“How do you see yourself spending the first minute of the new millennium?”

Even as he spoke he had wished he could answer differently. He had wished he could say the decent, optimistic kinds of things they were saying. Remembering this, he saw clearly how he had marginalised his own life. He had brought his life upon himself. Driving back to the cottage, he lowered the side window and threw the Burger King packaging out into the night.

When he got back, the cottage was silent.

“Anna?” he called.

He found her in the front room. The TV was on, with the sound turned down. Anna had dragged the quilt off the bed again and now sat cross-legged on it by the fire, her hands resting, palms upwards, on her knees. The pound or two she had put on over the last month made her thighs, belly and buttocks seem smooth and young; above, she was still as ribby as a horse. He had a feeling there was some insight in all this he wasn’t quite close enough to see. Her wrists were so white that the veins in them looked like bruises. Next to her she had placed the carbon-steel chef’s knife he had bought on their first visit to the beach. Its blade flickered in the TV light, uncertain and grey, which filled the room.

“I’m trying to scrape up all the courage I have, here,” she said, without looking away from the fire. Her voice was friendly. “I knew you wouldn’t want me if I got well.”

Kearney picked up the knife and put it out of her reach and his. He bent over her and kissed her spine where it snaked up between the thin scapulae.

“I do want you,” he said. He touched her wrists. They were hot but bloodless. “Why are you doing this?”

She shrugged. She laughed a little fake laugh. “It’s a measure of last resort,” she said. “It’s a vote of no confidence.” Kearney’s laptop lay open on top of the TV set, also switched on, though it displayed only wallpaper. Into it, Anna had plugged the pocket drive they got from Tate. Of all these gestures, Kearney thought, this was probably the most dangerous. When he said so, she shrugged. “What I hate most of all is that you don’t even need to kill me anymore,” she said.

“Is that what you want? Me to kill you?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Just please fuck me properly.”

It was awkward for both of them. Anna, instantly wet, presented herself determinedly; Kearney was less certain how to proceed. When he finally managed to penetrate her, he couldn’t believe the heat of it. They began with what they knew, but she soon made him face her, urging him, “Like this. Like this. I want to see you, I want to see your face.” Then: “Is this better? Am I better than them?” For a second, he heard his cousins’ laughter; Gorselands opened itself to him, then tilted and flickered away forever. He laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes!” It didn’t last long, but she sighed and embraced him and gave further warm little sighs and smiles in a way she had never done before. They lay in front of the fire together for a while, then she encouraged him to try again.