‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve read Night Traffic, that’s all true enough.’ Except it wasn’t, I had to remind myself: Pierce’s thoughts on the matter were based on imagination, not experience. True enough was true enough. ‘I put it badly – what I meant to say was, when it happened to me, when I was mugged, it didn’t feel very “urban”. The city went away. I was on my own, in nothingness, with the two men robbing me. I might have been interacting with them, but I wasn’t interacting with the city.’

‘You were out of your bubble, though, weren’t you?’ Pierce said. ‘No passivity, no distance, no irony or detachment. You were involved in city life.’

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t disagree, I just didn’t know what to think. A curious sensation had come over me. When I had read Night Traffic, I had admired it greatly. It had appeared both objectively true and true to my experience. Now, knowing that it was based on a mighty lie, I found myself reassessing its other apparent truths. Perhaps what had appeared to be an accurate description of my own experience only came across that way because it ennobled my experience, made it out to be more grand and important than the shabby encounters I had lived through. This deepened my appreciation of the trouble that Pierce was in. The lie had metastasised, spreading out to corrupt everything it touched. It was intimate.

I had finished my beer, and Pierce his whisky.

‘What else would qualify?’ Pierce asked. He was eager to get his view endorsed, almost bullying me into agreement. It reeked of insecurity.

‘You mean – what’s the primal urban experience?’

‘Yes.’

‘Buying a house?’

‘No.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Fuck no.’

‘OK. You’re right. Modern trade? I don’t know … working on the commodities markets?’

‘No. Better suggestion than your last one, though, but it’s all automated now, the preserve of very few people. Deracinated, networked, delocalised. No city necessary.’

‘Walking from your home to a street market and haggling with the traders.’

‘Better. Bit retro.’

‘Getting the Tube.’

Pierce looked as if he had smelled something offensive, and didn’t respond.

‘Being caught in a disaster,’ I said. I was losing patience with the game – with Pierce’s games in general. ‘An urban disaster. A terror attack.’

‘That might be your best yet,’ Pierce said. ‘But, believe me, I’ve given it a lot of thought, and getting mugged is the quintessential urban experience.’