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tinkered with a few lines on a short story but didn't have the energy for it. I lay down on our bed and dozed off thinking about Patricia and about Margaret. Taking what must have been a thumping hangover into account, Patricia couldn't have left the house until quite late, so she'd still be on the road to her parents' house in Portstewart, a holiday-resort-cum-retirement-town up on the north-west coast. She couldn't stand her parents or Portstewart, all three of them old and decrepit and buffeted by the Atlantic gales, so she must have been pretty bloody angry with me to go to them. I'd call her later.
    I woke with a start after maybe an hour and went downstairs to watch the football results come across the teleprinter on BBC 1. Liverpool won, United lost, a good omen. I phoned Neville Maxwell. It was his home number, but he answered it on the second ring.
    He said: 'Maxwell.'
    'Hi. Dan Starkey. You called.'
    'Ah, yes, Starkey. Good man.' Five words in and he'd already complimented me. 'How are you?'
    'Fine. Practising chopsticks. I think I've got them cracked.'
    'Ha, yes, mmmm. Listen, Starkey, I have a man coming in on Monday morning and I thought you might like to meet him and show him around.'
    Sure.'
    'You know the form, Starkey, we've been over that. Let me know what you think of him and if he's up to scratch we'll maybe try to arrange for him to meet the Big Chief himself.'
    'Big Chief himself?'
    'Brinn.'
    'Ah. Right. Got you now. What about him being up to scratch?'
    'You know, sympathetic. He's an American, by the way, and we're quite keen for some positive coverage on that side of the ocean. A lot of money in it, if you know what I mean.'
    'For me?'
    'For the country, Starkey, for the country.'
    'You didn't manage to find me a Brazilian then?'
    'Ah, no. Not this time. Maybe another time, eh? Man's name is Charles Parker, no relation to the jazz person of that name, works for the Boston Globe. He'll be arriving at 10.30 on a puddle jumper into Sydenham. He's staying at the Europa. I've arranged for you to meet him there for 11.30.'
    'Okay. Sounds good.'
    'Charge all sundry expenses to me, I have an account there, and get receipts for everything else.'
    'No trouble.'
    'Oh, and Starkey?'
    'Yeah.'
    'Americans tend to have an odd attitude to things. They may not appreciate all of your witticisms. Try not to be too much of a smartarse.'
    'No fear.'
    He put the phone down. I resolved to spend the next day swotting up on American history. I already had The Alamo on tape.
     
    * * *
     
    I got out of my dirty suit and showered. I pulled on my black jeans and a white short-sleeved shirt. I meandered between my tweed jacket and my stone-washed denim. Tweed got it. By the time I hit the street there was a pleasant early evening coolness settled on the city, blowing in off the lough, successfully battling the stench of the River Lagan. I called into the Empire Bar, housed incongruously in an old church beside the railway station on Botanic Avenue and had half a pizza and a pint and then headed into the Evening News.
    The daily paper and the Sunday paper were put together by two distinctive groups of journalists and editors who enjoyed an occasionally friendly rivalry. I was a columnist for the daily and a sub on the Sunday, so I fell between both camps. Sometimes they all hated me, and distrusted me, other times they all loved me, and distrusted me. But they seemed to like what I wrote, apart from those who didn't.
    I was late. Sloth and Slow Ltd.
    Paul McDowell, editor of the Sunday, saw me slope in. There were five or six disks sitting by my terminal, all of them containing football reports.
    McDowell was thin and pale-skinned; he looked kind of wasted even though he was an abstemious Christian. I knew rockers who'd OD on every drug they knew to get an effortlessly decadent look like his. He shuffled over as I took my seat and switched the screen on.
    'Hi, Paul,' I said.
    'About time.'
    'Sorry.' I pointed to my face. 'Bit of