Henry cursed softly and took another step into the dark.

‘I won’t hurt you. I promise.’ His voice was ragged, pretending softness. ‘I just want to see your face. Damn!’ he cursed as he kicked blindly against the bedstand. ‘I said come here, by hell!’

Suddenly there was a sound of hurried footsteps on the landing; I glanced over the bedpost, and there was Fanny, a tray of milk and biscuits in one hand, one eyebrow cocked in cool astonishment. Henry was out of the room in a second; as I saw them together on the landing for the first time I was amazed at how tall Fanny appeared; she dwarfed Henry gloriously, dazzling as some Egyptian goddess. He almost visibly shrank from her, holding out his hands, placatingly.

‘Who’s that in there?’ he asked, his tone almost apologetic.

Fanny’s smile was as bright and cold as broken glass.

‘My niece, Marta,’ she said. ‘She’s ill with the fever, delirious. Why do you ask?’ There was a challenge in the question, but Henry shifted his gaze uneasily, unwilling to take it up.

‘I heard sounds…’ he began vaguely. ‘I…They made me nervous. And she wouldn’t show herself, the naughty thing. I-’ He broke off with a forced laugh. ‘I never knew you had a niece.’ There was a question in the remark.

‘You’ll see her one day,’ promised Fanny. She stepped into the room, put the tray on the bedstand and closed the door.

‘Come now, Henry,’ she said firmly as he seemed to linger, and I heard their footsteps grow fainter as they walked down the passageway towards the stairs.

It was almost dawn when I reached Cromwell Square and I was exhausted, my mind clouded with drink and the savage perfume of that house, a sultry combination of incense, smoke and the feral reek of cats and women. As a penance I had forbidden myself to take a cab home but in spite of it all I felt a continuing sense of filthy satisfaction which no amount of walking could obliterate. She had been young-about fifteen, by no means as young as Fanny had promised-and pretty, with curling brown hair and vivid rosy cheeks. She was no virgin, but was prepared to enact the part for me, pretending her reluctance and even crying real tears for me.

Don’t look at me like that! She was only a whore, paid to do my bidding; if she hadn’t enjoyed it she would have looked for some more decent profession. As it was, a golden guinea soon dried her tears, and it was not ten minutes afterwards that I saw her cheerfully going back upstairs with another customer. Your sympathy is entirely wasted on such creatures, I assure you: from the earliest age they are corrupt beyond belief. At least I was able to slake my guilty thirst upon them, rather than upon Effie. It was for her sake that I did as I did: believe me when I say that in my heart I did not betray her. She was my icon of purity, my sleeping princess…I knew she had the seeds of debauchery in her, but it was up to me to ensure that they should never be allowed to grow. My love could keep her chaste and whatever sacrifices that entailed I was willing to make them for her sake.

Oh, there were lapses. At times her latent sensuality was such that I could not help a momentary weakness, but forgave her her nature, even though she cheapened herself in my eyes, just as I forgave my mother for causing that first unforgivable lapse of mine.

I crept past Effie’s room and opened the door to my own. It was dark and I could barely make out the shapes of the washstand, the bed and the wardrobe in the candlelight. I pulled the door closed behind me and set the candle on the mantelpiece. I stripped off my clothes and turned towards the bed-then caught my breath in shock. In the glimmering shadows I could see a child’s face against my pillow: eldritch green eyes glinting in a fierce and vengeful expression of hatred.

It was nonsense, of course: there was no child. How could it have come into my bed at dead of night? There was no child. To prove it I forced myself to look closer. The livid gaze fixed mine once again; this time I caught sight of needle-sharp teeth bared in a snarl. Recoiling, I grabbed the candle. Dragging the long flame in a streamer of smoke behind me I thrust it at the apparition, spraying hot wax on to the bedclothes and on to my naked skin. The creature leaped at me, jaws open in sibilant defiance-and with a mixture of anger and desperate relief I recognized the thin brown shape of Effie’s cat as it slashed past me into the darkness, vanishing between the curtains and out through the open window.

My face in the wardrobe mirror was mottled with livid marks, and my mouth was bracketed with tension.

I was furious with myself that a mere cat should have caused me such unreasoning terror, and even more furious with Effie, who had taken in the stray on some ridiculous whim. What name had she given it? Tisiphone? Some outlandish nonsense from one of her books, I supposed: I knew I had not found them all. In the morning, I promised myself, I would give her room a thorough search to find what she had been hiding from me. And as for that cat…I shook my head to dispel the image of the face on my pillow, green eyes glaring rank hatred into mine…Only a cat. All the same, I took ten grains of chloral, a new drug recommended by my new friend Dr Russell, before I could bear to lay my head on that pillow.

I remember her cool, strong hand against my hair. Her face in the lamplight, white as the moon. The sounds of her dress; the scent of her perfume, warm and golden with amber and chypre. Her voice, low and calm, singing without words in time to her rhythmic stroking of my hair. Low adown…low adown. Henry was a bad dream, melting away now into a million little teardrops of light. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away a heartbeat stronger than my own: my heart was light as a dandelion clock, counting off moments into a warm summer night like silken seeds. My eyes were closed, gentle dream-thoughts spindling away into the welcome darkness of sleep. Fanny’s voice was speaking very gently, very sweetly, every word a caress.

‘Shh…sleep. Sleep, little girl…so sleepy…shhh…’ I smiled and murmured as the fronds of her hair brushed against my face.

‘That’s right. Shh…Sleep, my darling, my Marta, my love.’

Rocked in the cradle of her arms I allowed myself to drift gently. As she stroked my hair I watched my memories drift away like floating balloons. Mose…the graveyard…the exhibition…Henry…However bright the memory I could will it to float away and, after a time, I saw the bright cloud of balloons, strings entwined, colours glowing in the setting sun. It was such a beautiful sight that I think I spoke aloud, in a lost little-girl’s voice.

‘Balloons, Mother, all floating away. Where are they going?’

Her voice was barely audible against my hair. ‘Far, far away. They’re floating up into the sky, right into the clouds…and they’re all different colours, red, yellow, blue…Can you see them?’

I nodded.

‘Float with them for a while. Can you do that?’

I nodded again.

‘Feel yourself going up…up into the air with the balloons. That’s right. Shh…’

I realized I was beginning to rise without momentum simply by thinking about it. I rose right out of my body, drifting, the peaceful image of the balloons still in my dreaming mind.

‘You floated like this before,’ said Fanny gently. ‘Do you remember?’

‘I remember.’ My voice was no more than a wisp, but she heard.

‘In the fairground,’ insisted Fanny.

‘Yes.’

‘Could you go there again?’

‘I…I don’t want to. I want to go with the balloons.’

‘Shh, darling…it’s all right. Nothing can hurt you. I just need your help. I want you to go back and tell me what you can see. Tell me his name.’

I was floating in a sky so blue that it hurt to look. Over the horizon I could see balloons rising. Beneath me, a long way down, I could see the tents and the awnings of the fair.