A struggler, that's what I am and what I always have been. I light up the last of my duty-free cigarettes. The crackling of the dry tobacco fills up the night. My smoky breath turns to vapour and my heart seems to curl at its edges.

What am I doing here on this star-salted night of my soul?

Here I am, somewhere in Time: Typo Blod, a man devoid of nationality. I find the notion of Time an elusive one. It and I make for uncomfortable bedfellows. But I think I could provide a history of myself, if necessary. At once, I am at London's Liverpool Street Station bidding farewell to a lover (there is only ever one that counts); on the shores of Lake Geneva looking at an eagle soaring on a thermal current (the bird of prey dissolving without trace into an impossibly blue sky); squinting at startling sand dunes in the sunshine at Hokianga Harbour in the far north of New Zealand. Or here: Standing alone in the dark somewhere, it doesn't matter where. An out-of-work hack, out in the cold.

I am living my dream, a dream to live to live from my writing.

But there's no work. No prospect of being able to earn a living. You're going to have to buck your ideas up, laddie! screeches the manic careers master of my Inside-Head, an ancient vessel that receives and transmits disembodied images and voices independently of my mind. This one sounds like a stick of chalk dragging on a blackboard. I grimace at the sky, which glitters like a lump of coal, hoping to shed some of the blame.

A dream! Who would have thought that the dream would turn out like this.

*

Sometimes, in the flickering of sunlight on summer leaves (it is definitely a quality of light), or in the relaxed period of elated drunkenness just before realising I have had too much to drink, I experience an unbidden recall of the expectations I had for my life in early adolescence.

I see it all mapped out in naive clarity - a progression of the good parts without compromise. I'm not talking about dreams; instead, the way it seemed things ought to be. So, quite simply, I have failed. For there is no doubt that the sheen on these recollected moments is a clearer, simpler, yet more profound assemblage of moments than the life I have.

There's a scene in the film, The Graduate. In the subjective reaches of my memory it's an aerial shot of Benjamin Braddock, the Dustin Hoffmann character, driving his sports car along a highway through a forest, before crossing a bridge. He has made his decision to marry Elaine, the Robinson girl. My recollection of that scene is that it is underpinned by the instrumental introduction to Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair, but I might be wrong.

You see, my immature memory from the early 1970s gives me a scene that lasted a magical, breathtaking minute, the slanting sun illuminating my idealistic impressions of America. A distillation of everything I thought was going to be great about growing-up: A sports car on an open road through a forest in the sunshine, all-encompassing love for a beautiful woman.

Growing-up turned out to be nothing like that. And, in reality, that scene in the film is no longer than five seconds. Time has stretched that moment for me, like so much else. But, in recalling it, that invincible sensation of wistful warmth floods over me again. Briefly, I remember being young. Forgotten dreams, lost promise. Youth went before it could even be grasped - before any kind of physical or intellectual peak was achieved - replaced by the slack flesh, receding hair and petty ailments of what can only be described as middle age.

Gone forever!

*

Out of a diffuse memory of a love taken for granted comes a dream; a dream in which a naked woman with sunlit hair is floating on her back on a tranquil ocean, out of sight of land.

"Liquidambar," she whispers, in my Inside-Head, her voice pitched at the resonant frequency of my skull but soft and velvety in tone. Enticingly enormous, enormously familiar. I will never forget her face.

The sibilance of the sea, wind like breath over the neck of a bottle and the bickering of gulls in my ears.

I wake up suddenly, still in the thrall of the dream. As always, it is quite clear to me that the real world can never even come close to this depth and poignancy of feeling.

*

I gather my body from the wreckage of my grounded bed, crick my neck and hobble, u-shaped, out into the morning. The first thing I see is an advertisement in an open TV listings magazine. "Itching genitals?" it asks.

What a way to start the day.

Muesli for breakfast. I fill up the bowl and pour on some milk. Only when I taste it do I realise the milk has gone sour. I flush the muesli and sour milk down the toilet, cutting out the middleman.

This morning I will take the train into the city to see Jonas Wheeler, the editor of CitySidewalk magazine, try to convince him that he has some more writing work for me and, while I'm at it, try to convince myself that I'm the man to do this as yet imaginary work.

There's a shop on the station platform - a cafe really, but recently they've started selling croissants and pastries, some of them reduced in price because they're from the day before. A man and woman work there; their postures pronounce them man and wife. They have foreign accents, but I couldn't tell you where they're from. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, perhaps, where things were once much harder than they used to be here but possibly aren't any more.

