Mallaby had not spoken for three and a half years—it was a kind of vow he had made. Granted, he had occasionally spoken to himself: every other month, when in his own company, he might expel the faintest of mumbles, but this, he believed, did not truly count. So long as these expulsions fell on his ears alone, all was well. Though his life was by and large a solitary one, it was not without chance encounters and near brushes. That is to say, a certain degree of effort was required to prolong his silence—he had taken his vow, it had not been bestowed upon him. Indeed, Mallaby believed firmly that one should not mistake incompetence for abstinence. This was one of the many unutterable mottos that he was carrying around with him that afternoon as he walked down Balfour Street. He had meant to hurry along the pavement, but his knees would no longer permit it. The elderly are rarely afforded the luxury of rushing, he thought to himself as he looked up at the towering town houses. He was in truth an old man, though nevertheless considerably younger than any onlooker might have guessed. Loose-fitting, his age seemed to sag from him, as though he had not quite grown into it yet. Mallaby was not wearing well.

At the end of the street, he passed The Tillman, a small pub that he was still in the habit of visiting from time to time. Oddly enough, the regulars seemed to take no offence at his silence. Perhaps because he had never tried to explain it. Caught staring at the gilded lettering above the pub door, Mallaby stubbed his toe on a raised paving stone and came to a halt. Taking out his handkerchief, he hastily coughed up a crimson ball of phlegm before pocketing it. They should really make all of these in red, he almost muttered to himself.

Now stationary, he began to shiver. And then it came back to him, like it always did—his dearest vision. He could only begin to anticipate it after it had already come to pass; he could only ever miss it. To call it a memory would have been misguided—the scene had only ever played out in his mind. And yet this only seemed to lend a greater value to it. He suspected it had once been a dream, but so many years had passed that he could no longer be certain. Truthfully, its origin was by now of little significance to Mallaby. He was already too far down the line. And so he opened up his arms, trembling as the embrace was instantly reciprocated.

A heavy rain was falling—had there been more light, the cobblestones would have been gleaming. The walls on either side of the cramped alleyway were full with people. Hunched over in doorways, or peering down from crowded windows, they sought refuge from the downpour. Some had squashed themselves like clay into whatever cracks or recesses they could find, and were now staring out from within the walls themselves. They all appeared to be awaiting an event of some kind, an event that was interesting enough to demand immediate attention, but not enough so as to warrant standing in the rain. It was possible, after all, that the people did not know what they were waiting for.

Nothing about their appearance suggested that they had any authority over what was about to unfold—these people were only here to observe. He could never recall her approach. All he had to cling to was the exact moment at which she passed him by. Led from behind by a single darkly uniformed figure, she moved over the cobbles with a clumsy dignity. Her steps were taken with confidence, but only halfheartedly left behind, as though she planned on returning later and retrieving them. With his left hand placed on her right shoulder, the uniformed figure guided her forwards with a grim patience. In the half-light, the figure seemed to take on the appearance of a single black wing growing directly out of her back. The people in the walls received her with perfect indifference. No hush fell over them—they were already silent. And so their waiting slipped seamlessly into watching. Such was her majesty, that even those on the balconies appeared to be looking up at her.

And still the rain came down, now in lurching waves. Her hair clung fiercely to her head, as though it were afraid of being washed away in the downpour; her eyes were downcast, making it impossible to tell whether she was using them or not. All this he knew, and yet he could never picture her face. Indeed, the same could be said of the entire scene: it was visual, and yet imageless. If asked, for instance, to try and sketch even one of the many details he treasured so dearly, Mallaby would have simply smiled and crossed his arms—there was no sense in soiling a fine piece of paper.

This general vagueness, or slipperiness, was, however, of no concern to Mallaby. He did not need an image to confirm that which he already knew so intimately. Only one aspect of the vision haunted him, namely his own place within it. No matter how many times he revisited the scene, he could not say with certainty whether he had been standing up against the wall with the other onlookers, or out in the rain with her. This was the one thing in his life that he desired to know most of all—it was the only piece of knowledge that could ever hold any value in his eyes.

It was, to a greater extent, his life.