I think I remember tumbling for a while, then being wedged head first in the snow. To make matters worse the snow guard inside my parka then ripped, and the wind-blown snow rushed up inside the back of my coat and wrapped itself around my neck and chest. I momentarily stopped breathing with the sudden chill and could actually feel myself begin to lose core temperature. It started with an uncontrollable shiver, then a chattering of teeth, then a sense of calm mixed with resignation, loss and waste. I wanted badly to dream, to be back on the beach in the Gower, beneath the orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour with Birgitta being Birgitta and me being Charles. But I couldn’t, and slowly, with an annoying drab certainty, I felt myself slipping away.

But I didn’t die. Not yet.

Night in the museum

‘ . . . The Minister for Culture had to threaten to slit his own throat on the steps of Parliament House before the Regional Antiquities Repatriation Act was made into law. Simply put, it allowed for centralised collections to be returned to the region, village or hamlet where they were discovered. It was localisation at its very best  . . . ’

– Museums Quarterly, November 1973 edition

‘What kind of dopey halfwit goes out in weather like this?’

It was Hugo Foulnap. He was staring at me with the same sort of look you afford someone who has been repeatedly told not to play with lighter fuel and matches, and who has just set themselves on fire. He was out of the shock-suit – probably because invasion during the storm was unlikely – and was staring at me with a sense of curious fascination. We were in a white-tiled warmroom, presumably within the museum, although according to my last memory I had yet to even get to the wrought-iron gates. I was completely naked and immersed in a roll-top bath filled with warm water.

‘This kind of dopey halfwit,’ I said, pointing at myself.

‘Run into a spot of bother?’

He indicated my body, which was covered with all the bruises, scratches and tooth marks I’d gained when I was nearly nightwalker lunch, all now stained by dabs of iodine on my pale wintercoat, which made me look a little like a purple Dalmatian. I pointed to the bite mark on my face.

‘See that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Carmen Miranda.’

‘Is that how she does autographs these days?’

‘Pretty much. She was at the Cambrensis.’

‘Ah,’ said Foulnap. ‘Cold in there? Empty and shuttered?’

‘No,’ I said after a pause, ‘no, it’s not.’

We stared at one another for a while.

‘How are the toes?’ he asked, and I stared at them uneasily. They had a marzipanish look to them and were hurting badly, so I thought probably not that good.

‘I may lose one or two.’

‘To match your finger?’