‘I’ll help you.’ She could borrow Suki’s car. Maybe they could even get the console out, in pieces. She could store it in the shop. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She jumped up. ‘We should start now. If you take it all apart now, we can get it out of here by the morning.’

But Vincent was shaking his head. ‘No, no, no. Let’s relax. Tomorrow’s problems for tomorrow. I just want one good last night, alright?’ He held her and slid his warm hand under her clothes, up her back, and kissed her, moving to the soul-resonant beat. She tasted the beer and spice on his tongue and agreed that some things were for tonight and some things for tomorrow.

When they had danced a while, they sat again, Petra leaning her back into his chest, sipping her wine and feeling satisfied and unhurried. The tracks kept coming, changing from dub to trio jazz to folk to rock and around again, advertising jingles and electronic computer game themes peppered the mix. Every chord of it taped right in this room. Petra could feel ghosts again, but this time the remnants of harmony, the sort of residual expressive joy that in enough quantity could surely defeat the ghosts of fear and despair. She leaned back and looked over her shoulder, turning Vincent’s cheek with her hand and kissing him again. Their bodies vibrated at the same driving frequency.

‘Will you play something for me?’ she asked.

‘I can’t play.’

‘I bet you can.’

‘Nothing like my granddad.’

‘Yeah, but nobody could play like Max, could they?’

He smiled. ‘True. But all the instruments are gone.’

‘You could play with your voice, with your body,’ Petra sang. She didn’t know what had come over her. She felt like she was channelling some muse or a siren from ancient mythology. She only ever sung in the shower. Okay, maybe some karaoke when she’d let her hair down. And in her kitchen, all alone. ‘Sing with me, Falling Man.’

It was just the wine, just the mood, but she felt she was actually holding the notes and the sound that was coming out of her throat was seductive, rich, someone else’s voice, like Adele or Joss Stone or someone, their singing so different from their day voices, a different being when she vibrated her larynx just so. God, she felt powerful just then. She wound words around the trancy beat that was playing and Vincent started to respond, beating out a complex complementary rhythm on the floor, on his thighs, on her thighs. They became a living instrument, and she could feel the heat of his groin at the small of her back, every surface of her body sensitive to the air’s vibration. They moved together until the track changed, then fell back, laughing.

‘Jesus, you’ve got a voice,’ he said.