HENRY woke with these words being muttered to him from a far distance of memory. A very compact poem, but one which moved him unbearably. He tried to see if it would work the other way round; she first deceased, etc., but it did not. The sounds which confused him, along with the words he could have sworn he heard whispered in his ear, were those of a cacophony of seagulls and the irregular heartbeat of the sea, echoing through his room, dragging on the shingle in a series of sighs, drawing him towards the window. The window stood out from the roof in a small bay made for one, angled against the slope of a turret, so that when he stood inside the frame of it, he felt part of the sky. The gulls wheeled round his head, quarrelling and screaming so close that he ducked automatically, convinced it was he who angered them. There was a streak of guano on the glass, blurring the sight of the watery sun. It was paler than pale egg yolk, opaque, almost no colour at all. He lived with such artificial colours, the bright primaries of packaging and pills, colours made for noticing and remembering.
