The rain was persistent. It drenched the two headlands on either side of the Porta Sarina bay, it pattered against the windows and the walls and the roof tiles of the Villa della Madonna del Mare. It came through the holes in the roof and dripped onto the floorboards and furniture. It seeped into the cavities between the floors and soaked into the old plaster walls. It was pervasive. It invaded my sleep; I heard the rain and it merged with a memory and it became a nightmare.

In the dream, Joe and I were standing in the foyer of a smart London department store. I was holding a bag in my hand. The bag contained a dress that I’d bought to wear at a prize giving ceremony for innovators in education; one of my colleagues had been shortlisted for an award. People were all around us, buttoning up their coats, fastening their hoods, opening umbrellas; we could see through the windows how the rain was bucketing down onto Oxford Street. The bus wheels were sending great showers of spray up over the legs of the people hurrying along the pavements.

Joe and I pulled up our hoods and went through the sliding doors, out of the dry, perfumed warmth of the store. The rain blew up at us, cold water mixed with car exhaust fumes; fans churning out fried meat smells from the backs of restaurants. Music.

I caught my finger in the catch when I opened the umbrella; pinched the skin. I sucked the blood as we walked, side by side, away from the main road. Wet pavements. People gazing blankly from the foggy upstairs windows of buses. We skipped the underground journey in the way that often happens in dreams and found ourselves in the neighbourhood where Anna lived. Snapshots: Joe reaching up to grab the overhanging branch of a lime tree and shaking it to spill the rain collected in its leaves. Me saying it wasn’t funny. Joe laughing, pulling me to him and me telling him to get off, also laughing. A dog shaking itself. A woman running into the well of a block of flats, holding a folded newspaper above her head. A child stamping triumphantly in a puddle. Turning into Anna’s road, the houses built of yellow and black London stock brick. Me shaking out the umbrella in the garden. Dusk falling too fast, making me giddy. Anna’s living room and hall lights on and the front door open. A stain on the carpet where the rain had blown in. A large glass of wine left on the small table beneath the mirror just inside the hallway. Joe turning to me.

‘Why is the front door open?’

‘Why are the lights on?’

‘Where’s Anna?’

‘Where’s Daniel?’

I woke. I was in the kitchen of the Villa della Madonna del Mare, my neck was stiff and the sole of my foot was pulsing with pain.