“Look, when we go to the pictures, we see the film on the screen, but really the images are in the projector—on the film in the projector. It’s the same with ghosts. We only see the reflection.”

“So it’s like dreaming when you’re awake?”

“Kind of. Breath is like the light in the projector. In fact, it is light—the light of the senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting all happen by the light of the breath. What happens when you go to sleep is the senses turning their backs on the outer world and beginning to focus on the world within.”

“I’d like to see that,” said Zen.

“Well, that’s what I thought. And the first step is to learn about the rhythm of the breath.”

“Miss Davidson says my rhythm is not very good.”

“That’s absolutely not true. I distinctly remember you waving your little arms and legs in perfect rhythm as soon as you were born. You see, no one teaches us rhythm—we bring it with us.”

Zeno paused and gave his attention to a tight Achilles tendon. He caught his reflection in the mirror and saw the patch of greying hair on his chest. Perhaps she really wasn’t that interested in what her old dad had to say. In a few years he would be losing her to another man.

“Did you know that when you are hurrying, if you lose the regularity of your breath, you can’t think properly? Now if judges knew that, they’d have a few more breathing teachers and a lot less prisons.”

“Dad . . .”

“Oh, yeah,” Zeno said, remembering something else he wanted to say. “I was wondering—if you wore a thick pair of socks, do you think Raquel’s skates would fit?”

Zen squealed with delight. “Oh, Dad . . .”

The sun wasn’t yet low, and the street—its houses uniform, save for personalised front doors—was hot and empty. Phyllis and Julia had chosen to live where families had lived for years, sons and daughters staying on when they married. People here considered their houses extensions of themselves. They were as houseproud as their ancestors, for whom the working cottages had been built. Phyllis and Julia adapted accordingly.

Julia hesitated at the front door. She was a handsome woman, and the paper-thin boiler suit she wore today emphasised the rolling ease with which she moved. She stopped to assemble her thoughts and consider a way to break the news. The sign-off whistle blew from the nearby Volkswagen depot, and the silence that followed ensnared her. She was still appreciating the moment when something caressed her leg and miaowed.

“Hello, Winston,” she said, as she picked him up and wrapped him around her neck. “Now that you’ve arranged a rendezvous for later, I suppose you want a snack.”