I woke in room 272 of the West Ham United Quality Hotel faced with the usual questions. What peculiar instinct had brought me safely back when I couldn’t even remember checking in? Were my phone, wallet and car keys still with me? Had I made an exhibition of myself? Committed a crime? I leapt out of the bed and checked my pockets. My clothes were draped over the chair in an amazingly orderly manner. My wallet and phone were there — thank God — but no keys.
I tried to retrace my footsteps in my mind. It was a complete blank. Of the match I could remember nothing. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this alcoholic blackout was the worst yet, covering an entire afternoon and evening. Not the slightest impression remained of any of it. I had literally taken leave of my senses. What was happening to me? Was my liver packing up at last? And what was all this dried blood on my hands? And these bloody cuts on my fingers — how had I got those?
Breakfast on a Sunday at the West Ham Quality Hotel is served from seven till ten. At exactly seven o clock, tragically, humbly, like a penitent asking for readmission to the human race, I waited to be seated in the breakfast room. The room was empty. No guests, no staff, just Jeremy Bowen on a flat-screen TV saying in a roundabout manner that, no, he didn’t know anything about the situation in Libya, nor about the situation in Tripoli, from where he was speaking. He seemed ill at ease, as though the situation within a five-yard radius of the tree he was standing under was by no means clear to him, either.
I helped myself to three successive glasses of grapefruit juice from the breakfast bar and chose a table for two.
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