My mouth anyway was half in contact with some imitation leather upholstery which smelled of dogs. They say many grown men call out for their mothers in moments of fatal agony, and then upon their God: but anyway I hadn't had a mother since I was two, and from then until seven I had believed God was someone who had run off with her and was living with her somewhere else- (God took your mother, dear, because he needed her more than you do) which had never endeared him to me, and in any case this was no fatal agony, this was just a thumping concussion and some very sore places and maybe a grisly future at the end of the ride. The ride meanwhile went on and on. Nothing about it improved. After several years the car stopped with a jerk. I nearly fell forwards off the seat. My brain came alert with a jolt and my body wished it hadn't.

The two rubber faces loomed over me, lugged me out, and literally carried me up some steps and into a house. One of them had his hands under my armpits and the other held my ankles. My hundred and sixty pounds seemed to be no especial burden.

The sudden light inside the door was dazzling, which seemed as good a reason as any for shutting one's eyes. I shut them. The steam hammer had not by any means given up.

They dumped me presently down on my side, on a wooden floor. Polished. I could smell the polish. Scented. Very nasty. I opened my eyes a slit, and verified. Small intricately squared parquet, modern. Birch veneer, wafer thin. Nothing great. A voice awakening towards fury and controlled with audible effort spoke from a short distance above me.

'And who exactly is this?'

There was a long pin-dropping silence during which I would have laughed, if I could. The rubber faces hadn't even pinched the right man. All that battering for bloody nothing. And no guarantee they would take me home again, either.