“Open up?”

“You know what I mean.” The youth paused again, looked the Rose squarely in the eye and asked, “Do I interest you?”

Again the surgeon was at a loss for words; neither a yes nor a no seemed appropriate. So he said “ah cha,” which on the continent of India is always accompanied by a waggle of the head, midway between a nod and a shake, and meaning the same.

The youth laughed and, still balancing on his one leg, leaned his face a little closer. He spoke again, his voice low and sultry. “This, how I am standing, is a yoga posture— it is called vrksasana. It is only relatively difficult to balance, but with eyes closed it becomes more difficult because one has to listen to balance. I am going to close my eyes now and count to ten. If you are here when I open them, I am going to take you where you’ve never been.” He closed his eyes.

The Rose left the clinic a changed man. He wore the same conservative three-piece suit he had arrived in and, although he was by no means completely fit, his body had begun to lose its recent flaccidity. In addition, his bowels were functioning properly—junkies hate to own up to the chronic constipation they all suffer from—and during the last week of rehabilitation he was having a movement after each meal, which the doctor in attendance said was natural, albeit not normal.

His new friend, Kerim—it means ‘generous’—had given him some advice: “You are not old, but you already dress old. You are a powerful chap and you should wear powerful clothes, powerful colours. I will tell you which ones,” he’d said.

The Rose didn’t telephone his driver. He needed time to think, and returned to the capital by rail. The trip took four hours. He ordered the tawdry British Rail lunch, and was astonished when all three waiters attempted to ply him with alcohol. It wasn’t difficult to refuse, but he felt the need to stay alert.

The train journey was as strange for him as his first visit to London Zoo. He observed his fellow passengers sinking drinks, as he had done until recently. As a spectator he was aware for the first time how he must have behaved. By the time the train arrived at Euston, he’d made several decisions.

His career as a neurosurgeon was over. The dupretransconjecture hardening the tendon of his hand would not get worse if he stayed straight, but it was unlikely to improve. Traditional medicine had no knowledge of its cause, but the holistic view that it was started by a serious shock to the central nervous system was feasible, the nervous system being the body’s principal battery. It was operable, with a sixty-forty success rate, but he wasn’t prepared to chance the odds. And although the damaged hemisphere of his right brain had recovered, the Rose did not feel good about returning to neurosurgery.

He went back to college and studied the art of plastic surgery. He practised his new art in off-the-rack clothes. They cost as much as or more than the best of his Savile Row suits—although most of them fell to bits after one season. In an effort to attract younger men he traded in his Bentley and bought a leather jacket to go with his new motorbike. He kept his pair of rooms in Cavendish Street, although he could easily have moved to a grander practice, considering the fees he commanded now that he was in the cosmetic business. He thought of it as making people more attractive, making them how they wanted to be.