Breaking Light

by Karin Altenberg

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Steeped in its bleak and beautiful landscape, Mortford is a place of secrets and memories, of bitter divisions and shattered dreams. Returning to this Dartmoor village where he grew up, Gabriel attempts to come to terms with what he lost as a boy so long ago. Slowly the mysteries hidden in this small community on the edge of the moors begin to unravel. But one of Gabriel's memories remains sharper than all the others: that of his boyhood friend Michael, the tenderness of their first summers and the violent betrayal that destroyed it. And, intruding on his self-enforced isolation, the beautiful Mrs Sarobi, meddling Doris Ludgate, and the frightful specter of Jim of Blackaton will become bound in with Gabriel's search for acceptance and the possibility of love. In her striking, lyrical prose, Karin Altenberg imagines what it is to be incomplete. Set in this haunted landscape, a mesmerizing tale is told of the ways in which something once broken in two may, finally, be made whole.

Release date: April 5, 2016

Publisher: Quercus

Print pages: 384

Sample

He stops for a moment, turning the keys in his pocket. A single car creeps past and his gaze follows the beams of its headlights until they pick out one of the oaks at the bottom of the street; its bare branches are veins feeding blood to the dusk. Then the car is gone and gloom settles again over the village. He listens into the drizzle. Nothing.

He turns back into the fractured light cast from a couple of old-fashioned lanterns on either side of the door. Somewhere above, the wooden sign hangs heavily from its chain. He can’t see it now but remembers well the painted hare and fox. He pushes the door open and steps inside, on to a sludgy carpet. To his right, a fire is failing in the grate. There’s a faint smell of wet dog but the space in front of the hearth is empty now, where normally a beast or two would be resting after a walk on the moors. A thin man enters from the room behind the bar and for a moment, as the door swings open and shut, there’s the glare of strip lights and the hum of a dishwasher.

‘Evening.’

‘Can I have a pint of your local draught, please,’ he says, placing one arm on the polished wood of the bar.

The barman pulls the beer. ‘It’s very quiet this afternoon; must be this God-awful weather.’

‘Yes,’ he agrees.

‘Here you go, sir.’

‘Thanks.’ He takes his first sip of the bitter and looks around the room. It’s as good as empty, except for a lonely figure in the corner, reading a paper. A TV with the sound turned off is flickering above the bar and both men stare at it as the news comes on. There’s a photo of a man in his mid sixties. You can tell he is heavyset, although the picture is only showing his face. It’s a bit grainy and the eyes look dull. There’s nothing much to him.

He hears a rustle of paper as the figure in the corner looks up at the screen. It’s a woman – quite small and plump, he notices, but he cannot make out her features.

‘Good riddance,’ the barman snarls. ‘He was an unpleasant fucker; came in here a few times. Never liked the look of him.’

He takes another sip from his pint.

‘They sent him down for ten years. Apparently a new witness came forward. About time, too.’ The barman shakes his head.

‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘it was about time.’

The barman looks at him. ‘You from around here, then – or just visiting?’

‘I’ve just acquired a house down the road.’

‘Oh, yeah? Which one would that be?’

‘Oakstone.’

‘I see.’ The barman falters and looks at him again, more intently this time.

Something touches the air between them, something damp and chill. He hears a dull thud behind him and turns towards the door. Then he stares into the corner again; this time there’s only a shadow – and a newspaper lying open on the table. There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, he realises now that she is gone.

He sighs. The clock behind the bar says five o’clock; two arms reaching out from the heart, one slightly shorter than the other, stunted, damaged.

‘I should get going,’ he says and feels in his pocket for some change.

‘Well, welcome to Mortford. I hope you will drink here again soon.’

He smiles and nods and then looks at the clock again. Five o’clock does not look right, he thinks for the first time; not quite balanced, slightly askew.



Mr Askew looked up from the bed into which he had just pressed a row of scillas and snowdrops – the fragrant kind. Normally he would have planted the bulbs in the autumn, but there had been little opportunity until now. He stretched his back and looked at the neat track of tender blue and white. Like the skin on the inside of a young woman’s arm, he thought. He had decided to divide the small allotment into two parts of unequal size: the larger area would be dedicated to aesthetics – to colour and scent – and the smaller patch to produce, if only for the satisfaction and comfort of the sprouting. He loved the show of stealth and secret strength as the fingers and ears of tender vegetables stretched up through the crust of earth. The previous allotment holder had planted a couple of roses and a viburnum. The latter for a bit of evergreen, he suspected, but he did not care for it – it was a crude plant with little elegance and it had a sweet scent borrowed from more distinguished cousins. The roses were another testament to his predecessor’s lack of imagination.

