He winced as he stretched out his aching and sticky arm to check the time on the bedside clock. Five forty-five. He could order a selection of cold meats or a plate of smoked salmon straight away, but it would be another three-quarters of an hour before he could organize that brief moment of affirmation when a trolley rattling with wholesome breakfast food was wheeled into the room.

Then the fruit juice would sweat and separate under its cardboard cap; the bacon and egg, too intimidatingly carnal after all, would grow cold and begin to smell, and the single rose, in its narrow glass vase, would drop a petal on the white tablecloth, while he gulped down some sugary tea and continued to ingest the ethereal food of his syringe.

After a sleepless night, he always spent the hours from five thirty to eight cowering from the gathering roar of life. In London, when the pasty light of dawn had stained the ceiling above the curtain pole, he would listen with vampirish panic to the squealing and rumbling of distant juggernauts, and then to the nearby whining of a milkcart, and eventually to the slamming doors of cars bearing children to school, or real men to work in factories and banks.

It was nearly eleven o’clock in England. He could kill the time until breakfast with a few telephone calls. He would ring Johnny Hall, who was bound to sympathize with his state of mind.

But first he had to have a little fix to keep him going. Just as he could only contemplate giving up heroin when he had already taken some, so he could only recover from the ravages of cocaine by taking more.

After a fix of a moderation that impressed him almost as much as it bored him, Patrick propped up some pillows and installed himself comfortably beside the phone.

‘Johnny?’

‘Yup.’ There was a strained whisper at the other end of the line.

‘It’s Patrick.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Eleven.’

‘I’ve only had three hours’ sleep in that case.’

‘Do you want me to ring back?’

‘No, the damage is already done. How are you?’

‘Oh, fine. I’ve had a rather heavy night.’

‘Nearly dying, et cetera?’ gasped Johnny.

‘Yup.’

‘Me too. I’ve been shooting some really disreputable speed, made by a failed chemistry graduate with a shaking hand and a bottle of hydrochloric acid. It’s the kind that smells of burnt test tubes when you push the plunger down, and then makes you sneeze compulsively, sending your heart into wild arrhythmic flurries reminiscent of the worst passages of Pound’s Cantos.’

‘As long as your Chinese is good you should be all right.’

‘I haven’t got any.’

‘I have. It’s medicine, man, medicine.’

‘I’m coming over.’

‘To New York?’