He thought he’d wait to open the letter. There was no hurry. He could leave it till the morning, which would actually be better because that was when mail ordinarily got delivered, in the morning time; so clearly that was when post was meant to be read. Yes. He felt a little less shaky, having reached this conclusion.

He sat on the bed and waited for the trolley. His suitcase and duffel bag were in his room, behind the chair in the corner where Glen had left them. He thought of opening them up, looking through his things, but it seemed like too much of an effort. After a time the supper trolley appeared and a little while later the male nurse came round with the three tablets for him. Once again they were presented to him in a little plastic pot; once again he was handed a small paper cup of water with which to gulp them down.

He lay down on his back and slept for a while. He woke with a start some time later. It wasn’t morning, because it was still dark; but he thought the darkness was maybe thinning. There was a greyness behind it that might be the approaching dawn. All at once he felt very wide awake, as if he was an electrical appliance newly plugged in to the energy supply. He didn’t feel happy, he didn’t feel sad: he just felt super-alert.

He could look at the letter. Not read it, not even take it out, but just open the envelope and peep at it like that; get the gist of it. You could tell a lot from the words people selected. Then he’d know roughly what to expect in the morning, when it would be time to remove it, unfold it and read. It wasn’t very thick, he judged it would contain two pieces of notepaper. As he ripped through the envelope he saw that this was so. He looked down and saw the word destructive. He saw the phrase: wish we’d never. How you can think that we’d ever want to see you. He felt himself flushing. It was hot in the room, suddenly. He took the letter from its torn casing now, and read it through.