As usual, there are pies and pastries in the display case. I choose a cheese and tomato quiche and ask the woman for it by pointing at it through the glass. She just stands behind the counter with her head on one side, looking at me as though I'm some kind of exotic owl in an aviary (if an aviary is what you call it when it's for owls; I must look that up).

The woman cups one hand around her ear, screws up her face and seems to want me to speak the name of the thing aloud.

"Cheese and tomato quiche, please."

The baker is standing behind her, unloading bread rolls from a baking tray. He hollers over his shoulder, "Cheese and ham quiche, he said!"

The woman heard me well enough: She puts a cheese and tomato quiche into a paper bag then places it on the counter. But the baker shouts out again. "With ham, he wanted one with ham!"

"Did you want one with ham?" the woman asks.

"No," I reply patiently, "I said tomato," but the woman replaces the cheese and tomato quiche in the bag with a cheese and ham one.

The baker wanders off into the room at the back of the shop muttering under his breath. The woman seems to forget about me altogether and follows him, her body slanting in his direction. They begin hissing at each other in stage whispers. I can hear them perfectly. "You see!" says the woman, triumphantly. "You think you've got such wonderful ears!"

"There's nothing wrong with my hearing," the baker hisses back at her. "Maybe you should spend a bit less time worrying about my ears and a bit more time thinking about what's supposed to be happening between your legs!"

I find it embarrassing even though I can't see them, until the baker's wife launches into a guttural foreign language that's all explosive crescendos and grunting baritones.

A saucer comes arcing through the open doorway. An old woman enters the shop as the saucer deconstructs itself against the cash register.

The old woman is transfixed as the cash drawer flies open and fills up with shards of crockery. Tufts of her wiry facial hair quiver as she turns abruptly to face me. I blush, shrug my shoulders and smile as she exits in rickety increments.

"You old goat! What do you think you're doing?" barks the baker, emerging from the back room holding his wife at arm's length, by the neck. Removing the coffee jug from the hotplate, the gurgling baker's wife pours hot coffee over the baker's head. The baker shrieks and splutters as I pick up the cheese and ham quiche from the counter, replace it with some change, and leave.

*

There's a drinking fountain on the platform, it's a modest, stainless steel thing, mounted on the wall. As usual, I try not to look at it because it has been jammed with wastepaper, drinks cans, cigarette packets and pieces of orange peel.

Who has decided that it's no longer fit for drinking but should instead be used to house garbage? I think about how this curious consensus might have been arrived at while trying to block it from view. Meanwhile, the grim strains of another hopeless busker - the percussion of his guitar strings like rusty bedsprings catching on barbed wire - echo from the stairwell to the other platforms.

There's a red, circular sign on the station platform framing a silhouette of a man with a red line drawn through him. The sign is to show people that they're not allowed past this point, beyond which are the train tracks. Someone has stuck a white, five-pointed star over the man's face, making him look as though he's wearing a mask in the shape of a fox head.

I think about the fox-headed man until the next train to the city arrives.

En route, the walls and bridges are signed with elaborate initials and there are declarations of love scrawled on most of the buildings. 'MT I love you', 'FB for JP', 'CB+EB 4 EVA'.

I imagine the enthusiasm that went into obtaining the paint, the creeping about furtively in the dark, the fervour of application, all to express something so prosaic. How long will it be before all the walls are claimed?

As long as there are some unclaimed walls, I feel, there is still hope.

*

The doors open at a station. A man gets on. He has a misshapen flat cap in his hand. It's a lumpy thing unsuitable for wearing; a cap for carrying loose change to shake and jingle. His face has a shop doorway look to it, as though he might spend his nights sleeping in one. He appears well nourished but his clothes are mismatched and dusty. His cauliflower ears are straight out of a comic book, he has a flabby face and his acne-scarred neck balloons over his shirt collar.

There are now just two other passengers in the carriage: A nondescript man with a broadsheet on his lap; and another with the expression of a civil servant for whom serving civilly is becoming a chore.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," says the shop doorway man, grinning at us as he stands in the aisle between the two facing rows of seats. "I'm sure you'll be thinking, 'Oh no, not another beggar'. But I'm not here to annoy you, or for my own entertainment. I'm here because, for some time, I've found myself in the vicious circle of 'no home, no job, no job, no home...'"

"That's not a vicious circle," says the weary civil servant.

"I'm sorry?" says the shop doorway man.

