I hear bits of Maria’s phone call. I suppose I’m falling back asleep. “She says she drank bad milk,” she says. My eyes are closed, and I feel kind of warm and happy. “Yeah, I don’t know. Her hair’s kind of damp and there’s a towel. I don’t know.” In the dark, I look for the two ribbon-like eels again. I want to find whatever it was they showed me; I want to find the dream of my mum again, make sure she’s okay, make sure she survived. But it’s really black, a darker dark than I can see in. I wonder if I’m back in Miroslaw Balka’s piece at the Tate, in that dark box, the felt walls absorbing all light. My hands grope forward. “Yeah, I’ve got a flight to catch. Edinburgh to see my parents,” Maria says somewhere in the distance now—faraway, irrelevant. “Can you come up?” I feel Mum’s fingers in the dark and they interlock with mine. Did this actually happen? I wonder. Did we hold hands in Balka’s How It Is? Is this a memory of the past, or is it a continuation of my dream; is it after the Sun has come down, and is there only darkness left? There are footsteps, and then a new voice.

“Hey, Maria.”

“Hey.”

“Lyd?”

Slowly, our fingers slip apart. “Mum, I can’t see you in this light,” I say, as our hands release each other, and I can no longer feel my mum at all.

“I can’t see you either,” my mum says.

“Lyd?”

I feel the warmth leave my chest. Pig has got up or has been picked up and is no longer next to me.

“Ben?”

“Lyd, wake up.” I open my eyes again. Two nice, pink faces. Maria and Ben.

I’m on the biggest beanbag. My body sinks down into it. Ben is standing by the counter on the other side of The Place with his back turned to me. The kettle is on, and Ben is holding a Dairylea triangle in one of his hands. The wrapper has been peeled down halfway and he’s eating it like a banana. Next to him is a little heap of silver wrappers. There’s a mug on the counter on the other side of him, with a spoon in it. Behind that, there’s an open container of Horlicks. One of my hands is resting against my face. I can feel that there’s a line of crusty saliva going down my chin from the corner of my mouth. Some comes off on my hand and I see it’s white and milky.