It’s not that Francis fails to convince, but that I have an instinct that the spell’s not right. For the alchemy of the tale to work there needs to be a sense of balance.

The thesis of this book is that we are trapped in stories but that we may be able to imagine our way to better ones. There are other stories than the ones we have collectively chosen. There are second chances and redemption. So let us say not Francis, but Francesca.

Francesca: yes, it rolls satisfyingly off the tongue. I see her as an incarnation of my Italian grandmother on my father’s side: round-faced, with an aquiline nose. The shop of office equipment is less gloomy with a woman in it, somehow. Immediately, we attribute a kind of pluck to her; she is a pioneering businesswoman. Even her avarice is more likeable than that of Francis, who now shimmers and fades from our tale, as though he never existed.

As if by magic, her disability has gone too. Francesca is stout and commanding, with a rustic directness. Her loud voice is the only symptom of her poor hearing. ‘I won’t let this out of my sight. No offence,’ she said, packing away the photo. (‘None taken,’ I murmured.) ‘It’s too precious to me. That one – the man in the back row. That’s my father. But I can see about getting a copy for you.’

She left it in a manila envelope with my name on it by the signing-in book at the entrance to the pool.

*

TODAY WE FACE an unanticipated problem. So far, things have been going swimmingly, if a trifle slowly. True, I’ve switched the gender of one of the minor characters and we’re still in the portico of the story, waiting to enter the front door. But there’s so much inside that I want to show you: there is a man called Rachkovsky who will be the best character I have ever written; there is a fearless female journalist called Wednesday MacGahan who stands six foot tall in her socks, is a lapsed Mormon, and carries a swordstick. And already I know how the theme of the secret books is going to pay off in various subtle and unexpected ways. I’m even going to take you to a place called the Department of Secret Books – a phrase I actually considered at one point for the title.

It’s just that today is the problem. I know you have days like it: one-magpie days, when a sourceless melancholy settles on everything you do.

Sometimes, stories are just not enough. What do you do on the days when your own story seems meaningless and poorly constructed; when even the stories of art, and therapy, and religion provide no consolation; and whatever is objectively good about your life seems to have nothing to do with you? Sometimes what needs repair won’t respond to reason and remains beyond the reach of words and stories.