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'Oh yeah,' I'd just said. 'Give me another book to read.'

'All right, hang on then.'

It was 1984 — by George Orwell again.

I raised a finger at her. 'No animals?'

'No. Just a few rats.'

'Any allegory?'

'Not really.'

'Say,' I said (and here was my gimmick): 'I had a swell dream about you the other night.'

Normally, with this line, in my experience you get either coy withdrawal or outright panic, depending on the dame. But Martina merely gazed at me with level curiosity and asked, 'Oh yes? What happened in it?'

'Uh — well I was sort of rescuing you from Red Indians. Except they weren't red but white, with fair hair. I was rescuing you in my car. It's a Fiasco. And then the car wouldn't start.'

'What was so swell about it all?'

'Oh, then another car showed up and I drove you away in that. To safety.'

Actually this was my first deviation from truth. I did have a dream. What happened was, the Red Indians disappeared or went off somewhere else, the Fiasco was transfigured into a kind of playboy pad, Martina shed her cotton shirt and buckskins — and I loved her up pretty good on that oval sack.

'Yes, it was a real bitch,' I said, 'my car not starting like that.'

'It was probably drunk,' said Martina, smiling as she opened her door to let me out.

The adult movie was a period piece and more thoughtfully plotted than usual, all about a black plenipotentiary (Ottoman? Carthaginian?) and the appetites of his talented wife (Juanita del Pablo), who, with the help of her chambermaid (Diana Proletaria), puts out not only for her husband but for most of his army too, as well as the odd handful of servants, slaves, eunuchs, acrobats and, finally, executioners. He catches Juanita at it in the end, and throws her into some stock footage, where the lions get her. As I shuffled down the aisle with my Orwell and my pint, and as an hysterical voice-over blurbed the coming attractions ('... starring Diana Proletaria, the Princess of Pawwun. Iss whyuld. Iss hat!'), two black dudes climbed tiredly to their feet, rubbing their eyes.

'Man, I sure could use some of the BC. I wouldn't want to go back too long.'

'Yeah. A couple of weeks, maybe.'

'Two, maybe three. I wouldn't want to go back too long. But oh man I sure could use some of that BC.'

Five minutes later I was in a gogo bar on Broadway, discussing inflation with an off-duty stripper called Cindi. If you'd asked me how I felt, I would have told you that it was a big relief—to be back in civilization again.

'I want to thank you, John,' said the telephone, 'for our date the other night.'

'Which night was that?'

'Saturday night. Or Sunday morning. Don't tell me you don't remember. We met. Kind of. You were very nice to me, John. You didn't try and kill me or anything. No, you were very dear.'

'Don't talk crap,' I said.

Frank the Phone again, giving me a hard time. Actually I was still deeply curious about Saturday night. The harder I tried to remember — or, let's be accurate, the harder I fought to keep memory away — the more convinced I became that something really bad had happened, something definitive, something life-wrecking. I think that was why I had drunk myself to pieces all through Sunday. To keep that memory away, away. But Frank the Phone I could handle. This wimp couldn't worry me.

'You find a bookmatch in your pocket?. .. Go find it again, John. I wrote a message for you inside.'

'Oh yeah? What?'

'Go find it, John. I want you to see the proof.'

I went to the wardrobe and frisked my suit. I had thrown nothing away. I never throw anything away. Here, the telltale bookmatch, valentine-pink, the colour of sweet lipstick: Zelda's — Dinner and Hostess Dancing. I snapped it open, and I got the message.

'Oh you sick bat,' I said. 'You poor idiot. Will you tell me something? Why are you doing this? Tell me again. I keep forgetting.'

'Oh it's motivation you want. You want motivation. Okay. Here. Have some motivation.'

Then he made his longest speech to date. He said to me, 'Remember,