‘Who are you?’

‘What have you done?’

‘How will you face judgement?’

He stays awake, staring at the ceiling. In the dark. He has turned off the ceiling light, but the small one over on the desk is burning. That is where he is to face judgement.

Frank’s even breathing is proof of the distance between people, however closely they may be linked. He himself is lying with a chill in him that is increasing, in spite of the stifling night. It is coming from an icy chasm beneath him – not from space, as he thought at first. It is not asking those questions either; they were his own. This chasm merely stands dark and silent and icy. Waiting.

There is a clatter in the kitchen. Freda is up and busy. The usual breakfast clatter. He can hear it, but Freda is in a different world. And Frank is in a different world. Listen to that breathing.

‘Frank!’ he calls in sorrow, pulling the blanket around him so he will not see that he is lying dressed.

Frank wakes and shrugs off the clinging sleep.

‘What is it?’

‘Only time to get up. Freda’s been up a long time.’

‘But what about you? Are you feeling better?’

At the sound of their voices Freda appears in the door way, watchful. She sees that her father is lying quietly in bed. He is half hiding his face with the edge of the blanket.

‘Are you better?’ she asks.

‘Oh yes. I’ll stay in bed a little longer and then get up. You get ready and go to school.’

‘All right, I’ll leave some breakfast out for you then. You must be ravenous. Would you like something in bed?’

‘No! Just leave something out. I’ll get up in a while. I think I’ll get to sleep in that chair. When the room is quiet. Off you go.’

They notice his exhausted face and his impatient tone of voice, and hurry out.

Food? he thinks. No, no; no food. A word is lying in him as if demanding to be used: fasting. But he dare not use it. That is for others. All the same, it keeps him from touching food.

He goes across to the chair. The lamp is burning ready for his judgement. And the finger is telling him that it has been set in motion, this same judgement. He looks at the whorls Freda made, and his affection for Freda threatens to overwhelm him like water released from a dam. At the same moment the door flies open and Frank comes in, in great agitation.

‘Stig’s dead! It’s been announced. I knew it would happen!’ he says. He sounds as if he is biting something back, but there is nothing in his mouth.

He doesn’t wait for an answer from his father. It is as if he dare not. He closes the door again as soon as he has told him. He and Freda are talking in there. Then the door clicks. They have gone.