‘She’s been…’ he began, and broke off.

The consultant nodded with transparently fake enthusiasm, murmured ‘Good, good!’ and walked quickly away.

One feature of Zen’s condition that he had not bothered mentioning was that bits of his body he had never used to think about now demanded his constant attention, while others, on which he had unconsciously depended, were now conspicuous by their absence. It thus came as no particular surprise that the dull roar in his ears suddenly receded to a distant murmur, while the shrilling of his mobile phone a moment later sounded perfectly normal. He studied the strip of transparent plastic where the incoming call was identified for the length of five rings before answering.

‘I’m on the train. We were in a tunnel.’

‘How did it go?’

It took Zen some time to answer.

‘It was a normal tunnel,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps a bit longer than most.’

‘Tell me what the doctor said.’

‘I just did.’

‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘The doctor says I’m fine. It’s just that I’m in a long tunnel.’

‘But there’s light at the end of it?’

‘No, it’s dark now. It must be there too, surely.’

Asound like some cushions make when sat upon.

‘What time do you get in?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you want me to pick you up? I was thinking of going to a movie.’

‘Go, go! I’ll take a cab. Or walk.’

‘What about dinner?’

‘I had a huge lunch and I’m not hungry. Go to your movie. I’ll let myself in and…’

He broke off, realising from the increased background noise and air pressure that the train was sheathed in yet another tunnel, cutting off the conversation between him and Signora Santini.

Not that it took much to do that these days. The cut-offs, drop-outs, robotic acoustics, phantom voices and dead silences in their communications were becoming more frequent all the time, as if the entire network had gone bust and was being progressively run down.