I remember that night - not that I could ever forget it - but I remember it particularly because it came after the best day of my life, the day when I was offered a job I had especially coveted. I put the subsequent events down to euphoria or alcohol - or both - and forgot about them, content to wallow in the suffocating self-absorption which accompanies triumph. The days following my appointment swooned past in a haze of satisfaction - pride mingling with happiness and only apprehension guarding the reaches of my imagination, preventing me from sliding into complacency. So preoccupied was I with my success that I thought little about what happened that night: this may seem strange now, but at the time I was possessed by the joy of advancement and had no room in my life for mystery.

My house was Edwardian. It was built, like many others, in a flush of domestic construction at the conclusion of the First World War. I never understood why that took place: there were so many million lost souls - the body of a generation - churning in the killing grounds of France that one would have expected the homes there were would have been left rattling empty and cold, without the need for new ones. How many rooms there must have been, from Orkney to Jersey, untouched and unloved, waiting for a return which could never be. Perhaps that's why, though: sometimes, you need to expunge memories and start again. So they say.

It was a functional house, utilitarian indeed, and if I take a moment to describe it I hope you will understand that detail is important in this story. Chance does not exist: the world evolves and time dictates. My house was built for artisans, for working men with skills and ambitions, and a sense of place, of duty and worth. They would, in time, become the middle class, inhabiting the comfortable sprawl on the edges of our towns. The rooms were generous by today's standards, but small in comparison to the Victorian terraces a few hundred yards away. My bedroom was upstairs, fronting King's Avenue; it was a refuge in green and pastel, a quiet interlude in a quiet life. Immediately below was the living room, although I rarely lived in it: I preferred the tranquillity of the dining room next door. Facing the garden, with a large, tumbling bank and a straggling beech hedge beyond - bounding me, securing me - it created a cocoon of nature in which I was in control and where the demons of the night were nothing more than the silver glint of a hedgehog's eye. My kitchen was next to the dining room, a small rectangle, my favourite place, cream and filled with chrome. Upstairs was the bathroom and - unused and silently reproachful - the spare bedroom. It was crisp and blue, with a new, pine wardrobe - a carcase which was home to six coathangers and three pairs of unwanted shoes - and a narrow bed, with deep blue quilt and matching pillow cases, covering pillows which had never known the breath of life.

So there you are - welcome to my home. Number 29, that's me.

What strikes me now, thinking of that night, is that I felt no fear. I awoke about three a.m., thirsty and needing the toilet, with the first twinge of a hangover settling over my eyes and brow. I pulled my dressing gown around me and set off through the darkness down the stairs. In the hall at the bottom of the stairs I gripped the handle of the living room door, but rather than enter I paused unconsciously. I didn't know why, but something felt different: the air was cool and smooth, somehow lighter, gentler, and I felt a ripple of apprehension chill down my arms. I opened the door and walked into the living room, but I felt as though I had stepped into another world. The curtains were open and the room was washed by weak light, a subtle, sallow blue, and the small smell of aniseed and cherry blossom filled the air. I was gripped by confusion. The room was mine, the furniture the same, the van Gogh print on the wall offering that familiar insight into its creator's mournful mind, and yet I did not feel at home. The answer became immediately evident.

Seated on the floor, legs tucked neatly under her, was a woman. She was pretty, her skin cool and fair, locks of dark coloured hair falling round her shoulders. Before her was an array of playing cards and I watched as she silently played patience. She was slow and intense, pondering every card, assessing the opportunities before discarding each one with an air of quiet resignation. I knew she had seen me - the occasional flick of her eye in my direction gave her away - but she paid no heed and continued her game.

She was about eighteen or nineteen, her features as yet unformed, devoid of experience. Her body was slight, with narrow shoulders and long, thin arms. She wore a pale coloured nightdress, and in the lambent light I could see the shape of her left breast through the thin fabric. It was tiny and girlish, with an upturned nipple, and I felt a twinge of desire and regret.

"Who are you?" I asked.

She stopped, her hand in mid-air, in the process of revealing the Queen of Hearts. She remained motionless for some moments before raising her head and looking in my direction. Our eyes locked, and I will never forget her expression. It was lost - that's the only way I can describe it. Her eyes were dark and filled with emotion, but I sensed the seat of that emotion was a million miles away. Enlarged pupils told of pain, but her irises - soft, gentle - appeared to bathe them in comfort. The patient curve of her mouth hinted at peace but divulged little joy. She neither smiled nor frowned and yet I saw in her echoes of laughter and tears. She was, simultaneously, the most content and the most unhappy person I had ever seen.

