The roofs, divided only by low chimney stacks or chimney shafts, rather in the way groins separate sections of a beach from one another, stretched away into the distance, straight as a Roman road. In the half-dark, under the clear purple sky, it seemed to lengthen to infinity, its end lost in the misty gloom. I went up on the roofs many times after that but remember no other occasion to match the awe I felt that first time, the wonder and the fear. Not fear of falling or of discovery but of the strangeness of it, of seeing what few others had seen or would ever see, that long slate road, segmented by the faintly gleaming pale walls of the stacks, shadowless, dim, and quiet. Quiet but not silent, for the traffic in Edgware Road was always present, a muted roar and one that always sounded to me when I was high up above it like the sea, like tides breaking on an empty shore.

Wim was nowhere to be seen. He had disappeared over some edge, aided by his rope or perhaps only by his genius.

“Do you think he flies in his dreams?” I asked Silver, whispering so as not to interrupt the quiet.

“I hope not. It would be too frustrating when he wakes up. What do you dream about, Clodagh?”

I’ll tell him, I thought. But not now, not yet. “This and that. My dreams are much like everyone’s, I expect.”

Liv said she was cold. She hunched her shoulders and hugged herself as she walked. When I think of her as she then was, not as she now is, I see her in that pose, arms crossed over her chest, hands clutching her shoulders, giving fearful sidelong looks to the world. Or curled up in a corner, head buried, arms embracing knees, the child yearning to return to the womb.

“It’s usually cold here at night,” Silver said. “I bet it’s cold at night in Sweden, isn’t it?”

“Only in the wintertime,” said Liv and she gave a great sob.

We sat down with our backs to a chimney stack. Silver gave us cigarettes and put his arm around Liv to comfort her. “Tell us about life in the far north among the reindeer.”