A woman was working in the allotment next to his. She wore a pea-green veil, partly covering her face, and a red dress with matching leggings showed from under an ugly padded jacket. She worked silently, methodically turning the fragrant soil. Every now and again she would reach for a bucket at her side and fetch a handful of orange peels, which she scattered over

the hummocks of earth. Her movements were gracious as she balanced and swayed like a line dancer between the ridges and furrows of her miniature field. The frail February sun that had come out to warm the earth, taut and exhausted by winter, picked out the flowing fabrics around the thin woman. It played with the folds of her green veil for a moment before swathing her in a shawl of warm light. Mr Askew blinked once and cleared his throat.

‘Ahem, excuse me, madam,’ he mustered, although his voice sounded hoarse. ‘What’s that you’re planting?’

The woman seemed to hesitate in her movements but did not look up, pretending she had not heard. Mr Askew felt the chill of the ground seeping into the bones of his fingers and stood up stiffly to warm his hands in his armpits. He was a tall man with long, heavy limbs and large feet. One shoulder somewhat lower than the other, it was as if he was leaning ever so slightly away from something looming over him. The face revealed less. Unknowable. And the eyes, too dark to read, quickly averted, as if from a mirror. His hair was dark too, almost black under a Coney Island baseball cap, and he wore a neatly trimmed silver moustache that seemed curiously out of place – as if from another era; a forgotten joke. At his age, his joints were a consideration but they had not yet become major indignities and there was no sign of real weakness running through his bones.

She was in her mid fifties, he reckoned, but surprisingly girl-like in her movements. There was a sapling in her lot – a young rowan tree – so tender it was barely distinguishable against the marbled winter sky.

The frosted caw of a crow lanced the air and broke. He cleared his throat so suddenly that she looked up for a moment and the cold light seemed to expand. ‘Did you know that the moor used to be forested, thousands of years ago?’ It was a remark rather than a question. ‘Where are all the trees now? Gone, I tell you.’ Yes, he was telling her and it surprised him. His life was mapped in silence these days. If he had left it unexplored, it was less from idleness than from not wanting to know. Like a box packed long ago and left unopened, the string still tightly knotted.

Now, he thought instead of how the trees had been cleared by prehistoric farmers and how what remained had been used up later as firewood in the blowing houses for smelting the tin, or as timber for shipbuilding. The subject interested Mr Askew, the relationship between human industry and nature. He might have been grinning as he took a shuffling step towards the woman. She pulled her veil closer around her face, tucking in an escaped strand of black hair.

‘So, you see, Dartmoor forest was a wood without trees. You couldn’t see the trees for the forest, aye?’ The joke made him snort but then he grew thoughtful. ‘When it comes to nature, man has only got himself to blame.’ It was the truth as he knew it.

But truth was a tricky concept – one that he had never learnt to enjoy. He was used to being less certain. It was the state of trying to understand that possessed him. Perhaps this was why he persisted in wanting to tell this silently flowing woman about trees. ‘Do you know,’ he continued ardently, ‘that it takes two hundred years for an oak to mature?’ He could feel now that she despised him and that she wanted to leave but wouldn’t; for some reason of her own, she needed to know what he had to say. He said it quickly, as if reading aloud from a book. ‘So it grows for two hundred years, then it sits still, it rests, for another two hundred years and then it dies for three hundred years.’ He was gasping but could not stop himself. ‘I wish we were more like trees, you know. There’s so much in our lives we have to endure – and always in a hurry.’

She had stopped in her track and he knew she had listened. Yet, when he finished talking she gathered her tools into the bucket that had held the orange peels and turned to go. Her movements were soft and floating, defined by the loose fabric under the dull jacket.

‘Ah, well,’ the tall man muttered to himself. He bit at his moustache and pulled down his cap, hoping it would hide his inadequacies.

