As it was, white-bellied and heavy breathing, she looked to Patrick like a beached whale.

Packing was easy if you rolled everything into one ball, stuffed it in the suitcase, sat on it, and did up the zip. He had to undo the zip again to squeeze Victor’s book in. ‘I think I’m an egg, therefore I am an egg,’ he squealed in Pierre’s French accent. Putting on his last clean shirt, he went back into the bathroom to call the reception.

‘Hello?’ he drawled.

‘Yes, sir, how may I help you?’

‘I’d like a limo at seven thirty, please. A big one with black windows,’ he added childishly.

‘I’ll arrange that for you, sir.’

‘And prepare my bill, will you?’

‘Yes, sir. Shall I send a bellboy to collect your baggage?’

‘In about quarter of an hour, thank you.’ Everything was under control. He finished dressing, put on his eye-patch, and sat in the armchair waiting for the man to collect his bag. Should he leave a note for Rachel? ‘I do not think I shall ever forget our evening together’, or ‘Let’s do this again sometime soon’. Sometimes silence was more eloquent.

There was a faint knock on the door. The bellboy was about sixty, small, bald, and dressed in the hotel’s plainest grey uniform.

‘There’s only one bag.’

‘Roight, sir,’ he said in an Irish accent.

They walked down the corridor, Patrick a little stooped to protect his liver, and lopsided from the pain in his back.

‘Life’s not just a bag of shit,’ said Patrick conversationally, ‘but a leaky one. You can’t help being touched by it, don’t you find?’

‘I believe dat’s what a lot of people feel about it,’ the other man replied in a lilting and agreeable tone. And then he came to a halt and put Patrick’s bag down.

‘And there will be rivers of blood. And de wicked shall be drowned,’ he intoned. ‘Nor shall de high places be spared.’

‘One of your own prophecies?’ asked Patrick suavely.

‘It’s in de Boible,’ said the bellboy. ‘And de bridges shall be swept away,’ he promised, pointing to the ceiling and then swatting an invisible fly. ‘And men shall say that de end of de world cometh upon them.’

‘And they shall have a point,’ said Patrick, ‘but I really must be going.’

‘Roight you are,’ said the bellboy, still excited. ‘I’ll be meeting you at the reception.’ He scuttled off towards the service elevator. Try as one might to live on the edge, thought Patrick, getting into the other lift, there was no point in competing with people who believed what they saw on television.