‘It came from a private charitable trust, a family trust of the Tubal family, who own the bank of the same name.’

‘Are they sponsors of the arts?’

‘Sponsors of my wife. To put it simply, Sir Harry married her, and I got the grant. But you can’t write that. I don’t want to antagonise them just yet, while legal proceedings are under way.’

‘Will you keep me informed? Exclusively?’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘Can you tell me, off the record, a little more about your Daniel Day-Lewis project?’

‘It’s a film and theatre version of the life of Flann O’Brien, who observes life from a pub in Dublin. I see certain parallels with my life. O’Brien said his own identity – these are his words – was tangled with his art. Same for me. I am using his words, the immortal words from his novels, particularly At Swim-Two-Birds. Have you read it?’

‘Sorry, I did philosophy and sociology. We only read set books.’

‘It’s a masterpiece.’

He scrambles around for some paper.

‘This is the beginning. Flann O’Brien is in a pub: “One beginning and one ending for a book is a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and interrelated only in the prescience of the author or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.” He snatches up another piece of paper.

‘ “People talk about true stories. As if there could possibly be true stories; events take place one way and we recount them the opposite way. You appear to begin at the beginning: ‘It was a fine autumn evening in 1922. I was a solicitor’s clerk in Marommes.’ And in fact you have begun at the end. It is there, invisible and present, and it is the end which gives those words the pomp and value of a beginning.” ’

He looks up at her.

‘You see, my life is not all Thomas the Tank Engine,’ he pronounces. ‘It is quite other.’

‘I see.’

‘ “People talk about true stories.” That’s where the artist comes in. We don’t have a beginning, a middle and an end. And that’s why I have to complete this project. Because nobody has understood better than Flann O’Brien how absurd, poignant and inscrutable human life is. Did they teach you that in sociology?’

‘That was more in philosophy. Modules 5 and 6.’

‘Oh Jesus. Oh sweet Jesus.’

He adjusts his hat, and drops the papers on the floor.

‘Let’s go to the old sail room where we make our sets, and look at the props for Thomas. All being freshly painted. All bright and cheerful and ready to wow the little chubby-chops of our duchy.’

He stands up unsteadily: his legs aren’t too strong; they are, after all, bearing a lot of accumulated mental ballast.