*

They had seen him, although he was so insignificant against the bleak air, and now Billy Dunford and Jim of Blackaton were leading the chase. Normally, he would escape quickly – or hang back at the end of the lessons and wait until the others had left the classroom, then he would saunter down the hill and sit on the riverbank where he could be alone, concealed by willows and alder. As the river whispered to him, he imagined other children like himself – ones that were different. The ones who, as Uncle Gerry would put it, were not to everyone’s taste. The wrong kind. He would speak to these playmates as softly as the rustle in the leaves and he would use all the words that did not fit into his normal talk: cheerful words like ‘want’, ‘pretty’ and ‘party’, and more complicated and brittle ones like ‘me’ and ‘father’. Once, after having looked around to make sure no one else was there, he said the word ‘love’.

But today, as Miss Simmons rang the hand bell, the underside of her large arm swinging like an udder with each flick of the hand, he had not been fast enough. Thoughtless, he had stopped in the middle of the yard as a flock of geese sculled north over his head.

‘Jump, Bunny-boy! Go on, you ugly freak. I said, “jump”!’

He looked around in panic and knew what was by now inevitable. Going back into the schoolhouse was impossible – it would only make it worse if they thought he was running to Miss Simmons for help. There was a gnarled oak by the furthest wall. He took a deep breath and started towards it. But his legs were not moving as fast as they should. It was like running in a dream, when you run and run until you’re exhausted but your legs do not follow your brain and you realise you’re still in the same place. He could hear them closing in. Part of him just wanted to lie down right there on the tarmac in the yard and let them gather around him. Let their winter boots thump into his flesh and smash his teeth until the pain was so intense it would block out the fear. To be rid of the fear. But he was not brave enough and so he ran. He stumbled once, grazing his bare knees and the heels of his hands against the loose gravel on the tarmac, but he was soon up again and the tree was getting closer.

‘Look at him run, the ugly shit! We are the foxes, coming to get you, Bunny-boy.’

He reached the tree and stretched to grab hold of the lowest branch but his hands were shaking badly. He was sobbing and wiped his wet face on his sleeve as he looked over his shoulder to see his pursuers closing on him. Whimpering with his mouth open, he managed to gather enough strength to swing himself on to the branch, hanging like a koala with his arms and legs clutching the limb of the oak. It made him feel even more exposed and, with a last, desperate effort, he managed to sit up and pull himself, hand by hand, towards the trunk. From there it was easier, so that, when the first of the boys reached the tree, he was already out of reach. Tears and mucus ran into his mouth through the open gap under his nose. It was appalling and made him want to throw up. He knew he was disgusting.

‘Look, he’s crying,’ he heard from below. ‘Bunny-boy is drinking his own snot again. What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you close your mouth like normal people?’

He hugged the tree, his cheek pressing against the bark, which smelt of lichen and dog shit. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine another place – a place where someone would keep him safe.

‘He’s so horrid, his own father couldn’t stand him – he just stayed away when the war was over so that he wouldn’t have to see his freak-boy again.’

Where was the whisper of the river?

‘Why don’t you stay up there until your face grows human?’

‘He’ll stay for the rest of his life, then!’

‘Yeah, that’s right. Let him stay there until he learns to speak properly.’

They all laughed at that and pinched their noses with their fingers, mimicking his voice, their tongues pressed to the roofs of their mouths: ‘Ga, ga, ga.’

‘Hey, gimp, tell us something funny. Ga, ga!’

They were looking up at him, the discs of their awful faces grinning. He might have thrown something at them, an old acorn perhaps, or one of his boots. He could have taken off one of his boots and thrown it down into one of those faces, smashing it so that there was blood everywhere and teeth and pulpy flesh. He would have, if it hadn’t been for Jim of Blackaton, bigger than the others, blond, handsome, holding back, watching over their heads, staring silently with that smile. Looking straight at him and yet somehow avoiding meeting his eyes. It made his skin creep, as if little black beetles with curly legs were walking all over it. What did Jim of Blackaton see when he stared like that? He whimpered again, although he had decided not to, and hit his head against the tree to make it stop making those revolting, vile noises.

‘Well, do you want to say something, eh? Ah, go ooon.’

There was the bell again, and the sound of the boys departing, their laughter and their feet kicking at stones and dry leaves. But he could no longer hear the river. He let himself down from the tree.

*

There was a chill in the air, as if winter had turned on its heels and come back, when he walked down the lane towards the cottage. The façade had been pebble-dashed to give it a durable finish. It made it look harsh and uninviting – like the kind of surface that would rasp your knees if you were pushed on to it. He would have found it less threatening if it had been washed in lime, like the other cottages along the street. He could see the light from behind the drawn curtain in the front room and knew that somehow he would be in trouble. Carefully, hoping to curtail whatever was in store, he pulled down the brass handle and pushed open the door.

