Making History

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This novel is in essence about briefcases, but it also explores the themes of high-energy physics and its impact on male contraception; love and the morality of joint car ownership in the late-20th century; and the consequences to world history of altering the water supply of a small Austrian well.

BOOK ONE

MAKING COFFEE

It starts with a dream…

It starts with a dream. This story, which can start everywhere and nowhere like a circle, starts, for me — and it is after all, my story and no one else’s, never could be anyone else’s but mine — it starts with a dream I dreamed one night in May.

The wildest kind of dream. Jane was in it, stiff and starchy as a hotel napkin. He was there too. I didn’t recognise him of course. I hardly knew him then. Just an old man to nod to in the street or smile through a politely held library door. The dream rejuvenated him, transformed him from boneless, liver-spotted old beardy into Mack Sennet — barman with drooping black moustache, tacked to a face hang-dog long and white with undernourishment.

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