Livia returns his look. Her hands remain upon her father’s body, she is buried to her elbows in the old man’s Smoke, but her head turns and he can see how difficult it is for her, how magnificent her self-control. Her own Smoke is minimal, fine white wisps that escape her lips and colour them grey. It is as though she’s been spoon-fed ashes. Her gown is white, Charlie realises, because she wishes to test herself. Nothing must be hidden. It makes him marvel at her: a feeling not unlike fear. She, for her part, does not hide her disappointment in him; lets go of her father’s limbs and reaches over to the table where she finds a tin box and throws it across to Charlie with a quick, disdainful flick.

“Here. Mother uses them when she is up here. Take one.”

Charlie opens the tin and finds a dozen sweets inside. Clear, knuckle-sized, stamped with the familiar symbol: B&S underneath a three-pronged crown. He fishes one out, shakes his head.

“What do I do? I’ve tried one before but nothing happened. All it did was taste of soap.”

She does not turn with her answer.

“Put one in your mouth. Don’t chew it. It’ll pull the Smoke out of your breath and blood, and bind it, long before you show. Before it can infest your mind.”

Charlie does as instructed, then gingerly, not quite trusting himself, steps up to the bed. Livia has her hands full: her father is fighting her every movement, is spitting, biting, kicking. But this time Charlie’s blood remains cool and his mind clear, almost detached. He takes hold of Baron Naylor’s arms and pins them very gently, speaks to him in low, soothing words, much as one would speak to a frightened pet or an infant; takes the cloth from Livia and cleans his face, his neck and ears. Within minutes the old man calms down, becomes pliable and almost childlike, his features composed. The face that emerges is not unlike Livia’s, fine-boned, heart-shaped, and noble, if old.

“What now?” Charlie asks.

“We need to take off his nightshirt, wash his legs and — the rest of him.”

Livia blushes, points to her father’s midriff. It alerts Charlie to the whole sadness of a situation in which a mother and a daughter have become nurses to their husband and father.

“I will do it,” he says. “You take a rest.”

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