Uncle Gerry was smoking in the armchair by the peat fire, a glass at his hand, his long legs stretched out towards the grate.

‘Hello, Uncle Gerry,’ he said with relief.

‘Evening, lad.’ His uncle sounded cheerful. ‘Lost track of time?’

The boy shrugged and dumped his satchel by the door.

‘Good day at school?’

He shrugged again.

‘Hungry?’

He couldn’t say.

‘Isn’t this music sublime?’

He listened to the voice on the wireless. It was a big band and an American woman singing; she sounded beautiful and jolly. Every now and again she repeated, ‘Put the blame on Mame, boys.’

‘Perfection!’ sighed Uncle Gerry and leant back his head so that the lank hair stuck to the antimacassar. The boy’s hair was thick and dark, not fair like Uncle Gerry’s.

He nodded; he trusted Uncle Gerry to know about good and bad.

Then Mother was at the door. ‘Look at you. Do you have to get yourself into such a state every bloody day?’

He sighed.

‘Well?’ Mother sounded tired and he knew it was because of him.

Reluctantly, he turned his attention away from the American lady’s singing and back into the confined room. ‘Sorry.’ He tried to smile at her with his eyes, as his mouth was no good for it.

‘You fell out of a tree again, right?’ Uncle Gerry suggested.

He nodded again, too vigorously. There was blood, he could taste it but wasn’t sure whether it was coming from his nose or his mouth.

‘Aw, don’t let it drip on the floor,’ Mother wailed. She left the room but returned a moment later with the dishcloth. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting it into his hands. ‘And look at those clothes – do you expect me to mend and clean them every night?’ She did look tired; her eyelids were pink but there was something disturbingly colourful about her too, something to do with the lips and the cheeks.

Holding the vile cloth over the hole in his face, he looked down at his clothes. He couldn’t see anything immediately wrong with them, but the wool of his socks had dark patches where his scabbed knee had bled through the yarn, and the bark of the oak tree had settled like dust over his shorts and school blazer. Mother took a step towards him; for a moment he thought she was about to stroke his hair but her hand took hold of his shoulder and turned him this way and that. She pulled the cloth from his face and scrutinised the damage. She avoided looking into his eyes. He let his own eyes drop to her feet. Her ankles in the beige stockings had swollen and bulged over the side of her courts. He felt very tired suddenly and wished he could have rested his head.

‘Filthy!’

The force of her remark made him blink.

‘For pity’s sake. Can’t you see that the lad’s hurting?’ Uncle Gerry’s face looked scrubbed and his eyes did not quite seem to have the room in their sights. It was like that sometimes in the evening. ‘You’re a bloody bitter bitch these days, do you know that? Where’s the old Celia I used to know? She was a really nice girl, and it wasn’t that long ago …’ he faltered.

‘Finished?’ She turned her back to them, smelling perhaps of rose water.

Uncle Gerry sighed and pulled a face; the boy smiled quickly, to make him feel better.

‘Right,’ she said, briskly, over her shoulder, ‘take those rags off and put on your pyjamas. There’s some stew on the stove.’

*

He ate his bowl of stew standing by the stove, his bare feet aching against the flagstones. The memory of blood in his mouth made the lamb taste of rusty bog water, of dark caves, perhaps of death. He shuddered every time he swallowed a mouthful.

Afterwards, he returned to the front room. Uncle Gerry’s chin had slipped on to his chest, but he recovered it as his nephew knelt to put some more peat on the hearth. The fire glowed and glowed, smelling of earth scorched in battle.

The boy spoke first: ‘Uncle Gerry, trees are good, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah, they are good, all right,’ said Uncle Gerry.

‘Nothing bad about them?’

‘No, not that I know of.’

They were quiet for a while as they pondered this; the only sounds the breathing of the peat, the wind in the chimney and the subtle wash as Uncle Gerry sipped his Bell’s. Mother’s resentment persisted in the scullery, as quiet and dense as packed snow. The boy moved closer to the armchair, cautiously resting his head against the older man’s leg.

‘Hey, lad.’

The boy looked up at his uncle, whose face had grown vague in the dull light.