I smiled. I felt I needed to. "Who are you?" I repeated.

She made no reply, but lowered her head to her game once more, reluctantly discarding the Queen of Hearts after a considered attempt to accommodate her. It felt as though there were a wall between us. It felt as though I were no longer there.

Like an intruder in my own home, I thought it impolite to pass her and go to the bathroom. "Sorry," I said and turned to the door. I would have liked her to reply, but she made no sound. Quietly, I returned to bed.

I didn't see the girl again for a few weeks, which isn't to say she wasn't there. On the contrary, from that first night I felt her presence constantly: the air was different - milder, somehow - and I grew to know and love the smell which accompanied her - so sweet and fresh, a reminder of spring blossom and crisp hope and the brittleness of morning light. I even took to greeting her when I returned home from work and shouting goodbye in the mornings as I departed. Increasingly, each time I called to her I hoped she might reply, but although I sensed she could hear me, she chose - for reasons known only to her - to remain hidden, a spectral spectator.

My new job, in which I had invested so much hope, did not prove to be the unfailing success I had envisaged. As the days until my starting date flitted by - frittered away in a haze of anticipation and longing - I had grown increasingly excited by the prospect of a new beginning. I spent those days fantasising about the future - imagining the satisfaction of a job well done, of a team well led. It all seemed so easy, so clean, no problem too difficult to resolve. The reality, as is so often the case, proved somewhat different.

"You shouldn't have got this job. It should have been mine. I've worked here ten years: I earned that job."

The first inkling that something was amiss came on my first day. Helen, my assistant, hissed those words at me, barely before the echoes of my introduction had ebbed away. She faced me defiantly, her eyes small and hard, encouraging confrontation.

"I'm sorry you feel that, Helen. It was an open interview, and I expect they deliberated long and hard before making a decision. I hope we're going to be able to work together. I value your experience and 3;"

Helen did not want to hear my platitudes. She turned her back decisively, pausing for a meaningful moment before walking away. A chill swept through my body and fear rose in my throat. Ten minutes into the job and I had made an enemy. I mentioned the incident to my supervisor, but she laughed it off. "Don't worry," she said, "Helen will come round, she's just a bit peeved." I had my doubts. Certainly, she would have been peeved when she was overlooked at interview, but that was some weeks before: to be still harbouring resentment boded ill, I thought, but I kept my fears to myself. I didn't like to cause a fuss.

Over the coming days I was proved right. Helen gave no indication of being willing to forgive or forget. She remained sullen and resentful, her approach churlishly unhelpful without being insubordinate. Her stratagem was cunning, based on exposing the gulf between her own - undeniable - experience and mine. One incident stuck in my mind. As property agents we were responsible for maintaining buildings. This included ensuring adjoining premises did nothing which would reflect badly on our clients. In one of our properties, the building next door had been so poorly maintained it was virtually derelict and had become home to junkies and vagrants. Our clients wanted the building to be compulsorily purchased by the local Council and instructed us to commence discussions. There was little prospect of the Council agreeing, at least not without protracted negotiations, but we had to start somewhere. I announced to my team that I was going to meet the Chief Planning Officer.

"If you think that's wise," replied Helen patronisingly. She said nothing more, letting the words hang in the air. Of course, it was wise - and necessary - but Helen knew, in the short term at least, that it was bound to fail. Her withering response had ensured that the inevitable failure would be associated with me. Each one of us in the room could almost hear the future strains of 'I told you so' gathering in the air, waiting until they could be unleashed on my hapless head.

