‘He’s gone,’ said Anna.

‘He’s gone,’ said Stephan.

‘He’s upstairs,’ said Rachaela, ‘in the grey bedroom with the violent window. Something has to be done about him.’

‘Of course, of course. Why such vehemence? We’re used to seeing to such things.’ Anna sighed. ‘Can you even imagine how many we’ve lost? And young ones too.’

‘The young are the worst. A waste,’ said Stephan, drinking his black drink. He looked into the fire.

‘But Sylvian had lived a long, full life,’ said Anna.

‘And so you don’t grieve,’ said Rachaela, stung by their equanimity, wanting to see them show her something which made sense, and was not like herself.

‘Grief is superfluous,’ said Anna. ‘It is over.’

She got up and she and Stephan walked into the dining room.

Rachaela saw. No extra places were laid, only the habitual three.

Anna and Stephan took their seats.

Rachaela too sat down.

And Cheta and Maria came with a tureen of cabbage soup.

They ate in silence. Some emotion inside Rachaela scratched and gurned, the anguish and alarm she had felt since yesterday, when she had fled him, given a focus now.

‘And the funeral,’ she said, ‘where will the Scarabae bury Sylvian?’

Anna looked at her. The eyes of these people were no longer predominantly hungry. The famishment had settled to something else. It was credible to see the likeness between his eyes and the eyes of Anna. Pools of deep black liquid. Tams of eyes.

‘Don’t let what’s happened distress you, Rachaela. Nothing need trouble you. We have our own ways, older than the house. You must let us deal with our dead.’

‘How?’

Anna said, ‘As we see fit.’

Winsome, persuasive, hard as cold flint. There was no method of getting past her. She spoke for them all.

The soup was cleared.

Michael brought a fish-pie.

Anna and Stephan began to talk of the excellence of the winter vegetables, the cleverness of Carlo and Michael in growing things out of season.

Rachaela listened. She felt the sense of depression and fearfulness which they, they should have felt. Above, the dead one lay on his bed. The house reeked as if with smoke.

She was excluded. She had no place in these rites. They would not invite her to the funeral. For death had nothing to do with her; she, like Adamus, was the new life. The sinful incestuous bloom they had nurtured with their smiles and creepings by.

Rachaela began to be angry. But that too was pointless. Not only was she their pawn, she was their adored afterthought. If grief were superfluous here, then so was she.

Stephan and Anna ate portions of the pie. Rachaela picked at the food.

Stewed fruit was served.

Rachaela said nothing else, and when she had finished toying with her plate, she left the two of them, and went upstairs.