He rarely dreams. He lies beside her most nights and darkness swallows him whole until he is released - sometimes in minutes, in hours, if he's lucky. It gives him opportunities for late nights and early mornings with their daughter, humming things from his childhood. He touches her toes in sequence: hierdie klein varkie gaan na die mark.

The first time he sleeps, it follows work: they smoke a bowl, they write a song - like the old days. It's life in his lungs, in his fingers, once more. The smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed out: "Now, Peter!"

He pinches his nostrils, wiping his nose with a tiny sniff as the door to the toilet swings open. He opens his mouth to apologise, the room is occupied, but her face in the mirror stops the words in his throat. Her laughter still sounds like bells, and it makes his chest feel hollow. She's reached through his skin, cracking apart his ribs, and taken something out. She licks her finger, wiping it along the flat edge of the sink, popping it into her mouth. He knows the question before it comes, but he turns to her regardless.

"Wendy," he said, "don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with myself." Still she would not look up, though she was listening eagerly. "Wendy," he continued, in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to resist, "Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys."

He shakes his head as he sits up, propping himself up on his forearms. "Don't say--" he begins, the crease between his brows deepening. He leans to his side, half of his body hovering over her. "Don't be cross," he pouts, the corners of his mouth turning down. Her expression remains distant, and he shifts lower on the mattress. Inhaling deeply, he fills his cheeks with air as he lifts the duvet from her, expelling it in a noisy burst, lips pressed against her pale stomach. His head rises with a grin and she kisses the corner of his mouth, her red (blonde, wasn't it?) hair stretching across the pillowcase as she lays back down. The flat smells like rain, like the Thames, like ozone and dirt, and the curtains twist as the storm continues.

"This is nice," she says, but that isn't what she means.

"Don't have a mother," he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very over-rated persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a tragedy.

"Amy," he says, clapping his hands enthusiastically, and the movement stops, the toy his sister shakes in front of his face stills in her hand and she stares into his green eyes, studying him closely. "Amy?" he repeats, the smile on his face fading: the first lesson that sometimes you can say the wrong thing. The camera lowers and their grandad's shoes can be seen on the camera, then movement as he seems to walk into another room. From above, his deep voice can be heard calling someone called Trix from the bottom of a staircase.

"It was poisoned," she told him softly; "and now I am going to be dead."

He makes a lap around the party, their party, in their place, losing focus as a noise from the bedroom distracts him. "You alright?" he slurs, leaning against the doorframe, praying someone hasn't decided to vomit on the pile of coats on the bed. A head appears over the top of the bed as her back leans against the frame, arms hanging at her sides. "Sorry," she whispers back, "Can you - ?" He sits beside her, stretching out in the darkness. Nobody should be alone, he thinks, and feels her hand on his cheek, her lips against his neck.

Instead of feeling that he was behaving badly he danced with glee.

He splashes into the water, immediately soaked from foot to shin. They're watching them, and nobody wants to listen. She tells him to get back into the boat, but he doesn't listen. Her voice is calm and even as she tries to talk him down. So is the other one, echoing through the tunnel as though projected from the speakers. He steps into the mouth of a toddler, climbing through to the balcony of the hotel that ruined their lives. The voice reminds him that he hasn't paid his pound of flesh. Maybe he never can. Where were you when I picked up the pieces?

He swore this terrible oath: "Hook or me this time."

"It's all the same. It's all always about you. Nobody else gets a go," Marc says. They are stood outside Abbey Road (again) but the walls look different, the facade replaced by that letter, the words surrounding his childhood friend. They seem to get closer as he shakes his head. He tries to open his mouth, but the hotel letterhead covers that as well, refusing to tear no matter how many times he pulls helplessly at it.

Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her. "Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man."

He sits at a desk, pen in hand. What are you willing to give up? the voice above him asks. When he tries to look up, his eyes are forced into a squint, hand raising to shield himself from the brightness.

Will you let her choose what brought her back?