I put the whisky down untasted. Drifting was exactly what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to take the job with Tiffield, even presuming that the offer was still open; I didn’t want to see a friend of Norah’s who was a very useful man to know. I wanted to drift for a while. I wanted to do nothing. I had rejected my old life and was on the verge of a new one; but was I sure that I wanted either? I drank the whisky quickly and then, for the first time, broke my rule and poured myself another.

When I had finished it, I put the bottle away in the cupboard. It was an unpainted whitewood cupboard, the only new article of furniture in the flat: I looked at my flushed face in the mirror on its door and wagged my finger at it.

“Watch your step, Joe,” I said. “Watch your step.”

24

24

The road was jammed with cars in both directions. I looked for a turning to the left but could see none. The car in front of me went forward for about a hundred yards; I followed it, and then it stopped suddenly; I avoided running into it only by an inch. I looked into my mirror: the car behind me too, had only just stopped short of a crash.

I cranked down the window; the night air smelled cold at first then hot and stuffy and curiously animal. After five minutes I switched off my engine; as if taking their cue I heard all the other engines go silent. Now there were a great many voices; I closed the window and began to tremble. I was on the outskirts of Barnet going into London; but now I wanted to turn back north again.

Then I saw the light in the sky and looked at my watch in­credulously. It was three o’clock in the morning; I was driving over­night to avoid the heavy traffic. And there, on a road some­where on the outskirts of Watford was the heavy traffic that had no business to be there at that hour and at that season. The light grew stronger; now I could see that I was on top of a hill.