I looked down, and now that he mentioned it, I was naked – except for a single sock, one of Suzy’s, maroon in colour. I shivered again as the lights flickered back on, power returning, and the reality of the situation began to dawn.

‘Sod it,’ I said, ‘I’m narced, aren’t I?’

Lloyd nodded kindly. Hearing about narcosis is one thing, experiencing it quite another. Lloyd took my hand and led me back upstairs to my room, the full stupidity of my actions now becoming abundantly clear. Clytemnestra was exactly where she’d been all along, happily ensconced in the gilt frame, her immovable expression of murderous intent unchanged. My clothes, which I could have sworn I’d put on, were lying where I’d left them on the back of the chair.

‘I think I was dreaming,’ I said with a sigh.

‘Of blue Buicks and oak trees and hands and stuff?’

‘Actually, no.’

‘Then probably part of the narcosis. Have this hot chocolate; I’ll make another for myself.’

I told him I would be fine, but he insisted because I hadn’t yet put anything on room service. I agreed, and he wished me goodnight and departed.

Once I’d drunk the hot chocolate I settled back into bed, feeling unutterably foolish. Narcosis is something that you think will never happen to you, but when it does, it’s kind of scary – but only after the event. When it’s happening, it’s the best reality in town, with the possible exception of the dream in the Gower with Birgitta. I wanted to get back there if possible, so lay back, closed my eyes again and was soon fast asleep.

Dream, wake, repeat

‘ . . . The provenance of the Louvre Mona Lisa was finally established in the Spring of 1983, when margin notes written contemporaneously by Agostino Vespucci declared that “a fine painting of Lisa del Giocondo as she prepares to slumber is currently being [painted] by Leonardo”. Given that the Louvre Mona Lisa has her depicted as undeniably thin, the true da Vinci is now thought to be the Fat Lisa currently on display in Isleworth  . . . ’

– Art and the Sleeping Artist, by Sir Troy Bongg

There was dreamless sleep, at first, and darkness. But not quite as I remembered the darkness, as simply shapeless, timeless ebony, but darkness as in an unlit hall – full of memories, and places, and peoples and things – the marker-stones of my life’s experience. Then a chasm, like a rent of linen, but both visual and aural, and in a second I was back: Birgitta, on the beach, blue-and-white towel, the bathing suit of fresh-leaf green and that orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour. The day was the same, the beach was the same, the Argentinian Queen was the same. I too was the same – not Charlie Worthing, but another, different, Charlie: Birgitta’s Charlie, sitting with her on the striped towel, wearing a black bathing suit and white pumps.