‘You must learn to stand up for yourself, you know.’

Whatever could he mean? The boy was stunned and stared in disbelief. ‘What?’

The uncle cleared his throat and looked deep into his glass. ‘You know what I mean – not take any rubbish from them.’

‘Who?’ Suddenly he felt the old anxiety rising inside him, tightening its grip around his throat. It wasn’t meant to come in here, not into this room where he sat with Uncle Gerry by the fire, where sounds were low and words were soft.

‘Don’t play the fool; you’re a smart boy – the other kids, of course. Don’t give them any opportunity to be nasty to you.’

He felt hot behind the eyes. Was he about to cry? What a freak he was. Repulsive. How much did Uncle Gerry know? Had he guessed at something? Somehow this made it all worse and he wished he were back in the tree. He was choking and stared hard into the fire. He must be better; he must try harder to be normal. Don’t give them any opportunity. He could feel Uncle Gerry looking down at him and shifted away from the armchair.

‘I saw a lot worse in the war, you know,’ Uncle Gerry muttered. ‘At least you have never known another way.’

Never known another way? He had heard them talk about him when they thought he wasn’t listening. ‘Poor kid, used to be so carefree,’ they would say. ‘So anxious and withdrawn lately. Stiffening like a cat when you walk past.’ Stiffening? No, I’m just vigilant. Mustn’t let the guard down. Not now. Not ever.

*

A few weeks later, he was eating grass again. This was one of their favourite games. Billy came up from behind on the playing fields and tripped him so that he fell on to all fours. Jim then put his boot on the back of his head and hissed, ‘Go on, Bunny-boy, eat your grass, it’s the only dinner you’ll get today.’

From where he lay, his cheek pushed hard into the grass, he could see the new boy in the class below his own, watching from a few yards away. There was nothing unusual about this – their play often attracted an audience – but the look on the new boy’s face was different. There was no smirk; instead, his features were closed and unflinching. His eyes were dark, which made his face look very pale. Suddenly, he started forward. He was quite a small boy but his feet were fast and he reached Jim and Billy in a few steps. They were both taller and much bigger. The new boy pushed Jim of Blackaton hard in the side. ‘What are you doing?’ he shouted. ‘Let him go!’

They were all stunned but there was something about the new boy’s gaze at that moment which made Jim of Blackaton lift his foot from his head. Jim spat on the grass, only just missing the new boy’s polished boots, and muttered some obscenities. ‘Ah, how cute. Look at them, Billy. Bunny-boy has got himself a fluffy little friend,’ he leered, but he was more uncertain now and, when the new boy continued to glare at him, he spat again – the corner of his mouth was a bit unsteady – and motioned to Billy. Together, they moved off towards the other boys who were playing football nearby.

During all this, he had stayed as he was, flat on the ground, but now the new boy bent over him and pulled him up by the arm. The new boy looked at him, intrigued rather than accusing. ‘Why did you just take it? Why didn’t you try to get away?’

He shrugged and shook the new boy’s hand off his arm. He looked around quickly. The others would not approve; they must not see.

‘Why were they trying to make you eat grass? It’s disgusting, I tell you. Even my dog wouldn’t eat it – he tried once, but it made him throw up. You should have seen the colour of the puke. He’s dead now.’

He would have liked to have a dog. He averted his face but knew that the new boy had seen it already.

‘I would have kicked back at them, if I were you,’ the younger boy persisted. ‘Right here.’ He pointed at his shins.

He didn’t know what to say but dug the heel of his boot into the lawn. Then, because he had no better alternative, he scrambled after the new boy, who was now walking back towards the schoolhouse. The situation was altogether unsettling and he did not know what to make of it. The boy had seen for himself; he must know by now that he was a freak.

‘I’m Michael.’

He looked up and then quickly down again. What did it all mean? He could feel a warm patch where the boy’s hand had rested on his arm.

‘What’s your name?’ the boy who called himself Michael asked helpfully.

‘Gabriel,’ he whispered.

‘What?’

‘Gabriel –’ this time a bit louder – ‘but my uncle calls me Gabe,’ he managed and at once regretted revealing the nickname. It sounded awful. And his voice.

‘What happened to your face?’

‘I am a mutant,’ he volunteered, in case this was what was wanted.

‘A what?’

Did this new boy, who looked so normal – pretty even – really not know what a mutant was? It amused him and he decided to take a more scientific approach.

