She feels exhausted and strained, yet no dream, no echo of the passing of the night lingers. Something is tugging at her memory though, but whatever it is refuses to dredge itself up and confront her. The room’s shadows are lucid but convey no information. She waits motionless inside the cool sandwich of sheets for that phantom just out of her view to come into focus, glimpses its craggy, horrifying shape, holds back, then edges her hand out to feel the blank sheet beside her, as the spectre moves into reach and slowly encompasses her. Barney is dead. It’s the day of his funeral. She has wakened this morning a widow, she doesn’t have a husband any more; she can’t quite believe it and would laugh, just a quick snort of surprise, except that she knows she mustn’t laugh because it isn’t funny. If she laughs, she knows she won’t be forgiven. Forgiven for what? For laughing, she tells herself, then, irritated with the nonsense she’s babbling to herself, she wobbles her head back and forth briskly on the cold pillow to clear it out.