It was around then that I saw the girl again. I suspect it may have been that very night because, to drown the disappointment of the day, I drank a bottle of wine when I got home and I always have to get up in the night if I do that. I knew instantly as I treaded the stairs, gripping the banister for support, that she would be there: that same mellowness pervaded the air, the smell of cherry blossom and aniseed stronger - more enticing - than ever. I entered the living room and there she was, playing patience, seated as before with her legs tucked beneath her. She exposed each card with exquisite care, her long, thin fingers drawing it from the pack into her hand; as she rolled her wrist and turned the card upwards, she appeared to stroke it, as though caressing the face between her thumb and forefinger. She barely moved, affording her slight body a sensuous grace. Occasionally, she would raise her head, stretching her neck back, and shake her long, curled hair from her face. There was a moment, when her hair settled and before she lowered her head once more, when she presented the most beautiful image I could ever imagine. It was aching, a solemn perfection, a vision of beauty the sight of which stilled my thoughts, slowed my mind, until everything stopped and I found that I could focus only on her. In the grey-silver of the night the moisture on her lower lip gleamed as though beckoning a kiss; her eyes, pooled in shadow, dark and intense, spoke of melancholy, hinted at peace.

"Aren't you cold?" I asked. It was early May, but outside a late frost was gathering, draping itself across the stillness of the night. The girl wore only her nightdress, a flimsy summer thing affording her nothing but modesty - and, in truth, not much of that. As before, my eye was drawn to her breast, a gentle outline, the merest parabola, the deftest deviation from the flatness of her belly creating a subtle, sensual image of beauty. It was topped with a pointed nipple, long and tilting upwards as though crying for attention. The girl made no reply, but continued with her game. I sat in my armchair and watched, unable to tear myself from her. Her game seemed never to end: she neither won nor lost, but drew each card lovingly into play. It was timeless, ageless, a breath from the past enlivening a moment of the present. I felt happier than I had for weeks, since I had started my job, and with each passing second, each turning card, I relaxed into the tranquillity of the girl on the floor, playing cards.

"Who are you?"

She turned to me and blinked reproachfully. The vaguest echo of a smile played on her lip, a delicious dimple fracturing the smoothness of her cheek. She looked away, into the fireplace, staring at the cold grate as though she could see its flames and feel its heat. Finally, she spoke to me.

"I live here," she said. "This is my house." And quietly, assuredly, she returned to her game.

2. Something of ecstacy

Choice and reason.

Reason and decision.

Decision and consequence.

From every consequence a further choice, another thought, assorted inclinations. The path of your life can be tracked, like a family tree, through each generation of thought and decision, tracing back, back over years, over layers of life, to one colossal, vaunting decision - the fulcrum, the start of it all. And if that decision were wrong? Well, then you're destined to follow a bastard strain, each choice - regardless of whether, in itself, it is right or wrong - condemned by its genesis to illegitimacy. Or so I tell myself. Time dictates, the present relates, the future is predicated in the past. And yes, it is a tainted future, it seems to me, tainted by failure, by error, by omission, and no measure of success can erase such a taint. So many choices in my life - most of them, I swear, right - and yet for what? To what end? I seem always to be beset by wrong reasons, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And how may it change?

After the second visit, I saw the girl almost every night. I grew to enjoy her presence, although she did not speak again. "This is my house," she had asserted, and clearly she felt no further need to justify herself. Nor did I wish her to. Although I spoke freely, I did not expect answers and was not disappointed when none came. I would tell her of my day, unburdening myself of the concerns which were growing inside me regarding my job. She would listen, still carefully studying her cards, cautiously sliding a jack underneath its queen or discarding an unwanted number. She would listen, and in the act of listening she shared my load. I grew to rely on those sessions in the small hours of the morning, with the girl and me and the pale silver moonlight, and the sweet, soft smell of cherry blossom and aniseed.

I was sleeping for only three or four hours per night, and after a few weeks I began to feel exhausted. Phoning in sick was a delicious regret, a delightful guilt, a fabulous escape. Throughout the day I would doze and read, potter and amble, alternating between euphoria and deep-seated misgiving that I was closing my mind to the problems I faced. But then the night would come, and so would she, and my fears were dispelled, my concerns assuaged, my spirits lifted anew. Although she never spoke again, I felt she understood, felt that she had grown to be my friend, my companion: there was something of ecstacy in that companionship. I grew to love it. I grew to need it. Watching her, as the shadows slid over her nose and shoulder, basking her in mystery, as her eyes receded in hollows of unfathomable depth, I was mesmerised by her beauty, by the calm, unhurried hauteur in her manner. I watched her fingers caress the cards and wished the cards were me; I discerned the outline of her body through her gown and ached to trace it with my palm; I saw the flash of life upon her lips and sought to kiss them, love and cherish them, plant my cheek to hers and rest, with her, forever.