‘I am a harelip. That’s why I have the face of a bunny. My palate is cleft. That’s why I speak like an idiot. Sometimes.’

‘Oh,’ Michael said, and after a moment’s hesitation, ‘Can I see?’

Gabriel recoiled as Michael’s face came up close to his. No one, apart from Mother and Uncle Gerry, had ever been that close to him before. He tensed as Michael looked at the hole that ran like a dark gutter from his mouth and into his malformed nose. Suddenly he wanted to protect Michael from it all.

‘It won’t happen to you,’ he assured him, and added, ‘I was born this way.’

‘Fab!’ said Michael.

They started walking again. A group of daisies had opened their eyes to the grey day but the March wind was chilly. Gabriel glanced sideways at the boy who walked beside him across the grass. His school uniform seemed very clean and he had thick brown hair that curled a little at the temples. It was like a tight woolly hat or like the painted-on hair of Pinocchio, Gabriel thought. His eyes were brown, almost familiar.

Michael looked up and smiled. ‘Would you like to come back to my place one day after school? You can try my friendship machine, which decides whether we can be friends or not.’

‘I’d like that very much.’ ‘Tomorrow then,’ he said and started running.

Gabriel remained, dumbstruck, but suddenly remembered: ‘Where do you live?’

‘Oakstone,’ Michael called back without stopping.

Then all was quiet again, apart from the river, which whispered to Gabriel. ‘Stick to your own kind,’ it sang. ‘He is too good for you.’

*

Mr Askew pushed open the metal gate in the low wall that surrounded his new home. He had left the gardening implements in the allotments, as he hoped to be back after lunch. He didn’t really need an allotment, of course – the garden at Oakstone was so large – but he preferred to keep the lawn, which stretched from the house to the garden wall, intact. It was the kind of lawn where gazebos were raised and ladies got their heels stuck after too many glasses of Chardonnay and where you couldn’t find your mini gherkin when it fell off the canapé. To Mr Askew, it served as a barrier and kept him apart from the community, perhaps even safe. It was fringed by a screen of ancient elms and oaks, which rustled gently in the summer and creaked hesitantly throughout the winter. He walked up the gravel drive and recognised that his old, beaten-up Skoda looked out of place. There were weeds in the gravel and the house itself looked curiously unlived in. The green door, so familiar by now, opened up on to the lovely hallway with its floor of diagonal limestone tiles inlaid with black marble diamonds. He sighed as he looked around at all the boxes still waiting to be unpacked. He lifted one, marked ‘my books’, and carried it into the drawing room. The drab winter sun filled the room with an acceptable light. He pulled out his penknife and cut the Sellotape around the box. There it was, the backlist of his academic career, thirty years of research, his only defence against the ‘publish or perish’ device. He smiled as he read their titles – how ridiculously pretentious and wide-eyed they all seemed now:

We Who Are Not Like ‘the Other’

Physical defects in England, 1250–1600

Once We Were Stars – changing perceptions of malformation

Display of Abnormality – malformation and the self

The Bequeathing Beauties of Biddenden – charity in the twelfth century

Duality – a social construct

He opened the last book at the title page, where he saw his own name: an apparent achievement. He hesitated briefly before moving on a few pages; there, solitary in the middle of all that whiteness, was the dedication. He could see now that it looked wrong, exposed and exposing. He shut the book and dropped it back into the box, pushing it into a corner of the room where he might forget about it.

He felt drained suddenly and settled into one of the armchairs by the cold fireplace. He might have nodded off for a moment and the room seemed bleak when he opened his eyes. No, my world is not dull, he thought to himself. It is alive with the thoughts I feed into it. In the shallows of my mind I paddle in the pools of memory. Will somebody come and find me here or have I been abandoned, left behind at the end of the day? Sometimes, he realised, he could not distinguish between the floating of his dreams and the wash of the wind across the moor.

A bird was singing outside the French windows, perhaps an optimistic blue tit or a blackbird showing off. He thought about what to have for lunch. His appetite was no longer what it once was and food now bored him. Ah, well, he thought, I’ll have some soup from a tin. Retirement didn’t bother him – in fact, he relished it. All those years of commuting on the bus from his flat in Swiss Cottage through the congested capital had been hateful. The bodies of strangers, pressed against his, their morning breath on the close air. He had been a timid teacher a. . .