One got weary trying to work it all out. His life resisted his attempts to comprehend it. He didn’t seem to have the language, or whatever it was you needed – the books, the time, the medication. He had lost count of the number of people who had suggested therapy, who had given him the names of their own therapists, saying ‘Definitely the best Jungian in town’, or ‘This guy guarantees closure’. He thought sometimes the solution would be to get back on the show, but Catchpole was gone (with ghastly irony the show had ‘sent’ him to England to nurse an ailing parent), and the row with Liverwitz had not been of the kind where you could go back the next week and eat humble pie. It had been savage and terminal, and in truth he was glad to be free of the programme’s grinding inanity, its relentless pursuit of the trite. Why, he had bawled at Liverwitz, why were the only patients ever admitted to the hospital friends and relatives of the people who worked there? Was that usual? But there had been no serious money coming into the house for eight months. His last paid work had been a commercial for Wonder Bread in November. Since then there had been promises, a lot of talk over mint juleps and wheat-grass juice, but no firm offers. He had very slightly over ten and a half thousand dollars in the Bank of California, a few thousand sterling in London tied up in stocks and shares. He also had the cars – Kirsty drove a ’93 Cherokee – and the house, which was mostly paid for. Kirsty contributed a modest income from her part-time work in a day unit for people with learning difficulties, but her salary barely covered the phone bills, which, since Alice’s illness, had trebled. Cocaine wasn’t getting any cheaper. Neither were the bills for Ella’s asthma treatment, much of it not covered by the insurance. Then there were the school fees for KDBS, and Mr Yip’s piano classes. The flights to England. Party girls. The IRS. Booze. Hoffmann. Groceries. There was no end to it.