“I want to go home,” said the Scouser.

“As soon as you’re fixed up,” said the doctor.

“Not home here,” said the Scouser mournfully. “I want to go back to Liverpool.”

I wanted the fluorescent lights to stop giving me a headache.

Dr. Walid came back with water and a couple of ibuprofen tablets. He couldn’t stay because he had a brand-new body to look at. After some more time the junior doctor came back.

“You can go home now,” he said. “Nothing is broken.”

I think I walked back to the Folly—it’s not that far.

I woke up the next morning to find that breakfast hadn’t been served. When I went down to the kitchen to find out why, I discovered Molly sitting on the table with her back to the door. Toby was sitting beside her but at least he looked up when I came in.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

She didn’t move. Toby whined.

“I’ll just go have breakfast out,” I said. “In the park.”

That seemed fine with Molly.

Toby jumped up and followed me out.

“You are so mercenary,” I told him.

He yapped. I guess from Toby’s point of view a sausage is a sausage.

The Folly sits on the south side of Russell Square, the center of which is occupied by a park with fixed gravel paths, big trees that I didn’t know the names of, a fountain that was specifically designed to get children and small dogs soaking wet, and on the north side a café that does a decent double sausage, bacon, black pudding, egg, and chips. It was actually quite sunny, so I sat on the terrace outside the café and mechanically shoveled the food into my face. It really didn’t taste of anything, and in the end I put my plate on the floor and let Toby finish it off.

I walked back to the Folly and in through the main door where there was a drift of junk mail. I scooped it up. It was mostly flyers for local pizza joints and kebab houses, although there was one crudely designed leaflet from a Ghanian fortune-teller who felt we could only benefit from his insight into future events. I dropped the lot into the magazine rack that Molly leaves in the atrium for that purpose.

I felt a bit queasy, so I went into the toilet and threw up my breakfast and then I climbed back into my bed and went back to sleep.