When he had finished reading, he put the notebook down on the table. Practically threw it. Then he went into the bathroom and closed the door and tried to cry, but he couldn’t. Nothing came out. His mouth was ugly and twisted in the mirror, but no tears came.

*

Their bed was made; she had even arranged the decorative cushions in a pile on the bedspread. He stood and looked at the bed and tried to connect this level of care with what she had written in her letter. Is that really something you do if you’ve given up? If you’re so afraid of a person you are unable to sleep in the same house as them?

He pulled the blinds down and closed them. Shut the door and lay down on the bed. He didn’t have the heart to either move the cushions or pull the bedspread aside and he lay on the side that was usually hers.

*

A low wailing woke him. It couldn’t really be called a howling. He lay still, listening. The house was dark. Night. Had the sound come from inside his head, or outside? He often snored so loudly he woke himself.

He was unable to go back to sleep; he couldn’t even keep his eyes closed. The tension was too powerful, it was coursing through every part of his body. Eventually, he got out of bed.

He twisted the blind wand and widened the gaps. He couldn’t see much. The black contours of the garden furniture. The rotary washing line like a dead tree.

He went into the living room and over to the terrace door, turned the key and opened it. Stepped out into the night. Stood there in his stocking feet, waiting. Even though his mouth was open, he breathed solely through his nostrils; there was like a block of some kind in his throat.

A human figure materialised out of the darkness of the woods. A short woman with a wimple of dark hair. She moved gracefully and silently like a shadow. Stopped a few feet from him.

‘Why do you look so scared?’ she said.

He backed up toward the house and almost fell over.

‘Anders.’

‘I feel so weird.’

‘I noticed the car’s gone.’

‘What car?’

‘Her car.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘she’s gone.’

The sound of a lorry reversing…

The sound of a lorry reversing woke me. A cruel honking sound that found its way into my dream, where it morphed into some kind of klaxon. Not at all a nice sound to wake up to and I was cross with Roland for opening the window. After the rock music had finally died down, people had roamed the streets shouting like lunatics half the night. And now this. It was unbearable. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t.