He was in the washroom, looking in the mirror while rinsing his hands. The image was there, but he wasn’t entirely convinced. The sensation, or the nonsensation, still occupied the right side of his head like a tight-fitting cap. When he trailed his finger across his scalp, he could identify the border, the demarcation line where feeling on the left side became not quite its opposite but its shadow, or its ghost. His hands were under the drier when Frank Dibben came in. Vernon sensed that the younger man had followed him in to talk, for a lifetime’s experience had taught him that a male journalist did not urinate easily, or by preference, in the presence of his editor. “Look, Vernon,” Frank said from where he stood at the urinal. “I’m sorry about this morning. You’re absolutely right about Garmony. I was completely out of order.” Rather than look around from the drier and be obliged to watch the deputy foreign editor at his business, Vernon gave himself another turn with the hot air.
