Go and help the man. Stop this lunacy, and go and help the man. He pushed forward again, although every nerve in his body told him not to, and skied up to a halt on a spot in front of the man’s chair where he could speak to and see him comfortably. The chair hung, swaying gently now, about fifteen feet above Sam. He cleared his throat, and held a gloved hand up to cup his mouth.

‘Are you okay, mister?’

No reply. Sam peered up at the figure in the gloom waiting to see what he would do. He knew the man was looking at him; saw his spectacles glint as his head inclined slightly towards Sam. He tried again. ‘Do the chair attendants know you got on?’

Nothing.

‘Hey mister! Can you hear me up there!’

‘I can hear you, Shammy.’

Sam’s heart stood still. His hand dropped from his mouth to his side, letting the pole that was attached to his wrist bang uselessly against his boot.

The figure in the chair shifted forward slightly, leaning on the safety bar. He raised an arm and pointed a finger at the man below him. ‘You didn’t hear me when I screamed for you though, did you?’

Sam’s mouth was opening and shutting now, his lower jaw trembling with the unauthorized movement.

The figure’s voice sounded strange. Oh, it was unmistakably the Reverend’s voice, but the words were distorted, lisped, strangled in some way that gave them a horrible, wet, indistinct sound. Sam croaked a noise. ‘What?’

‘You heard. They called you, didn’t they? I ashked them to. They told you what ward I wosh in and shtill you didn’t come.’

Sam was making this up himself. He had to be. They would find out why or how when they looked into his brain with that machine in Calgary and then everything would be fine. No more faces in the crowd, no more blackouts, no more nightmares hanging from iced steel cable in the twilight.

He could barely breathe, and he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. No good. When he opened them the figure was still there, hanging in space, alive when it should be dead.