I then smiled wryly to myself because I actually have no idea – none! – what times the buses run. I also noted (in passing) that I was driving up the wrong road and in totally the wrong direction for the job I am currently on (a blocked drain in Westfield). But then why should we (me, I) let these boring little details stand in the path of great literature, eh?

So I pulled over. She obviously wanted me to pull over. And I am her spineless, over-sized, ginger pawn. She has stripped me of all dignity (I didn’t have that much to begin with, did I? Nope, Rusty old man. No you didn’t, as it happens). So I pulled over.

‘Can I offer you a lift, Mr Huff?’ I asked.

‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Pemberton,’ he yelled back (I can see how the Reader might find his habit of getting my name wrong pretty bloody amusing. But if you think about it carefully this seems like an unlikely trope (I would never say ‘trope’! Trope?! Tripe! Complete and utter tripe!) (Uh, yes, I am aware of the fact that we are currently stuck in the middle of yet another, complicated treble bracket pile-up. But blame her. She hasn’t bothered leaving enough room on the page for my internal monologue (I would never, never use the phrase ‘internal monologue’!) so I’m just doing the best that I can within the limits of what’s currently on offer) in a man who has worked as a journalist for many years (are you still following this? Have you kept the brackets strictly compartmentalized? Think ‘inside of a plug’; you know, with the different wires all leading to different places – because that’s the only way you’ll keep any kind of a handle on this pathetic botch-up). Unless it’s all just a big lie (the ‘journalist’ pose) and he’s going to turn out to be a spy or … or an astronaut or a … a time-traveller! In which case this book might actually turn out halfway decent. There’s always a first time for everything, I suppose). Remembering names is his business – as unblocking drains is mine. Although – by and large – I don’t generally unblock a drain close to the drain I need to unblock. I unblock the drain that needs unblocking. So why would Mr Huff repeatedly forget my name? Eh? Unless he is trying to humiliate me, I suppose. But then why would he want to humiliate me? Because he is actually falling in love with Carla Hahn and knows, in his heart-of-hearts, that Carla and I are … are … (What are we, Bickerton, you big pansy? What are we? Huh?).

‘… But I’m perfectly happy to wait for the bus.’

Screw him, Rusty, I thought. Just wave and drive on. But instead I said, ‘The next bus is over fifty minutes off, Mr Huff.’

(Complete hogwash.)

‘I know,’ he said.

(Is he lying too? Or is the bus actually fifty minutes off? If it is, then she’s clearly feeding me ‘lies’ that are – in some crazy way – ‘true’. And I hate that idea. No. I don’t like that idea at all. Because it makes me seem almost, I don’t know, supernatural. Psychic. Which is silly. Because there’s enough mystical mumbo-jumbo in this book already, and I should probably state – up front – that I am not sympathetic to it (mumbo-jumbo etc.) in any way, shape or form. This is a rational age, a cynical age (yes, these are actually my thoughts; not simply some half-arsed pre-digested crap she’s plopped into my head. Although it could still be half-arsed. And crap, come to that).