
Celine “rose from the battered leather club chair.” Felix noticed how she “returned” his pages “to the floor” without saying that she had read. Though it was clear that Celine wasn’t “finished.” He watched as she “chose a poker” and, “like a blacksmith,” brought down “a rain of blows upon a log already sheathed in glowing red and orange scales.” Felix didn’t know how far she had gone, but the sparks in her eyes told him he had made “an extraordinarily professional job.” However, the journalist wasn’t sure that Celine appreciated an effort. “Pulling the kimono tight around herself,” she retreated to the hallway. Then he heard her “retching in the bathroom, vomiting.” This imagery evokes a feeling of anxiety.
Coming to terms
How “pathetic” that Felix had got himself “entangled” in Woody’s “love affairs.” He didn’t “even” know what his “offence was,” or why Celine was “so afraid,” but Felix was sure that he was going to die without his “decent law-abiding daughters knowing” their father was “something better than a drunken arsonist.” He was afraid that they would never see him in “a decent suit.” They wouldn’t know how Felix loved them or what he had “suffered,” nor “imagine these smells inside this airless coffin, wet burlap and mould, the odour of real Melbourne crime.” Felix couldn’t breathe. The car “slowed, accelerated violently, then pulled off the road.” He “heard the driver’s door open and slam shut.” This imagery evokes a feeling of uneasiness, for Felix is sure that he is going to be killed.