"That's not a vicious circle. I've been going to work every morning, five days a week, for forty years. Fifteen days of paid holiday every year, and not a day longer. Married. No prospect of promotion. Arthritis I've got. That's what I call a vicious circle."

The shop doorway man moves away from him. "Anyone like to make a small donation for a cup of tea, something edible?"

I produce the bag containing the cheese and ham quiche and hold it out towards him.

The shop doorway man doesn't take it but instead looks at me incredulously. "When I said 'something edible', I didn't actually mean something to eat. It's just a manner of speaking, you know, of getting you to give me some loose change without me having to feel humiliated about begging."

"It's freshly baked," I say, opening the mouth of the bag so he can see the quiche in its full egg-bound glory.

"A quiche? Look at yourself," he says. "You're only half alive!"

"Well, once you get past 40, even half alive seems like an achievement."

"Beggars can't be choosers, you know," interrupts the broadsheet man in a nondescript tone.

"Why don't you mind your own business?" says the shop doorway man. "And I'm not a beggar! I'm a homeless person. I just happen to find myself in..."

"Yes, we know," says the broadsheet man. "A vicious circle." He opens his newspaper like a folding screen and hides noisily behind it.

The headline on the front of it reads, TWO OUT OF THREE SAY THEIR LIVES ARE GREAT. The shop doorway man could be the third bloke, but the civil servant doesn't seem very happy. And what about me? What do I have to say about my life?

In spite of his previous remarks, the shop doorway man cannot disguise his designs on my quiche. "Ham in it?" he asks, hopefully.

"Yes, and cheese. And tomato."

His shoulders drop. "I'm a vegetarian," he announces, as though it's a terminal illness. The train pulls into the next station and the shop doorway man turns his back on me. "I'd like to wish you all a pleasant day," he says, before getting off.

"Beggars aren't what they used to be," says the broadsheet man, smoothing out his paper dolefully as the doors close and the train pulls out of the station.

*

By the time I reach the city it's raining heavily.

A man is sprawled in the gutter next to the telephone kiosks. A crutch lies next to him like a dead dog and there's a can of beer in his hand. His eyes are open but his gaze is vacant, staring.

If he can hold on to a can of beer, he can't need help

Life is full of cowardice, laziness and contradictions.

CitySidewalk has its offices on a street that is a higgledy-piggedly gathering of obscure bookshops, cave-like cafes and intimidating designer stores, on the fourth floor of a building with an ornate foyer. The office itself has a bare, temporary feel to it; a few empty desks, a computer and stacks of magazines carpeting the floor.

The receptionist is sitting directly in front of me when I get out of the lift. She's a skeletal nineteen-year-old in wilfully mismatched formal oriental and American branded sports clothes, worn over clumpy shoes that stick out from the side of her desk like breezeblocks.

I tell her I'm here to see Jonas Wheeler, she tells me he has taken the day off. Disbelief and anger light up my face in vivid lettering, the receptionist looks at me as though I've trodden something into the carpet.

I re-enter the lift and set off in search of a consolatory latte and bagel. I'm sitting in a street cafe, with concertina doors opening its frontage to the street, when a bulky Japanese saloon with tinted windows pulls up outside.

A broadly built man leaps out and makes a long-limbed dive for the kerb. He's wearing baggy cargo pants and a short-sleeved tee shirt over a long-sleeved sweatshirt. He lumbers over to me with a grin on his face. His endearingly ungainly manner is immediately undermined by the businesslike tone of his voice.

"Ty! Excellent. Jonas Wheeler. Satchel said you'd just left, so I thought I'd find you along here somewhere." The receptionist with the Frankenstein footwear is called Satchel. I can just see him, going through the job applications and choosing the one with the most preposterous name, not even bothering to interview her or to reply to any of the other applicants.

"Typo," he says, with a solemn expression on his face like something he's trying on for a fancy dress party, "I've got to say I'm impressed with your writing. But look, I've got freelance material literally coming out of my ears at the moment. Commissioning more is going to be a tough call. If you're looking to prove yourself, you're going to have to put in the hard yards. What we could use, going forward, is a no-nonsense investigative reporter with a nose for a news lead and local contacts. Think you can deliver?"

I shuffle, seeking some conversational undergrowth in which to conceal the question while trying to change the subject. "How do you feel about a non-elitist single malt whisky column? Which malts to look for, where to find them and how much you should expect to pay. I could email you an example - of the column, I mean - if you're interested."