I truly came to life at night: during the day I felt as though I were treading water, merely waiting for the night to return. Work was becoming very difficult. Helen continued to snipe and belittle me. Worse than that, she started to do it in front of the others, deliberately trying to undermine my authority. At first it had no effect, but gradually I could sense them turning against me. Friendly smiles turned to blank stares and finally to insolent smirks. Tea break conversations ceased to include me, my observations ignored. And social plans, to which I was once party, were hatched in secrecy, away from my presence.

I didn't mind that I wasn't their friend, as long as I remained their manager, but that authority, too, began to wane in the face of Helen's concerted campaign. Increasingly, my decisions were questioned, instructions greeted by ominous silence. I knew my frequent absences didn't help, but the more they rebelled against me the more I felt the need to escape. And in those moments I could think only of the girl, of her meek companionship, of the ecstacy she brought.

I knew I had irretrievably lost their trust one Friday morning when Jane, the youngest and quietest of the team, reacted to a simple instruction with venomous fury: "Isn't it about time you were off sick again?" she spat. "Must be at least a fortnight since the last time."

I went home sick that afternoon.

I spent two hours in the bath that evening, replenishing the hot water four times. With my head under the surface, the soft rumble of the lapping water in my ears and its velvet touch stroking across my eyes, it was easy to lose myself. I freed my mind of thought. So unwilling was I to face reality, I didn't even wish to see the girl that night, and when I had dried myself and folded my dressing gown around me, I resolved to go straight to bed and remain there until morning. I slept fitfully, Jane's comments replaying in my head over and over. Turning from side to side, I tried to coax myself into sleep; lying on my back I sought to relax my body, concentrating on each finger, toe and limb in turn, feeling myself loosen and lighten until I imagined that I was floating. But each time I felt myself drift towards subtle sleep, Jane's words would return, stabbing at my heart, plaguing my mind. And then, in compensation, my thoughts would increasingly become filled with the girl. She would be down there now, playing cards. I could go and talk to her, dazzle myself with her innocent beauty. My head tossed on the pillow, brain fizzing, heart racing. Before long I was completely awake and unable to think of anything but the girl: despite my earlier resolve, I found myself - as, deep down, I knew I would - sliding downstairs once more.

The room smelled of aniseed and snow and pine cones, fresh and vibrant and pure. A cautious moonlight, tempered by cloud, slanted through the window and across the floor. The girl was seated in her customary position, legs tucked to the side, but she looked up as I entered and nodded imperceptibly. I fancied there was the trace of a smile on her face.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello," she replied. It was the first time she had spoken since the occasion, on the second night, when she told me it was her house.

"How are you?"

"Fine, thanks." She held the pack of cards in her left hand, right thumb resting lightly on the uppermost one. In front of her was a row of seven cards, face down, and one of eight cards, also face down. She gestured to them. "Gin rummy," she said. "You to start."

I sat beside her and gathered my cards breathlessly. It was difficult to concentrate on the game and I lost easily, but I didn't care. The girl was talking to me, playing with me. After all this time - perhaps two months since she had first appeared - she had finally decided to acknowledge me.

"You don't look very happy," she said.

"Bad loser," I joked. She smiled, a broad grin creasing across her face. I was closer to her than I had been before and I was beguiled. She had the smallest ears I had ever seen and her skin was pale and smooth. As she smiled her eyes came to life, filling her face with form and vitality. Her hair was sleek and smooth, curled in sensuous waves around her shoulder, the ends trailing provocatively down her throat towards her breast. I knew my hands were shaking as I played my cards, but I could do nothing to prevent it. I was overawed. She made no further comment about my mood; instead we chatted lightly about nothing in particular, all the while playing game after game of gin rummy; and when we tired of that we played whist. It felt as though the night would never end; and, in fact, it did last for a week. Work was transient: but hers was a companionship I wanted to continue forever.

3. Dwelling with me

She stayed with me, she chose to stay with me, and through her I felt anew the pangs of first love, the memory of innocence. Everything outside her company felt dull and gaunt. The girl, by contrast, offered only sweet things. I fell in love. There's no other explanation. We sat and played and talked all night - every night - and yet I knew nothing about her, not even her name. Somehow, it didn't seem appropriate to ask and she never offered. She was my girl, that was all that mattered and I longed, how I longed, to be hers in return.

