‘Purity – though not as the world commonly knows and approves it. Purity, in the Natural sense, whose reward is popular ignominy.’

Popular ignominy eh? Harry was no stranger to that. Lost in the warp of time, he began to wonder when Thomas’s novel would be finished and available. He was keen to read it. He made a mental note to order a copy from Sharon Fugleman. In the meantime he would like to hear a little more about it. ‘Can you tell me something about the plot of your novel, Thomas?’ he asked. He was respectful now, and even a bit obsequious. ‘That is, unless it’s secret.’

‘I can tell you that at the very moment you interrupted me they were working on the tower for my heroine, measuring and sawing and nailing, to get the construction finished in time.’

‘They?’

‘Oh, the mere agents of the artificial ordinances of civilization.’

‘I see,’ said Harry Vilbert. ‘Them’. But he was in need still of just the tiniest illumination. ‘And what exactly is it then that they’re constructing for her?’

‘What else, in a pitiless universe – what else but the social machinery of an unsympathetic Will? The gallows, of course.’

‘The gallows?’

‘The gallows.’

Shit and bum, thought Harry Vilbert, the gallows!

He blamed himself. It was what came of asking too many questions. He should have shut the fifty-year-old Thomas up the moment he mentioned he was a novelist. That would have satisfied Barney Fugleman. Whereas now he would soon be wide awake and playing merry hell. A great weariness descended on Harry Vilbert. You can actually hear it falling on the tape. He suddenly felt very old and tired. He saw himself selling copper bracelets on the Portobello Road for the rest of what was left of his life. He didn’t of course know that one day he’d be charming warts in Camilla’s village. But he had one final question to ask of Thomas. ‘Thomas,’ he enquired, ‘what’s the name of this novel that you’re writing?’

‘Aaaaah…aaaaaaaaaaaah.’

‘Thomas, what’s this novel called?’

‘Aaaaaaaaaaah…AAAAAAAAAAAH.’

‘Thomas,’ he was determined to try to get past me, just once, ‘what’s the title?’

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH’

‘Thomas …?’

But he didn’t have a chance. I, by a massive effort of my unsympathetic Will, had shaken myself into consciousness. I was shivering and I was white. I might, for all the world, have seen a ghost. ‘It’s too horrible,’ I can still listen to myself howling on Harry’s tape. ‘It’s just too, too horrible!’

‘What is?’ asked Harry Vilbert. He was quite frightened. A subject was not supposed to be able to wake himself up from a hypnotic trance. It was not only dangerous for the subject, it was also a bit of a humiliation for the hypnotist. ‘What is it?’ he pressed me to tell him. ‘What’s the matter?’