She starts in fright and comes to a halt.

‘What is it?’ she asks, without introduction.

He does not answer her at first, just stands looking at this tense, beautiful young woman.

‘What do you want?’ she insists again, with a fearful courage that is ready for anything.

He asks in his turn, ‘What’s going on here?’

He gestures at the walls with the great sound behind them, the tremendous chorus.

‘You have no business here!’ she says in the same tone as before. ‘You must go.’

The instant she says it he knows that she has a child in there. She is clearly a mother. Meanwhile the waves are rising and falling far away – the sound of sleeping children who will wake up one day – and in the meanwhile the house is quaking in the storm and cracking from its own weight.

He looks at her and says, ‘Your child is in there, I suppose. No, listen to me!’ he adds, as if spellbound. ‘Let me stay here for a bit.’

‘You must go!’ she says fiercely. ‘Just get out! You have no business here!’

She stands there threatening him. Yet she is trembling too. This is the kind of courage that sets all else aside. She is blinded by it – she does not even see that Henry is so moved that he cannot leave. She is savagely on the defensive, as a result of all that surrounds her when she goes to her child.

‘You misunderstand me,’ he says quickly, ‘I belong here.’

He says it instinctively, because it feels like that. In some way he does belong here – unable to be as cold as the storm demands.

‘I don’t believe you!’ replies the woman, still fearful. She runs past him and disappears. The wall opens to receive her. Now he notices that there are doors everywhere.

Her doubt does not trouble him. She must see danger in everything that moves.

Listen….

The beautiful wave of sound raises his spirits. And then he catches sight of something else: a whole army of women are coming out and going in. An army, silent and busy.

He is allowed to watch. This is where it is all happening. The centre, death and terror are just round the corner. Every step involves risk and danger. And this survives close beside it. Here those who will live when the centre has collapsed are sleeping and growing. The mothers are watching over them, beyond all thought for their own safety.

Henry stands in the deep shadow, watching and listening. There is an army of women. Everywhere doors lead in to the heavenly sound.

He cannot tear himself away. He is one with the waves. All these women streaming in and out do not notice him. Perhaps they do see him, but they go blindly about their business, that he seems to have been quite unaware of before.

I can’t stand here, he thinks. It’s no business of mine, as she said.