As my domestic contentment grew, so did my problems at work. I knew I was losing control but I could do nothing about it. Helen had worked her poison on the staff, while my increasingly frequent absences did nothing to repel the criticism. At first, I tried to win them round - to prove my competence and earn their respect - but slowly I realised I was losing. They held meetings in my absence and made decisions without consulting me. When I queried them, they would stare at me insolently and reply that it happened when I was off. "We had to make a decision on your behalf. Why, don't you agree with it?" Always, of course, I did agree - they were a competent team, after all - but with each transaction my useful contribution to the team was diminished. I knew I was being driven out, but I didn't have the stomach to fight it.

I sought solace in the company of the girl. Always, she provided a night-time antidote to the horror of the day, sitting in chiarascuro splendour in the living room as I entered each evening, the air fresh and clear, cards dealt in readiness for our game. Whatever my mood, she was cool and calm, as sensuous as a lover but as chaste as a child, and though we grew closer and closer, yet there remained no intimacy between us. It was as though a gossamer wall, invisible and untouchable, lay between us, separating our hearts, trammeling our emotions. I tried everything to attract her attention. I flirted shamelessly, but my suggestive remarks, rather than soar in passion, sank to the ground as leaden, worthless speculations; I trailed my hand tenderly against hers when we exchanged cards, feeling the electric cool of her skin, but those gauche gestures elicited no response; I began to dress provocatively, forsaking pyjamas and dressing gown for plunging nightgowns and silky negligees. Each time I did so I felt worthless, disappointment coursing through me as I compared my desperate and clumsy attempts at seduction to the coolness of her demeanour; each time I said it would be the last, but the next day I would buy something else, diaphanous or sheer, alluring, enticing; and each time she would continue regardless, making no comment, affording no extra glance in my direction.

I think I knew it would happen, but I burst into tears and came close to fainting when it did. As I walked through the office towards my manager's room, Helen, Jane and the others watched me: there was a curious, knowing expression on their faces, and even yet I can't shake off the suspicion that they already knew what awaited me. That's probably the most painful thing of all: knowing that management had been discussing me with my team and dropping hints about what they intended to do.

I was dismissed. Poor attendance was partly the reason, they told me, but in my five months I had failed to show sufficient grasp of the complexities of the position. How could I argue, even when it wasn't true? I had failed and I knew it; I had known it all along, known it, perhaps, from the day I was born. Returning to my desk, I switched off my PC, gathered my belongings and walked out of the office, trying to deny the cheers I could hear in my wake. With tears streaming down my face I returned home.

The girl was there when I opened the door, standing in the living room. It was the first time I had seen her in daylight: her dark hair was brilliant auburn, her cheeks palely pink and her eyes vibrant green. She seemed to shimmer, a humble haze around her, an aura of perfection. I started to cry once more and attempted to explain.

"It's okay," she said. "I know. Come to me."

Mutely, I folded myself into her arms, feeling the cool warmth of her body, the fragile solidity of her support. She embraced me, stroking her hand across the back of my head, nestling it against her shoulder. I felt her cheek against mine, her lips grazing against my skin, and she kissed me, kissed my cheek. Dragging my hair away from my face, she kissed me again, nuzzling her nose against my ear. I felt her breath wash across my mouth, a cool balm against my lips. She gathered my head in her hands and pulled me away, her eyes staring into mine. Tenderly, she brushed the tears into my skin and smiled. With the same sensual deliberation with which she had turned her cards, she pressed towards me and brushed her lips against mine. We remained, touching but not kissing, for some moments as though, through that touch, she were imparting some of her strength; then she opened her mouth and spread it against mine, her tongue reaching towards me and we embarked on the sweetest kiss, the virgin's touch.

She took my hand and led me upstairs. Deftly, she undressed me and lay me on the bed. I watched helplessly as she slid her nightgown over her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She smiled and stood before me, letting me drink her beauty: her breasts, tiny and tipped in pink, stood proud and firm and her belly was plump. She joined me on the bed and we lay, side by side, touching but not touching, waiting to begin, waiting to make love. Head to head, we nestled close, our noses together, our lips drawing nearer and nearer until we kissed once more. It was savage and tender, beautiful, the sweetest thing, just as it was the first time, the first time, but oh, so much nicer. I felt like a girl, embarking on the unknown, a girl who had never encountered despair or grief or disappointment. She trailed her tongue across my jaw and down my neck, towards my chest, kissing and kissing, sliding and stroking until she reached my breast. Her teeth fixed around my nipple and she drew it into her mouth, tongue dragging against it, teeth biting, sucking harder and harder. Her hand slid down my belly and rested on my mons, fingers stretching through my bush towards my slit. I lay back and felt the love of hope, and the hope of love, for the first time in many, many years.

