His room (executive style with bath) has a certain authentic greyness that makes him seem a little more authentic himself. The window looks out on to a vast grey cylindrical water cooler dripping ceaselessly on to a gravel-clad roof. Stephen reflects that it must be spreading legionnaires’ disease throughout Thailand and half wishes he had bothered to make time to visit his GP to inquire about hepatitis and malaria and meningitis. One can carry the Death Wish too far, and anyway what is the point of succumbing to illness in a foreign hotel? There is no story in that, no copy to file, no message to send home.

He unpacks his clothes, hangs up his white suit and his blue, places his rolled socks tidily in a drawer. He examines the contents of his vast old-fashioned brand new refrigerator and reads the notices by the ill-placed mirror. They inform him that if he wishes to purchase any of the room’s fittings, the prices are as indicated. He looks around him. There is no way he could want to purchase any of these objects. They are all either old or unattractive or both. A bedside table, a bed, two chairs, a sheet, two pillows, an ashtray, a small wooden tray with a glass and a Thermos of purified water, a pair of flimsy and ill-fitting curtains, a doubtful rug. Each item is priced, even the grimy and slightly torn shower curtain in the bathroom. Door knob, 150 baht. As this is what Stephen paid for a taxi from the airport, it does not seem a bargain. A bedside light is listed, but does not exist. Should he report this to the management, lest he be charged for its removal?

There is a new television set, still encased in thick fleshy semitransparent grey polythene. He switches it on. It responds, but there is no picture, only a white blare. He switches it off. He will play with it later. It is priced at 11,000 baht, which seems quite cheap. The only misspelling on the list is a handwritten addendum, ‘Bath Mate’ for ‘Bath Mat’. The phrase reminds him pleasurably of Miss Porntip, with whom he has a date for the evening in the Oriental Hotel. He wonders whether she will keep it. He has no way of knowing. She has drawn him a little map, showing him the pedestrian’s route from the sombre Trocadero to the gay Oriental. It is, she says, a short walk. They have an assignation in the Authors’ Lounge at seven thirty.

He lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling. The room is basic, but it works. It is cool and air-conditioned. He has slept in worse rooms, far worse rooms than this. His own room, in Primrose Hill, currently occupied by a weary Hattie, is nearly as basic as this.

He wonders what on earth he is doing here. Is he in search of a story or of himself, or of an answer to the riddles of history? Or is he merely trying to colour in the globe?