Livia’s voice is calm, matter-of-fact. She stands at the table between bed and window, pours water into a washbasin. Already her apron is stained with Soot. When she bends down to run a wetted washcloth over the man’s forehead, he cries again and his body exhales a dark-green burp of Smoke. Slack-mouthed, leering, he wears a mask rather than a face. Whatever features he might call his own are cancelled out by his condition.

“Mother thinks we must keep it a secret,” Livia goes on, still in the same nonchalant tone. Her eyes are on her work. All the same Charlie has the sensation of being closely watched by her, his every move registered, analysed, judged. “But I say we must accept Providence humbly, without shame.”

It is only now, as she says it, that Charlie understands.

“Baron Naylor,” it tumbles out of him. And is followed, with an alacrity that clearly pleases her, for Livia’s eyes light up within her small, finely drawn face: “How can I help?”

“We must wash and feed him.”

It proves an awkward, difficult procedure, in part because it necessitates the removal of the leather restraints. Baron Naylor fights them. He is not a young man, perhaps as much as twenty years older than his wife (though it is possible, too, that his illness has aged him, for he is thin and dishevelled, and his molars are dark within his mouth, there at the back where they are hard to clean). For all that he is as strong as an ox and the presence of a stranger appears to upset him. No sooner have they freed his right hand than he snakes it around Charlie’s wrist. Again the baron brays and thick, viscous Smoke crawls out of his skin and works its way up Charlie’s arm. A moment later it is in his nose, his lungs. He begins to struggle with the man, begins to loathe him; disgust floods Charlie and when the madman’s hand reaches up, searching for his throat, Charlie slaps it away with coarse brutality. It is only then, spitting out his anger, that Charlie realises he, too, is smoking.

Shame cuts through him, winds him, stoppers his Smoke. He backs away, to the wall, where the man’s infection does not reach; stands panting, pressing his back into the wall like a burglar caught red-handed; looks over at Livia and hangs his head.

“I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough.”