Rachaela made her way back cautiously from the phantom station. The sun was setting in a slum of cloud.

On the streets the umbrellas still glided.

She was lost three times before she reached the street with the hotel. Nevertheless she reached it.

Her possessions were in place, her bed had been made with mindless starched precision, and tucked in like a straightjacket.

She had jettisoned Wednesday.

Now there was only the evening, the night, Thursday.

She could cope with those.

At the house, they would be lighting the lamps.

They were carrying him down to the beach. There were no steps, but a long slope. Carlo and Michael had him between them. Camillo walked behind, his long white hair dancing on his shoulders. Alice had a mouse in her hat.

‘You mustn’t cry,’ Anna said to her.

But she was not crying, shedding no tears, sloughed of everything.

They would burn him. His slim man’s body, the clever hands, the face of bones, the rope of black hair. Fire in his eyes for sure.

She would need to look at his skull, after the fire, before the sea claimed it. She wanted to know. Only his skull could tell her.

They were on the beach. Adamus lay among the driftwood and the logs. Michael and Carlo hauled the piano over the rocks towards his body.

Rachaela woke.

It was the middle of the night. The cars were quiet. She almost heard the mechanism of the church clock turning silently over towards morning. It rang only for noon and midnight.

She fumbled after her watch and by a dim non-light through the window read off four o’clock.

Why had she dreamed Adamus was dead?

Because she feared him. His death would be an apt solution.

She had felt something terrible in the dream, not grief or loss. Worse than those.

She composed herself to sleep again and lay until it was seven-thirty and the green rat light came creeping to the window.

Rachaela shopped pedantically. She bought a beige sweater, a packet of new cotton panties, tights, a paperback book. She bought a large black bag to put everything into. She would have to buy clothes, books, a radio, in London. When she was settled. There were some funds left. She would find another job. Anything would do.

As the days in the town had passed, even so few, the urgent city had grown remote. When and if.

She had to get there first.

The day listed by, toppling slowly from hour to hour. She ate another salad at the snack bar, which was cheap, and later walked out and sat by the river. The afternoon was clear. There were ducks on the water, she had not noticed them before. Bread for the ducks and the warm hand holding hers. It was almost a memory, invented and out of time.