Paul stood quietly by the peeling gateposts while I performed the now familiar ritual of banging on the door and shouting through the letter box. Nothing stirred inside the house and no one answered, although I was certain that they were both in there.

I put down on the doorstep the box of fresh fruit and vegetables, and some of Jack’s dwindling supply of clean clothes that I had brought with me. I called goodnight to Jack through the slot, told him to telephone me if he needed anything and retraced my steps. Paul and I walked in silence back to the car.

‘Let’s go home to my house,’ I said, as we drove away. He put his arm round my shoulders and I thought again of my mother and father in the canary-yellow car with the ox-blood leather seats.

I opened the windows into the garden and we sat under the tree and watched the light fade. I didn’t want to talk and Paul understood that without my having to explain it. When it was fully dark we went upstairs together.

I woke twice in the night, soaked in sweat and confused to find a man’s body in my bed. I fell uneasily asleep for the third time and was gripped by a nightmare.

I am in a closed space, with no space beyond it. The walls squeeze me and I know with complete certainty that there is no calling for help because there is no one to hear. I am alone, and the desolation of it wrings tears out of my eyes and a terrible wail from my throat.

I woke up, still hearing the wail. I was tangled in the bedcovers and I fought to free myself.

Paul sat bolt upright beside me. ‘You are safe,’ he said. ‘You are safe now.’

He held me until the nightmare released its grip, then he went into the bathroom and came back with a cold sponge. He wiped my face with it and stroked my throat. The gentleness soothed me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled.

‘It was a bad dream. Everyone has bad dreams.’

We lay down again. It was still dark but I could hear the tentative notes of the day’s first bird singing. Soon the big jets coming in from Hong Kong and Singapore would begin to drone overhead.

‘Talk to me?’ Paul asked.

‘What about?’

‘Tell me why you have bad dreams. Tell me what’s the worst thing that ever happened to you.’

‘That sounds like some party game gone badly wrong.’

I knew that I was pulling up the drawbridge while Paul lay still and waited. But the nightmare’s desolation clung around me and I found myself wanting to push it away and not be alone any more. I made myself speak and it came out sounding as if my voice was rusty from lack of use. ‘My mother died,’ I said slowly.