From the dreary distance of his shabby thirdfloor office on the Holloway Road Ralph often looked forward to his three or four solitary evenings at home each week Once he had fled the fabricated world of the office and felt the memory of himself begin patchily to return on his bus journey home he no longer needed to be on his own a fact which seemed continually to elude him in his social calculations Sitting exposed at his desk he would crave isolation unlimited time alone amongst his possessions but the relief of escape drained him and he would vainly wait for some sense of selfhood to return Instead there was merely a resounding emptiness which made him suspect during his long hours of loneliness that the alien exercise of doing work which did not suit him had forced him to change moving him further and further from what he liked to think of as himself He would often read or listen to music as the night deepened outside familiar habits which now however he would find himself asking for whom or what he did them His points of reference had grown dim his signposts muddied sensations and ideas would arrive and then get lost circulating around the junctions of his mind unable to find a connection