When I woke it was dark and my throat was on fire. This was hell, I knew it now, and I was already dead. I lay, throbbing and burning, in my big metal coffin. In my bones the marrow had frozen; my body was shot through with icy needles. I was trembling so hard, the change in my pocket rattled.

I must be dying, because flashes of my past came to me, pulsing behind my eyeballs—the cracked concrete where I played with my Dinky cars, the lino in the bathroom, the shadow of the fire-tongs against the wall, where they frightened me. It frightened me, that I heard my money jangling.

Remember that song, Poetry in Motion (Johnny Tillotson)? I used to think it was all about a tree, not a woman; Oh-a-tree in motion, see her gentle sway, way down on the ocean, never to move my way. Wasn’t I a wally? I was only young.

Water, water. When had I last had a drink? A crowd would slowly gather round my coach, then somebody would break in and they’d find me; bones.

It’s pathetic, but just then I started sobbing for my mother.

I got to my feet, tripping over my blankets, and made my way down the aisle. It stretched for ever. The mile of the aisle I said to myself, to keep up my morale. I hobbled along, snuffling.

The door handle was freezing. When I opened the door, icy air hit my face. Oh-a-tree in motion I hummed. It was my only comfort, to make a grunting sound in my throat.

The street was empty. I had no idea what time of the night it was. The fish and chip shop was closed. I knew, of course, that it had never been open. The lights, the noise, the absurd black twins, they had all been a dream. This was a dead street, bathed in lurid orange light. Anyway, who was it I was looking for? I kept humming, to remind myself I was alive. If I didn’t have a drink of water I would die.

I managed to get to the end of the street, an epic voyage. I stood on the corner, swaying. Lots o’ Fun was closed. I gazed at the dark window. In the gloom the machines looked as extinct as dinosaurs. Long ago I had imagined a man in that booth.

I looked up. All the windows were dark, and I didn’t have the energy to raise my wrist and look at my watch. I was seized with a fit of shivering. I went on trying to hum: Way down on the ocean, never to move my way. Lifting my finger, I felt my wet cheek.

If Mum would come. I stepped backwards off the pavement and stood in the road. I lifted my head like a wolf baying at the moon and I bellowed, with all the power of my lungs:

‘HILDA!’