"Whisky's not for us," says Wheeler, trying on solemnity again but modifying it to give the impression he has a bad smell under his nose. "Our readership is younger, hipper. Try Metro if it's that stuffy, reactionary view of the world you're selling. In fact, no go on columns, generally," he says, reaching for the ashtray. "We're all columned out."

I come clean. "The thing is Jonas, I desperately need some work. And soon." Wheeler winces visibly. I try a lighter touch. "It turns out deep-fried dust and spider's web flambe aren't all that nourishing."

"Well, if I can come up with anything I'll contact you but, by the sound of it, it might have to be through a medium."

"How about something on the best internet news sites, or PC usability?"

"Hmm. Cyberspace sounds more promising." It's been years since I've heard that noun used by anyone who didn't have a sneer on his face. "But it'd have to be accessible stuff - we need to hook the general reader. There's no meandering down computer geek alley in this rag - CitySidewalk's not in a niche space."

Wheeler begins gathering up his car keys, his leather-bound personal digital assistant, his cigarette lighter and his cigarettes.

"Well, I'm good to go." Wheeler rises, burbles something about putting on his thinking cap, coming up with a few feature briefs and getting together for a chat next week, "once I've fully gotten my head around this thing".

As he unlocks his car, he throws back a wave. "And keep up that starvation diet, Ty - it's good for those creative juices!"

I find it reassuring that a keen sense of humour continues to be a prerequisite in publishing. All columned out! I don't trust him and I don't like being called "Ty". But this is the first paid work to have shown itself in months. I just hope Jonas Wheeler's head is big enough to get around it. There's every indication that it is.

*

True to his word, Wheeler leaves a bossy message on my answering machine, summoning me to his office next Wednesday afternoon.

It amuses me, the way I used to think I would be able to fit everything in before I die. Now, it seems Time is flying, crashing and surging. There is actually no time for anything; no time to observe and comment on events; and no time to analyse anything before it falls to pieces in my hands. Like crumbling sand castles, life is blown away by the wind, washed away by the tide, eaten away by the rain.

It's Wednesday and the church clock strikes midday. I miss half the beats. My head says six. The rest disappear with my washing-up thoughts. I glance at my watch, throw a sopping tea towel over my shoulder and reach for the house keys.

*

When the vegetarian with the face like a shop doorway gets on to the train it feels preordained. When he's joined by another homeless man the size of a small bulldozer, further along the carriage, it doesn't.

The vegetarian launches into his usual speech. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sure you'll be thinking, 'Oh no, not another beggar'. But I'm not here to annoy you, or for my own entertainment. I'm here because, for some time, I've found myself in the vicious circle..."

"Oi!" shouts the bulldozer man, who has been standing listening, sceptically. "Just a minute, pal. Where d'yer get that?"

"I beg your pardon?" says the shop doorway vegetarian.

"Oh no you don't, pal. My pitch, that's what. Where d'yer geddit?"

"Pitch?" says the vegetarian. He sounds confused. "What do you mean pitch? It isn't a pitch, it's my livelihood!"

"Well you can't 'ave it, can you," says the bulldozer man. "It was my livelihood first. Now piss off sharpish!"

The shop doorway vegetarian is silent but stands his ground until the bulldozer man steps two paces closer. The vegetarian backs off.

The bulldozer man makes more menacing use of his 'vicious circle' pitch further along the train.

The vegetarian sits down next to me. We look at each other.

"That certainly told him," I say.

"The name's Jones," he says. "C.O. Jones."

"Mmm," I say, "That figures. Blod. Typo Blod." He looks as though he's waiting for me to say something else, so I say, "How can I help you?"

"I exist," he says, and folds his arms as though having confronted me with the solution to the highly complex equation with which I've been struggling.

"Yes, so I see. Just remind me what it was you said you were after, would you?"

He stands up again and leans over me, menacingly. "Don't question everything. Just go with the flow."

"Look, I'm not carrying any food today and I've given all my loose change to the buskers."

The train squeals to a halt at another station.

Jones beckons to me, his big head twitching on his bulbous neck. "Come with me," he says, and gets off the train.

I don't go with him.

*

Life is a barren marriage of unanswered questions and unquestioned answers; so many of each that they overlap like fish scales. Why did Jones want me to go with him? Where would he have taken me?

I'm glad I didn't go, even though he has quite a persuasive manner.

