Inch by inch. Heel, fingers, hand, fist— Then I had a hand on the path, then an elbow, then I lurched forward on one knee as the post fell and thumped somewhere in the fog. We were tangled on the path. I scrambled across it and my body huddled itself against the roots and solid rock of the mountainside. I didn’t say anything. I began first to crawl, then stagger, back along that path, keeping close to the left-hand side like a tramp or a drunk needing the security of a wall beside him. I stumbled through the little stream and fell on the rock where I had sat. I could see Rick’s boots in front of me. The deeper voice of the stream had consumed the lighter one. It was as if the mountain was speaking with the same deep tone that had been audible and now, in the mind, visible round the falling lump of rock. I started to giggle.

“Shiver and shake. Alfred Lord Tennyson.”

“Take it easy, Wilf. You’ll be all right.”

Of course he would know, Eng. Lit. and all that. Shiver and shake along the country road, a treat for the local lads.

It seemed to me that I could feel the indifferent threat of the earth through the soles of my feet, the volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, terrors of nature’s fact, the ball flying through space. That was what the water spoke of, not Gaia Mater but the space rock balanced between forces so that gravity exhibited itself with this ghastly indifference.

“Here.”

Irresistible hands were grasping me. I rose, as it might be propelled by a force of nature, I came against wool and warmth. There was strain in my arms. My cheek was ground into skin, hair, the muscles of a neck. We were moving slowly at first, then briskly. A horse, a horse! That huge creature had my passive body in charge, had lifted me into its aura of strength and warmth. It was the warmth that was most disconcerting, now another human manifestation like the smell of shit that stung my nostrils, for he was cantering, there is no other word for it, down through the meadows and into the home stretch. Then I was being lowered. There were voices and other hands and presently I was in my own bed. I opened my eyes saw two thick columns of trouser, and at the juncture of those columns the bulging flies above me. I shut my eyes again. I heard him move and dared a look through one eye. Now he stood at the foot of the bed, looking down. There was a slight smile round his lips. I thought it was friendly enough but there was something else in it. The smile widened.

I shut my one eye again. There was no doubt at all. The smile was a smile of triumph.

“You OK?”

The manager was at his shoulder. They consulted. Rick talked of brandy.

I interrupted him in a voice which I heard was normal enough.