'Oh Mr Orr, I'm sorry, are you all right?' She sniffs, wipes more blood from her nose; her eyes glisten in the diffused light, but I think not with tears. She is called Abberlaine Arrol; I remember now. I thought there were other people crowded around me, but there are none, just her. People appear out of the mist, to stare at the crashed vehicles.

'I'm fine, perfectly fine,' I say, and sit up.

'Are you sure?' Miss Arrol squats on her haunches at my side. I nod, feeling my head; one temple is a little tender, but there is no blood.

'Quite sure,' I say. In fact everything is a little distant, but I don't feel faint. I still have the presence of mind to reach into my pocket and offer Miss Arrol my handkerchief. She takes it and dabs at her nose.

'Thank you, Mr Orr.' She holds the white cloth to her nose. The rickshaw-boys and sedan chair carriers are shouting and cursing at each other. More people appear. I get shakily to my feet, supported by the girl.

'Really, I'm all right,' I say. The roaring in my ears resumes for a while, then gradually fades.

We walk over to the wreckage. She looks at me, talking through the handkerchief. 'I don't suppose that knock to your head brought your memory back? ' She sounds as though she has a cold. Her eyes look mischievous. I shake my head carefully as Miss Arrol looks inside the cover of the rickshaw, then brings out a thin leather briefcase and dusts it down.

'No,' I say, after some thought (I should not have been in the least surprised to find I had forgotten even more). 'How about you? Are you all right? Your nose -'

'It bleeds easily,' she shakes her head. 'Not broken. Otherwise, only a few bruises.' She coughs and seems to start to double up, and I realise again that she is actually laughing. She shakes her head violently. 'I'm sorry, Mr Orr, this is all my fault. A mania for speed.' She holds her leather briefcase. 'My father needs these drawings in the next section and it seemed like a good excuse; a train would probably have been faster, but... Look, I really must be getting along. If you're quite sure you're all right, I'll take an elevator and a train from here. You'd better sit down. There's a bar over there. I'll buy you a coffee.'

I protest, but I am vulnerable just now. I am escorted to the bar. Miss Arrol argues vociferously outside with the two men and the rickshaw-boys for a minute or so, then turns as another rickshaw comes squeaking out of the mist behind her. She runs to the boy, talks quickly, then comes back to the bar, where I am sipping my coffee.

'Never mind, got another cab,' she tells me breathlessly. 'Must be off.' She takes the blood-stained handkerchief away from her nose, looks at it, sniffs experimentally, then stuffs the handkerchief into a deep pocket in her culottes. 'I'll return it,' she says. 'You sure you're all right?

'Yes.'

'Well, goodbye, Sorry again. Take care.' She backs off, waves, then walks quickly outside, snapping her fingers at the rickshaw-boy; a final wave, then she is away, racing off into the fog.

The barman comes to fill up my coffee cup again. 'These youngsters,' he says, smiling and shaking his head. It would appear I have been declared an honorary senior citizen (looking in the mirror at the far side of the bar, I can understand why). I am about to reply when from outside the bar the manic beeping of a rickshaw-boy's heels makes us both turn to the window. Miss Arrol's newly hired vehicle reappears, skids and turns round, just outside the open door of the bar. She sticks her head round the edge, 'Mr Orr,' she calls. I wave. Her new rickshaw-boy already looks annoyed. The two previous ones, and the sedan carriers, look slightly incredulous. 'My travels; I'll be in touch, all right?'

I nod. She seems satisfied, ducks back in and snaps her fingers. The cab leaps offence more. The barman and I look at each other.

'God must have sneezed when he blew life into that one,' he says. I nod and sip my coffee, not wishing to talk. He goes to wash some glasses

I study the pale face in the mirror opposite, above serried glasses, beneath poised bottles. Shall I be hypnotised? I think I am already.

I stay a little longer, recovering. The sedan chair and rickshaw are man-handled away. The fog, if anything, becomes thicker. I leave the bar and take elevator, train and elevator home. There is a package waiting for me there.

Engineer Bouch has returned my hat, along with a note full of assorted apologies as profuse as they are both unoriginal and ungrammatical; he has spelt my name 'Or'.

The hat has been expertly cleaned and restored; it smells fresher and looks newer than when I brought it out of the wardrobe to take to Dissy Pitton's. I take it outside and throw it from the balcony; it vanishes into the grey mist on a falling curve, silent and swift, as though on some grand important mission to the invisible grey waters below.

Triassic

I don't have to be here you know I could be any damn place I want to.

Here in my mind in my brain in my skull (and that all seems so ob-)

no (no because 'It all seems so obvious now' is a cliche, and I have an in-built, ingrained, indignant dislike of clichés (and cliques, and clicks). Aktcherly, the bit about clicks was stretching a point (mathematically nonsense because if you stretch a point you get a line, in which case it isn't a goddam point any more, is it?) I mean what is the bloody point? Where was I? (Damn these lights, and tubes, and being turned over, and getting jabbed; chap can lose his concentration, dontcherno.

Respool, rewind; back to the beginning it was the

mind/brain identity problem. Ah HA! No problem (phew, glad that's settled) no problem of course they're exactly the same and totally different; I mean if yer mind isnae in yer fukin skul wharethefuk is it, eh? Or are you one of these religious idiots?

(Quietly:) No, sir.

Certainly jolly-well not, sir. See this fox hole?

The bit about stretching a point was 100 per cent valid and to the point and I'm fucking proud of it. I'm sorry I swear so much but I'm under a lot of pressure at the moment (me am di jam in di sandwich/me am di sand in di jamwich). I'm not a well man, you know. I can prove it; just let me rewind here ...

Rushed to hospital; lights overhead. Big white shining lights in sky; emergency operation; situation critical bla bla bla (fuck that pal, I was always critical), condition stable (fairynuf, it wiz only recently it all started to get to me), comfortable (no I am not bloody comfortable; would you be?). Fast forward again dot dot dot.

- hek gang, look, you don't want to listen to my problems (and I certainly don't want to listen to yours) so howsa bout I intraduce my fren here; old pala mine, fren frum waybak, wontchya ta giv him

Ghost capital -

steady boy. Like I was saying, me and this guy go waybak, an I wantcher to give him a real

Ghosts capital. Real city of -

OK OK on ye go fur fuksake

... basturt.

Ghost capital. Real city of varied stones, the great grey place of wynds and winds, old, new and festive by turns, between the river and the hills with its own stone stump, that frozen flow, that fractured plug of ancient matter which fascinated him.

He came to stay in Sciennes Road, just liking the name, not knowing the place. It was handy, both for the university and the Institute, and if he pressed his face against the window of his cold, high-ceilinged room, he could just see the edge of the Crags, grey-brown corrugations above the slate roofs and smoke of the city.

He would never forget the feeling of that first year, the sense of freedom just being on his own gave him. He had his own room for the first time, his own money to spend as he wanted, his own food to buy arid places to go and decisions to make; it was glorious, sublime.