Patrick closed his eyes and let the cigarette smoke drift out of his mouth and up into his nose and out through his mouth again. This was recycling at its best. Of course he could still go to the party Anne had invited him to, but he knew that he wouldn’t. Why did he always refuse? Refuse to participate. Refuse to agree. Refuse to forgive. Once it was too late he would long to have gone to this party. He glanced at his watch. Only nine thirty. The time had not yet come, but the moment it did, refusal would turn into regret. He could even imagine loving a woman if he had lost her first.

With reading it was the same thing. As soon as he was deprived of books, his longing to read became insatiable, whereas if he took the precaution of carrying a book with him, as he had this evening, slipping The Myth of Sisyphus yet again into his overcoat pocket, then he could be sure that he would not be troubled by a desire for literature.

Before The Myth of Sisyphus he had carried round The Unnamable and Nightwood for at least a year, and for two years before that the ultimate overcoat book, Heart of Darkness. Sometimes, driven on by horror at his own ignorance and a determination to conquer a difficult book, or even a seminal text, he would take a copy of something like Seven Types of Ambiguity or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire out of his bookshelves only to find that its opening pages were already covered in spidery and obscure annotations in his own handwriting. These traces of an earlier civilization would have reassured him if he had any recollection at all of the things he had obviously once read, but this forgetfulness made him panic instead. What was the point of an experience if it eluded him so thoroughly? His past seemed to turn to water in his cupped hands and to slip irretrievably through his nervous fingers.

Patrick heaved himself up and walked across the thick red carpet of the restaurant, his head thrown back precariously and his eyes so nearly closed that the tables were dark blurs through the mesh of his eyelashes.

He had made a big decision. He would telephone Pierre and leave it to fate whether he scored or not. If Pierre was asleep then he would not get any smack, but if he was awake it was worth going round to get just enough for a good night’s rest. And a little for the morning so he didn’t feel sick.

The barman put a telephone down on the mahogany counter, and beside it a second marc. 5 . . . 5 . . . 5 . . . 1 . . . 7 . . . 2 . . . 6. Patrick’s heart rate increased; he suddenly felt alert.

‘I cannot come to the phone right now, but if you leave . . .’