Chapter One

First the three peaks - Pen y Fan, Corn Du and Cribyn. then the shock of her small neat head with her newly cropped hair; her eyes swapped from the outer view to her own reflection in the sitting room window of her aunt's three story house. She sipped at red wine from an old cut glass goblet; it was dusty tasting even though she'd rinsed the glass out, dusty but warm and slightly off which was all right, even mildly exciting. She'd found two bottles left from a box of Sunday Times wines - special offer.
  She drank two longs draft, arming herself for the night ahead at the pub. There was a little kick of excitement despite the dread, as if she were a teenager or going out on the pull; Teenage Kicks, who was that – The Undertones? She frowned at her small head in the window, surely it was over now, all that reactionary promiscuity. The trouble she'd got herself into a couple of times didn't bear thinking about and at her age it was ridiculous. Crazy, she'd gone a bit crazy for a while but not tonight. That had to be over. She was here to sort out her aunt's house and see that she was being properly looked after in the nursing home.
  It was nearly dark now and she could only just make out the three peaks,hulking against the sky, rather parental she thought, wise; maybe they'd protect her from herself. She grinned at her reflection and quickly turned away. She switched on a lamp and, half blinded, stared round the room. It was like nothing had been touched since her childhood, the same Buddhas, standing figures and heads in stone or metal, lined the top of the Welsh dresser; there was the gold leafed figure of Buddha in his ‘pacifying the relatives pose', hands held up at waist level, palms outwards. And, oh God, that collection of sad brown, doe-eyed, plaster puppies that her grandfather had made from rubber moulds, obsessively, in his garden shed. And there still were the Afghan rugs with their deep red and gold symmetrical patterns. Automatically she scanned the largest one for the deliberate mistake so that the design would not presume to emulate the perfection of Allah. She avoided the group of framed photographs on the desk. Dust lay over everything. The first firework of the night popped and squealed making her jump, Christ, how she hated bonfire night. She downed the rest of the wine, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and went out of the room and up the stairs. It was time to get ready, she'd be meeting Jill in half an hour.
  She had based herself in the guest/spare room although she could have used any of the other three more comfortable bedrooms but none of them felt right. I'm like bloody Goldilocks, she'd thought hating herself for being so fussy. She went up the stairs, the odd one or two creaked as usual which brought on a sickening wave of nostalgia; nostalgia was another thing she hated along with fussiness but it was more painful and made her angrier. She got to the landing and stood stock still, listening, completely alert but frozen as if she was playing Statues and the music had stopped. She thought she'd heard a creak behind her but there was nothing, no one, the house was empty now. She felt suddenly weak and sat on the floor as if her body was just a loosely held-together set of atoms that could separate and fly off in every direction at any minute. She carried on listening like a child at the top of the dark stairs banished to bed early or more like someone whose life had been shattered. The idiocy of continuing struck her like a wet flannel in the face.
  'For Christ's sake move, Helen,' she said aloud. 'Go into the room.'
And then there was Samson, her aunt's half feral ginger cat rubbing against her legs. She rubbed his ears. She'd almost forgotten about him. He pretty much lived outside but tonight he'd had the sense to come in to shelter from the fireworks. She could breathe properly now, he'd broken the spell of nothingness, of disintegration that had wound itself around her. She thought about how he would sleep on her feet, his comforting weight staving off that recurring dream of weightlessness that lingered through the day and made all life seem fragile. Each morning she had to arm herself against the fragility by saying her name out loud and humming and at night she stayed awake as long as possible because in sleep you were disarmed.