When she’s gone, he thought, I shall be alone for ever. His heart beat and he was held in the nausea of an awful unreality. I can’t believe that I’m going to do this. Presently I shall get up and go to bed, and life will begin again. Nothing, nobody, can force me to die. Though the voice was no longer speaking from the cave of his belly, it was as though fingers touched him, signalled their mute messages of distress, tried to hold him …
