I heard the gulls cackle before I saw them, punctuated by the boom of the incoming tide and a wind that whistled through the cable-stays that secured the funnels of the Argentinian Queen. I inhaled deeply of the salt-laden air, the freshness of the breeze, the gently rotting seaweed on the storm-shore. I opened my eyes and was back on Rhosilli beach in the Gower, the wreck before me, high and dry on the huge expanse of sand. The dream was exactly the same as it had been for the past few nights.

More real than real, but for one thing: I wasn’t Birgitta’s Charlie, I was me Charlie, still in my bathrobe, covered in bite marks, dotted with blobs of iodine. It was the same dream, but instead of being first person Active Control, I was third person Active Control – this, I presumed, was Dreamspace.

Charles and Birgitta were beneath the parasol talking in low voices, and every now and again they would laugh, and touch one another, and kiss. I can’t pretend that I didn’t feel some sort of jealousy, for I did – a dull ache in my chest.

There was a gurgle of laughter and the young girl chased her beach ball, while Birgitta and Charlie exchanged their vows of affection, as before, as always, again.

‘I love you, Charlie,’ said Birgitta.

‘I love you, Birgitta,’ said Charlie.

A voice broke into my thoughts.

‘Where is this place?’

I turned to find Aurora staring at me. She was dressed in a flowery blouse and a white skirt over a stripy swimming costume. She looked tanned and well, with longer hair less streaked with grey and a fuller body which made her look a good deal healthier than the lean overwinterer I had come to know. I guess in Dreamspace you can idealise yourself. She was still armed, a Bambi at her hip, while her unseeing left eye flicked around in its socket.

Aurora looked around curiously, as though she’d blundered into a newly undiscovered cupboard in her kitchen, and was trying to figure out its function.

‘The Gower Peninsula,’ I said, ‘a glorious weekend, fondly recalled. A place to visit when in pensive mood, an escape from the real world, something to flash upon the inward eye.’

‘Very romantic,’ replied Aurora. ‘I remember that parasol. This is a dream from one of the orderlies we interrogated after the cylinder went missing. What was his name again?’

‘Charles Webster.’

She clicked her fingers.

‘Right. Webster. Nothing came of it, I recall. So why are we here?’

‘This is the dream you’ve been projecting into my sleeping mind these past few nights at the Sarah Siddons,’ I said, ‘through the wall from 902.’

‘Nope, you got a fresh Don Hector dream recording all to yourself,’ she replied. ‘We replace them because they wear out after five or six playings – tend to get scratched and lose their detail.’

I shrugged.