Human cells are only able to divide about fifty times before they die, I've heard. They have a memory. Do they remember hereditary weaknesses, ailments and deficiencies from day one? Do these cells carry genetic time bombs from our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents? If so, what chance do we stand against this attrition, this erosion of the soul? What chance for improvement, when even our cells are bound by rules in a game we don't know how to play?

The graffiti on the wall behind the opposite platform says in faded red spray paint, "LET GO. I'LL COME WITH YOU."

*

Jonas Wheeler takes me to a place called Ooidipus; a name I suppose must come from ooidal, having to do with eggs.

I order eggs benedict with a side order of fried potatoes and a bowl of latte. Wheeler orders a double espresso. He looks as though he's making a slow and painful recovery from a hangover and smokes constantly while I eat.

I'm expecting to be briefed on a feature for the magazine, but eventually he grudgingly suggests I just get to work on some of the story ideas I pitched him last week.

At the cash register he lets me pay for my own food and would happily let me pay for his coffee, too, were I not to let some moths escape, forlornly, from my wallet.

"Never mind, Ty. Next time," he suggests, charitably.

It was a waste of the train fare, but at least he's finally commissioned some work from me - in a manner of speaking. All I have to do now is select a subject for an article. In light of what's happening in my life, I doubt whether what he receives will in any way resemble what he's expecting.

*

On the way home, the train carriage remains completely empty until Jones gets on. He is conspicuously carrying an oversized, green hardback book under his arm. It's an unwieldy thing the size of a tea tray. He's holding it with the spine towards him. There's no dust jacket and nothing printed on the cover.

He slumps down next to me, begins to cough and doesn't stop. It soon drowns out the sound of the train.

"That's a nasty cough you've got there," I say, after a few moments.

He stops coughing long enough to say, "Occupational hazard."

"Really? I thought that 'vicious circle' routine was your livelihood."

"I'm a smoker," says Jones.

"Doesn't sound like much of a living. Why don't you pack it in?" I ask.

"What, and give up a steady job, with unemployment the way it is? You must be mad."

I leave Jones to concentrate on the hazards of his occupation until, finally, his phlegm finds its own level.

Stations come and go but, unusually, no other passengers get into our carriage. The gentle rocking of the train and a swelling accumulation of peacefulness lull me towards drowsiness until Jones turns to me and says, with sublime composure, "You've got no balls."

"That's rich, coming from you. What role is it you're playing today?"

"I'm the inaccessible places in your head."

"So what are you doing sitting next to me? I'd say you look reasonably accessible for someone called C.O. Jones."

"Life is full of mysteries, cock," says Jones. "At least I've got balls. Just go with the flow."

"Are you in plumbing supplies?"

Jones ignores me, tries again. "You've got no balls."

"So you say. This is getting monotonous. Why not tell me what it is you want from me and I'll get on with life as a castrato."

"Wake up! Where's your sense of adventure? Get connected to the past! Dodge the obstructions, break-through the surface scum, tune-out the interference!"

"Thanks for the tips. Is this some kind of self-help course you're selling?"

"Maybe." Jones looks around the carriage, conspiratorially. There's still no one else in it. "Have a look at this." He taps the cover of his book. "It'll take you to some of those places I was telling you about."

"How can a book take me to places in my head if they're 'inaccessible'?"

He opens his book at a double-page spread of dark green pages, the right-hand page of which says, in big, bold capital letters, 'REALITY INTO ART'.

The mere sight of that last word makes me groan.

"You're not asking the right questions," says Jones. "Turn the page."

I look at him. He seems earnest, so I turn the page. Two more dark green pages, each of them blank.

"And another."

I turn another page and take an unhurried look at what's printed on it.

It's a reproduction of a painting: A miserable, fat old Pierrot with a whitened face and a bald head, sitting at a table with a carafe of wine, smoking a cigarette.

Far off, I seem to hear cafe noises: Gentle chattering, rattling crockery and the hissing of steam.

Something happens that cannot be fully explained using language. At least, no language I know. My entire self, the train carriage, Jones and the world disassemble themselves into their smallest constituent parts and then gather themselves up again to a point, like grains of sand passing the wrong way through the neck of an hourglass.

Unexpectedly, out of this granular motion, Pierrot's face begins to magnify - as though I'm falling towards the pages of Jones' book - and then things get interesting.

Speed. Motion. Hard-edged chrome. Art deco speed lines. Pockets of light surging past me at eye level. Bright flashes of colour. Wind flaring my nostrils. Eyelids twitching.

Transformation.

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