Therapy

urinal, which they used to do frequently and copiously. This cunning appeal to the Swiss obsession with hygiene paid off. Herr Bohl had to admit that the porch smelled considerably sweeter since Grahame’s occupancy, and withdrew his threat to call the police.
    It helped my case that Grahame himself always looks clean and doesn’t smell at all. This puzzled me for a long time until one day I ventured to ask him how he managed it. He smiled slyly and told me he would let me into a secret. The next day he led me to a place on Trafalgar Square, just a door in the wall with an electronic lock on it that I must have passed scores of times without noticing it. Grahame tapped out a sequence of numbers on the keypad and the lock buzzed and opened. Inside was an underground labyrinth of rooms providing food, games, showers and a launderette. It’s a kind of refuge for homeless young people. There are even dressing-gowns provided so that if you’ve only got one set of clothes you can sit and wait while they’re being washed and dried. It reminded me a bit of the Pullman Lounge at Euston Station. I sent a donation to the charity that runs it the other day. Knowing it’s there makes me feel slightly less guilty about knowing that Grahame is sleeping in the porch. The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate...
    Actually, there’s no reason why I should feel guilty at all. Grahame has chosen to live on the street. Out of a pretty lousy set of options, admittedly, but it’s probably the best life he’s ever had — certainly the most independent. “I am the master of my fate,” he said to me solemnly one day. It was one of these phrases he had seen somewhere and memorized, without knowing who said it. I looked it up in my dictionary of quotations. It comes from a poem by W. E. Henley:
     
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
     
    I wish I was.
     
    11:15. Jake just rang. I listened to him leave a message on the answerphone without picking up the receiver or returning his call. He was trying to lure me to lunch at Groucho’s. He’s getting jittery because we’re approaching the deadline after which Heartland can exercise their right to employ another writer. Well, let them. I’m much more interested in Søren and Regine than in Priscilla and Edward these days, but I know Ollie Silvers has no intention of making a programme about Kierkegaard, however much work I do on The People Next Door, so why should I bother?
    Grahame was quite impressed when he found out I was a TV scriptwriter, but when I mentioned the name of the show he said, “Oh, that,” in a distinctly sniffy tone. I thought this was a bit cheeky, especially as he was swigging my tea and stuffing himself with carrot cake from Pret A Manger at the time. “It’s all right, I suppose,” he said, “if you like that sort of thing.” I pressed him to explain why he obviously didn’t like it himself. “Well, it ain’t real, is it?” he said. “I mean, every week there’s some great row in one of the houses, but it’s always sorted out by the end of the programme, and everybody’s sweet as pie again. Nothing ever changes. Nobody ever gets really hurt. Nobody hits anybody. None of the kids ever run away.” “Alice ran away once,” I pointed out. “Yeah, for about ten minutes,” he said. He meant ten minutes of screen time, but I didn’t quibble. I took his point.
     
    2. 15 p. m. I went out for a pub lunch and when I came back there was a message from Samantha on the answerphone: she’s had an idea for solving the Debbie-Priscilla problem that she wants to discuss with me. She said she would be back at her desk by three, which seems to imply a rather leisurely lunch, but gave me time to leave a message on her answerphone, asking her to put the idea on paper and mail it to me. I only communicate by answerphone or letter nowadays. This allows me to control the agenda of all discussions and avoid the dreaded question, “How are you?” Sometimes if I’m feeling particularly lonely I call my bank’s Phoneline service and check the balances in my various accounts with the girl whose recorded voice guides you through the digitally coded procedure. She sounds rather nice, and she doesn’t ask how you are. Though if you make a mistake she says, “I’m sorry, there appears to be a problem. ”Too true, darling, I tell her.
     
    “Only when I