I went into the cottage, the door was unlocked, and there was Gail Right half asleep in the chair. The fire burned like a spell and there were fresh flowers on the table. Fresh flowers and a table-cloth. New curtains in the ragged window. My heart sank. Gail must be moving in.

She woke up and checked her face in the mirror, then she gave me a little kiss and unwound my scarf.

‘You’re wet through.’

‘I stopped at the river.’

‘Not thinking of ending it all I hope?’

I shook my head and took off my coat that seemed too big for me.

‘Sit down honey. I’ve got the tea.’

I sat down in the saggy armchair. Is this the proper ending? If not the proper then the inevitable?

Gail returned with a pot steaming like a genie. It was a new pot, not the cracked old thing that had festered on the shelf. New pots for old.

‘I couldn’t find her Gail.’

She patted me. ‘Where did you look?’

‘All the places there were to look. She’s gone.’

‘People don’t vanish.’

‘Of course they do. She came out of the air and now she’s returned to it. Wherever she is I can’t go there.’

‘And if you could?’

‘I would. If I believed in the after-life I’d throw myself in the trout-marked river tonight.’

‘Don’t do that,’ said Gail. ‘I can’t swim.’

‘Do you think she’s dead?’

‘Do you?’

‘I couldn’t find her. I couldn’t even get near finding her. It’s as if Louise never existed, like a character in a book. Did I invent her?’

‘No, but you tried to,’ said Gail. ‘She wasn’t yours for the making.’

‘Don’t you think it’s strange that life, described as so rich and full, a camel-trail of adventure, should shrink to this coin-sized world? A head on one side, a story on the other. Someone you loved and what happened. That’s all there is when you dig in your pockets. The most significant thing is someone else’s face. What else is embossed on your hands but her?’

‘You still love her then?’

‘With all my heart.’

‘What will you do?’

‘What can I do? Louise once said, “It’s the clichés that cause the trouble.” What do you want me to say? That I’ll get over it? That’s right, isn’t it? Time is a great deadener.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gail.

‘So am I. I’d like to be able to tell her the truth.’

From the kitchen door Louise’s face. Paler, thinner, but her hair still mane-wide and the colour of blood. I put out my hand and felt her fingers, she took my fingers and put them to her mouth. The scar under the lip burned me. Am I stark mad? She’s warm.

This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it’s getting late. I don’t know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields.