Patrick was momentarily lost again in the contemplation of his psychological state. He felt lucid, but not about anything, except his own lucidity. His thoughts, anticipating themselves hopelessly, stuttered in the starting blocks, and brought his feeling of fluency dangerously close to silence. ‘But you haven’t told me,’ he said, tearing himself away from this intriguing mental stammer and at the same time taking his revenge on Anne for asking him about Debbie, ‘how is Victor?’

‘Oh, fine. He’s a grand old man now, a role he’s been training for all his life. He gets a lot of attention and he’s lecturing on Identity, which, as he says, he can do with his eyes closed. Did you ever read Being, Knowing, and Judging?’

‘No,’ said Patrick.

‘Well, I must give you a copy, then,’ said Anne, getting up and going to the bookshelves. She took out what looked to Patrick like a tiresomely thick volume from among half a dozen copies of the same book. He liked slim books which he could slip into his overcoat pocket and leave there unread for months. What was the point of a book if you couldn’t carry it around with you as a theoretical defence against boredom?

‘It’s about identity, is it?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘All you’ve ever wanted to know but never dared to formulate precisely,’ said Anne.

‘Goody,’ said Patrick, getting up restlessly. He had to pace, he had to move through space, otherwise the world had a dangerous tendency to flatten itself and he felt like a fly crawling up a windowpane looking for a way out of its translucent prison. Anne, thinking he had come to fetch it, handed him the book.

‘Oh, eh, thank you,’ he said, leaning over to kiss her quickly, ‘I’ll read it very soon.’

He tried to stuff the book into his overcoat pocket. He had known it wasn’t going to fit. It was completely fucking useless. Now he had to carry this stupid fat book round with him everywhere. He felt a wave of violent rage. He stared intensely at a waste-paper basket (once a Somalian water jug) and imagined the book spinning towards it like a Frisbee.

‘I really ought to be going now,’ he said curtly.

‘Really? Won’t you stay to say hello to Victor?’

‘No, I must go,’ he said impatiently.

‘OK, but let me give you Samantha’s address.’

‘What?’

‘The party.’

‘Oh, yes. I doubt I’ll come,’ said Patrick.

Anne wrote down the address on a piece of paper and handed it to Patrick. ‘There you are.’

‘Thank you,’ said Patrick abruptly, flicking up the collar of his overcoat. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘Or see you tonight.’

‘Maybe.’