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territory real and imagined.
    Some of the territory has become as familiar as a seaside resort. When we go there we know we will build sandcastles and get sunburnt and that the café menu never changes.
    Some of the territory is wilder and reports do not tally. The guides are only good for so much. In these wild places I become part of the map, part of the story, adding my version to the versions there. This Talmudic layering of story on story, map on map, multiplies possibilities but also warns me of the weight of accumulation. I live in one world—material, seeming-solid—and the weight of that is quite enough. The other worlds I can reach need to keep their lightness and their speed of light. What I carry back from those worlds to my world is another chance.
    She put out her hand. ‘I want to rescue you.’
    ‘From what?’
    ‘From the past. From pain.’
    ‘The past is only a way of talking.’
    ‘Then from pain.’
    ‘I don’t want a wipe-clean life.’
    ‘Don’t be so prickly.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘What do you want? Tell me.’
    ‘No compromises.’
    ‘That’s impossible.’
    ‘Only the impossible is worth the effort.’
    ‘Are you a fanatic or an idealist?’
    ‘Why do you need to label me?’
    ‘I need to understand.’
    ‘No, you want to explain me to yourself. You’re not sure, so you need a label. But I’m not a piece of furniture with the price on the back.’
    ‘This is a heavy way to get some sex.’
    The waitress cleared the plates and brought us some brown and yellow banded ice cream, the same colour as the ceilings and walls. It even had the varnishy look of the 1930s. The cherries round the edges were like Garbo kisses. You speared one and fed it to me.
    ‘Come to bed with me.’
    ‘Now?’
    ‘Yes now. It’s all I can offer. It’s all I can ask.’
    ‘No difficulties, no complications?’
    ‘None.’
    ‘Except that someone will be waiting for you in Room 29.’
    ‘He’ll be drunk and fast asleep.’
    ‘And someone will be waiting for me.’
    ‘Someone special?’
    ‘Just a friend.’
    ‘Well then …’
    ‘Good manners?’
    ‘I’ll leave a message at the night desk.’
    She got up and fiddled with some change for the phone.
    ‘Wait …’
    She didn’t answer. There she was, at the phone, her face turned away from me.
    We went to a small hotel that used to be a spa.
    The bathrooms still have steam vents and needle showers, and if you turn the wrong knob while you’re cleaning your teeth the whole bedroom will fill up with steam like the set of a Hitchcock movie. From somewhere out of the steam the phone will ring. There will be a footstep on the landing, voices. Meanwhile you’ll be stumbling for the window, naked, blinded, with only a toothbrush between yourself and Paris.
    The room we took at the Hotel Tonic was on the top floor. It had three beds with candlewickcounterpanes and a view over the rooftops of the street. Opposite us, cut into the frame of the window, was a boy dancing alone to a Tina Turner record. We leaned out against the metal safety bars, watching him, watching the cars pull away. You put your hand on the small of my back under my shirt.
    This is how we made love.
    You kissed my throat.
    The boy was dancing.
    You kissed my collarbone.
    Two taxi drivers were arguing in the street.
    You put your tongue into the channel of my breasts.
    A door slammed underneath us.
    I opened your legs onto my hip.
    Two pigeons were asleep under the red wings of the roof.
    You began to move with me—hands, tongue, body.
    Game-show laughter from the television next door.
    You took my breasts in both hands and I slid you out of your jeans.
    Rattle of bottles on a tray.
    You don’t wear knickers.
    A door opened. The tray was set down.
    You keep your breasts in a black mesh cage.
    Car headlights reflected in the dressing-table mirror.
    Lie down with me.
    Get on top of me.
    Ease yourself, just there, just there …
    Harry speaks French, he’ll pick up the