I rent somewhere to stay near a riding school where they will ride every day. I drive west, through unfamiliar hills. I am shaking with nerves; in fact, I can’t remember what it feels like to be at ease. This ceaseless effort to manufacture normality is a kind of forger’s art, so laborious compared with the facility that created the original. It is a fine evening and the sun slants long and golden from the horizon. For me these voyages are like the first outings of the Vikings into the mystery of the ocean, by turns terrifying and thrilling: I have no idea what will happen, what we will find. It is the idea that we won’t find anything at all that terrifies me. Yet what exactly we are looking for I don’t know.