A sheet of music fell from the stand with the clatter that paper sometimes makes. Winston shot out into the room from his hiding place under the stairs.

“Now, now, sir,” said Imo, offering the cat a spot on her lap. “It’s only a spirit passing, nothing to fret about.” Phyllis was holding her breath, trying to keep the air, and the words, cushioned inside her as long as she could.

Imo Sage passed away the next day as the clocks in St James’s were chiming eleven. Her housekeeper, Solacia, swore that the house was lit full of angels, and she continued to come every day to feed Winston and keep him company. Then Miss Sage’s will was read, and Phyllis inherited Winston, along with the piano and Miss Sage’s collection of sheet music.

From the moment that her teacher passed away, Phyllis drifted into a torpor. There was no question of her rousing as she slipped into a lesser existence, as unknowing as one who falls asleep; and as the dream appears real to the dreamer, so did Phyllis’s life seem whole to her.

She continued with her practices in the privacy of her home, listening to the scraps of Imo instructing her between scales on her practice tape. Occasionally—for he had her garden now, and the run of everyone else’s—Winston would turn up when he heard the voice, and Phyllis would find him staring at her. This would make her feel guilty in a vague sort of way, yet not enough to shake her from her stupor. She continued to smoke, albeit periodically going through the motions of quitting—changing to a weaker brand, not indulging until mid-morning coffee. Her voice however, continued to grow. As did her sense of smell, albeit unnoticed.

The ascending escalator at Green Park was crowded, as usual, but both escalators were in service. This was such a novel event that Phyllis’s eyes kept glancing towards the one descending, and the few punters getting a free ride. A figure backed onto the top of the near-deserted moving staircase and proceeded to travel down backwards. He immediately caught her attention—as an American she never ceased to be amazed by the number of eccentrics this little island produced—with his velvet jacket and what appeared from the back to be a white lace ruff around his neck. She was curious to view this oddball’s face, but as they were about to draw level the melody of an old ballad came into her head, the title of which eluded her, and by the time she finally placed it as ‘I’ll Walk Beside You’, her escalator had arrived and the whimsical passenger had disappeared.

As the exit came into view, and other sufferers started reaching for cigarettes, she also felt the pull of the familiar urge, but to her surprise she assured herself, I can wait. I will wait . . . until coffee at least. Perhaps I won’t smoke today at all.

Miranda married late in life, by the standards of her friends—she had met the man when she was thirty-two and taken the vows a year later. None of her circle, including her family, could understand why it had taken so long, for she had an enviable combination of intelligence and looks. The problem (although Miranda herself didn’t see it like that) was that almost from the beginning of her physical adventures, she had been able to separate the climactic sensation from attachment to its provider. This gave her an emotional autonomy, and although many men regarded her as a bitch (‘She uses her pussy as a gadget,’ one disgruntled Lothario had hissed), Miranda felt that it put her on an equal footing with men. And as her sensual appetite was well beyond restraint, the idea of matrimony didn’t feature too high on her list of immediate personal needs. In fact, her husband was the first person she met who intrigued her beyond the first coupling—new flesh providing most of the erotic in her life.