Today, on this New York morning, lying in bed, listening to the shower – today I will permit myself to take a holiday from writing. I will freely and happily give February and March to publicity for my novel His Illegal Self. The next novel, the so-called work-in-progress, can be set aside. Instead I will dine with journalists. I will tour Britain, the US and Australia and I will not resent publicity. I will not write. And I will be very pleased.

His Illegal Self is done and handsomely printed. On my shelf it looks so neat, so perfect. If it ever caused me any pain, it is forgotten. But the damn work-in-progress is deeply physically exhausting. I fall into bed at night as if I have been digging deep holes, or carrying heavy beams. Am I getting old? Is something different going on? Sometimes the work-in-progress produces a sort of mania and I am giddy with the places I am getting to. I become a weird ecstatic beetle crawling inside the dark brain of Piranesi. I build swings and waterslides inside cathedrals. It is highly privileged play, of course, but it is even nicer to lie in bed and feel the cool white sheet against my legs and know I can take a holiday.