And no dread. Absolutely no dread at all. For the first time in weeks the sudden clutch of fear did not strike at her heart; no suffusing terror mounting in her throat to dry her mouth and cause her fingernails to press even white brackets into the palms of her hands. Dread had suddenly flown. How strange, she thought, it has quite gone away. As suddenly as that. I have awakened from a thousand years’ sleep like that dotty creature Sleeping Beauty. Perhaps if I look out from the window I shall find that I am embowered in giant brambles, nettles and forest trees, and all my courtiers are rubbing their eyes and yawning in the halls and kitchens below and the Prince’s horse, richly caparisoned, stands tethered in the courtyard. But where is the Prince?

On the other hand, perhaps I am dead? Is this what death is like after all? So sweet, so calm, so gentle. That’s it. I have very likely ‘passed away’ or whatever the proletariat call it to soften the blow of total extinction. And if it is so, I really can’t say that I mind it very much. It is exactly how I hoped it would be. In my own bed, my own room; I rather expected clinkers, ashes, roaring fire and people writhing about prodded by toasting-forks. I was pretty sure I’d land up in Hell, if the truth must be told. Convinced of it. But then perhaps Hell is, after all, the life you make for yourself on Earth? Like the last few months. Suspicion growing to doubt, turning to anguish, becoming hideous fact – that was Hell – and so perhaps this is simply the ‘after care’ department or something. And of course, there were other Hells before that … not to be remembered and none as terrible. So here I am, safely through the trial, purified. Golly! What nonsense you talk, Cuckoo dear.

She moved, for the first time, her arm in the sling. Cautiously, but there was no pain, a dull ache only, stiffness; the bruising after the fall. She flexed it, slid it from the silk scarf, stretched it high above her head. My dear! It works! What a bit of luck. I could have broken it falling like that: what an idiotic, thoughtless thing to do, do admit? Grabbing me suddenly on a frightfully slippery piece of rock, I could have cracked my skull open; really. It is simply madness to awaken a sleepwalker, everyone knows that. It’s the most awful shock to the system, people have become quite peculiar after a sudden jolt of that kind. What you have to do is gently guide the walker back to bed, urge them along with gentleness and care; not grab them like a falling tree. Witless youth. Sea slip-slapping along the rock, swirling caressingly at my ankles, pulling at my skirt.

I might have been drowned.