She rises, opens the window outward, hears the swoon of matinee music in the road. Winter air teems in on this, the last day of the twentieth century. Cordelia strips naked, pours water from the steel jug, half-fills the basin, wrings out the wash-cloth, soaps her hands, her face. When the pipes burst in late November, she never got the plumber in, broke the ice in the rain-barrel under the shoot and dipped the bucket down. This water is colder than a broken dream. She dries herself and dresses, slowly, in a green dress, fastens the clasp of a platinum locket around her neck. She bends and laces up her flat black shoes, knowing that when this day is over, nothing will ever be the same. In the kitchen she lowers a little brown egg into an old saucepan, puts the kettle on, takes out the stainless-steel egg-cup, its tarnished spoon, the stripy mug and plate, and waits until it’s ready. Somewhere somebody is chopping wood. This kettle always sings before it boils.
