It isn't possible. I didn't cross water to reach the other street. The thick lurid ripples pester my vision, and I'm irresistibly reminded of the optical effect that used to signal a shift of time and space in films. The buildings appear to pinch thinner as if they're about to change before my eyes. How many of them contain sex shops? Are the naked figures on the covers of the videos in the windows really so fat or so young or both? 'You're there,' I assure my destination, and an Oriental couple veers across the bridge to keep out of my way. 'Excuse me,' I blurt, though they're chattering in Cantonese or some other Chinese language. 'Can you help?'
Both of them smile or at least show their teeth. 'Dutch,' the man says. 'Speak Dutch.'
Perhaps I can sufficiently to make myself understood. 'Dwaas,' I say, gesturing around me. 'Dwaas Hotel.'
I haven't finished when the man scowls and ushers his partner away. Have I committed some offence against Chinese etiquette? Three young women talking Dutch step onto the bridge, and I hurry to meet them. 'Dwaas,' I plead, holding out my upturned hands. 'Dwaas.'
How wrong can my pronunciation be? They seem uncertain whether to laugh or to react in some quite different way, but settle for dodging around me. The next person I accost merely grins and nods, and a woman widens her eyes and jerks her head back. I'm beginning to feel trapped in the cell of my solitary Dutch word when I have what I fervently hope is an inspiration. 'Pot of Gold,' I beg a businessman.
He frowns, and I'm wondering if he disapproves of such establishments too much to direct me when he points behind me. 'It is there.'
'No it – ' But it is, on the far side of the next bridge. Could I have overlooked it because I misread the name of the hotel? What kind of name is Sward? I have the unsettling notion that if I get any name wrong I'll be unable to perceive whatever it belongs to. 'Thanks,' I say and sprint alongside the canal before my goal can vanish.
The giant leaf etched on the window of the Pot of Gold unfurls to greet me. It's enlivened by a reflection from the canal. I shoulder the door open and fumble in my pocket as I stride to the counter. 'Here's your money,' I say and plant my fist next to my open hand on the counter. 'Where's my card? I need it to phone.'
The stump of a man shakes his large head, so that my fingers are twitching to grab him by the time he says 'You cannot phone from here.'
'In my room.' I open my fist to let him glimpse the coins. 'My card. I'm buying it back.'
He stares at the fist and reaches under the counter – for a weapon? The old Three Stooges trick will disable him. The first two fingers of my free hand stretch out like a snail's horns, and I'm raising my arm for a poke at his eyes when he produces my credit card. Knowing I nearly attacked him, I'm overwhelmed by panic. I open my hands, and the coins spill across the counter. My hot prickly head feels permeated with all the cannabis I can smell. I snatch the card from him and turn away from the room, which appears to be growing smaller and dimmer. A question stops me, and I turn back to him. 'What does dwaas mean?'
'Fool.'
His stare suggests he's calling me this, and perhaps he is as well. I begin giggling as I step into the night. Is the hotel called Sward or Sword? Is there a gap between the first two letters? I haven't time to check any of this when I need to phone the bank. I fall silent and lurch into the hotel.
The receptionist seems more elongated than ever. I'm reminded so intensely of an image of a fat man projected in the wrong ratio that I can scarcely bear to look at him as I say 'Any word from the airport?'
'There has been no change. We will let you know when they are coming for you.'
I needn't imagine that sounds ominous. I thank him and clamber up the stairs, which can't really have grown even closer to vertical. The enlarged two-dimensional flower borders that are the walls of the corridor aren't stirring in a surreptitious breeze. The slabs in the walls are classified by number, and mine is 14. I pass 12 and slide the card into the slot on the next one and twist the handle, or try to. The key doesn't work.
The number is unquestionably 14, and I sense 13 looming at my back. Who's in my room? Are they holding the door shut? More than one of them is laughing. Perhaps they're amused by my error, because I snatch the card out to discover that I've been trying to open the door with my credit card. I drag the key out of my pocket and shove it in the slot so hard it bends. I withdraw it before it snaps and lean on the handle, which yields at once.
I hold the door open with one foot while I grope into the dark for the slot that activates the lights. The room is as silent as a Tubby Thackeray film, and I can't tell whether the smell of cannabis is waiting for me or clinging to me or following me in. As I take another pace to reach the slot, a silhouette steps out of a concealed dwarfish entrance to meet me. I stagger backwards and laugh, having identified my reflection in the dressing-table mirror. I jam the card into the slot so viciously the plastic almost cracks.
The room is deserted except for the two of me. No, there's another in the mirror on the door of the narrow wardrobe. The laughter must have been in an adjacent room. I chain the door and sit on the bed while I find my bank card with the details of my account, and then I see that circumstances are on my side for a change. The number for reporting problems can be called free from anywhere in Europe.
A recorded female voice asks me to listen carefully and invites me to select one of half a dozen options with the keypad. Though my extremities, not least my skull, are prickling with frustration, I won't be fooled – I know that any option only leads to another list of more. The voice informs me that it hasn't recognised my response and performs its entire routine again before undertaking to connect me with an actual live human being. The voice that eventually answers the bell may be the same one; certainly it's recorded. It tells me that all lines are closed until tomorrow morning and offers to take a message.
I don't fling the phone at either of my wildly grinning reflections. I read the details from my card and tell the bank that it has turned my balance negative. I add my email address and Natalie's phone number before exhorting the bank to put the problem right and let me know. 'The name's Lester,' I say in case I omitted it. 'Simon Lester. That's Simon Lester.'
My reflections mouth it, which feels less like support than a threeway dissipation. I hang up the phone and wish I had a laptop to work on my book. The thought fills my brain with undefined ideas about Tubby and his collaborator, but for some reason I prefer not to examine them just now. I fetch the remote control and sit against the headboard of the bed and switch on the television that's squatting on a corner of the dressing-table. It hasn't many channels, and not a single one in English.
Although people are laughing on all of them, the jokes aren't visible to me. What's comical about footage of riots, for instance? I can only take the programme as some kind of satire. When a presenter starts to laugh directly into camera as if at my confusion, I've had enough. I switch off the set and wish I could switch off my equally electric skull. Perhaps I can doze if I lie in the dark.
I shouldn't have brought Tubby to mind earlier. Each time I attempt to follow a chain of pleasant memories – working with Natalie, befriending Mark, moving in with them – in the hope that it leads to sleep, I end up with Tubby's pallid luminous face swelling close to mine. Too often it jerks me awake, such as now. What time is it? Still dark. I raise my wrist towards my eyes, which feel shrunken with exhaustion. At first I take the roundish object that's hovering above me for my watch.
It's on the ceiling. Before I can focus, it slides down the wall and under the bed. It must have been light from the road, but how is that possible? Headlight beams beside the canal wouldn't reach up here. I must have overlooked a side road or an alley opposite the hotel. While I resent having to confirm this, if I don't I'm even less likely to sleep. I throw off the quilt and stumble across the narrow strip of carpet to yank at the cord of the blind.