I called the council and the department of Pest Control arrived this morning. He drove a plain white van, obviously at pains to draw no attention to my shameful infestation. His van was even packed with plasterers gear for his covert operation. I found all this pointless discretion quite amusing so I cheerily opened the door and boomed loudly of MY FLEAS over his tiny frame. I'm done with shame and while enough remains to render me respectable and civic, I won't have anyone colluding with me over it. And if I sound pious it's probably the flagellating ecstasy of all my recent scratching.

Later, I found Gareth. He is always more agreeable in the kitchen which, in a phenomenological sense, he owns entirely and so I waited till I heard his delicate noises before I entered, pretending to huff and puff.

It's like working with a ghost, he said. You don't talk to anyone. You don't debrief. Or come to meetings. Helen and Neil were in tears about it. (Helen and Neil! He's been bonding with them! My god I am out of it).

I intended some form of explanation but Gareth's overweening eyebrows, his subtle mocking of Helen and Neil, all of it hardened me again and I realised that I preferred the Gareth who slipped incisive little notes under people's doors. So I switched into a pitiful grandiosity.

I've had an offer. Basically, I 'm unsure what to do. Edinburgh university (why Edinburgh?) have offered me some lecturing. It'll mean leaving everything, leaving you lot etc etc

So Gareth and I bonded over my news and it was good because Gareth actually prefers having significant information he can pass on, irrespective of whether there is any actual truth in it, and so on the basis of this falsehood and a few inanities we were again the best of friends.

And god will bless the liar.

This evening a letter tells me I have, in fact, been offered a job.

It's like working with a ghost. How easily that slid into the unconscious. And how completely it'll ruin my sleep.