4. Settling shades

Zenith and nadir: simultaneous extremes, symbiotic and symbolic. High and low, I knew them both, they settled in my heart, branded my brain, a twin assault of joy and pain. And I sat, day after day, in my autumn-browned house and let my spirits loose. I lost control for a while, I freely admit: I never left the house, nor ate, nor slept; my days were full of unhappiness, the memory of dismissal so strong, so wretched I could not shake it from my mind. But then the evenings - and the girl - intervened and my heart soared, I became a new person. Or, rather, I reverted to an old person. Whichever. Whatever.

I don't know if I thought it could last. I doubt I considered it that closely. Night after night, the girl and I made love. She held me and caressed me; she kissed me and entranced me; her tongue knew every inch of my body, her breath enlivened every pore. I sank into her, absorbing her passion as an antidote to the pain of the present. And I wanted it to last, I have no doubt of that. When her mouth was on my breast, or her hand on my thigh, or her breath moist against my belly, I wanted ours to be a union that lived forever. I wanted my little house to be my world, my bed to be my palace, my future to be my past. Oh yes, I did, so very much I did.

But that was all three months ago. Now, in December, the world seems fatally different: more brittle, impermanent, a broken and imperfect vista, inhabited by a chill loneliness far removed from the gentle echoes and russet moods of autumn. In winter, ghosts are cold and hard.

Sometimes, you live through events which you know will change your life; sometimes, you blunder on without realising it; and sometimes, sometimes you know what's happening, but don't understand. One evening the girl didn't appear. I came downstairs as usual, but found the living room empty, her place on the carpet horribly bare. Instantly, a pain shot through me, as though part of me had been amputated, and I cast around the room helplessly, seeking solace. I was reassured, however, by the continued presence of her smell, the scent of sweet aniseed and fresh grass which always accompanied her: as long as that remained, I thought, my girl, too, would remain. And, indeed, she returned the next night, and her lovemaking seemed especially tender, particularly solicitous, her fingers and lips tracking lovingly across the contours of my body. Nirvana was restored but, a week later, she disappeared again, and then again and again; each time she would return the following evening, smiling, arms outstretched, ready to embrace me and dispel my cares, and I relinquished my fears and forgave her temporary desertion. In November, that stunted month of frosts and little deaths, she disappeared for a week on end and for the first time I was forced to contemplate a future without her: in those increasingly frantic days only the unbroken, lapping fragrance of aniseed - that fragile connection with my beautiful girl - prevented me from going mad. Nonetheless, my health suffered: when she was there, all my energies were devoured by my nightly encounters; and when she wasn't, my brain stalled in a continuous loop of agitated concern. I had no capacity for real life and rarely left the house. I didn't eat, took no exercise, let my body run on its reserves, until a protracted bout of dizziness forced me to visit the doctor. A rest cure was prescribed: "take a holiday," she said; "walk in the country. Get some air in your lungs and colour in your cheeks." And so I went home, for the first time in twenty years, the first time since the decision - ah, but how things would have been different had I not made that decision. If only, if only. Some people's worlds are constructed on if only. I had no brothers or sisters - for which read lonely - and I existed mostly in my own head. The original solipsist, that was me, someone too shy to break free from my own shackles or confront a world which might conceivably be bigger than my own. The world moved too fast for me, that was the trouble: if only opportunities could develop more slowly than time itself, giving the timid respite from their fears in order to allow them to grasp a second chance. But no, fallen leaves may grow no more. Chances slide, futures shape. Mine did, anyway, that day twenty years before. But I don't talk about that.

The place of my childhood was a small town, five thousand souls or so, and little changed in the years of my absence. The high street, all granite and Calvinist spite, stood aloof from the quiet bustle of the townsfolk, as though tolerating them with ill-grace, while on the hill the sturdy terraces spoke of wealth and misery in equal measure. Perhaps I'm jaundiced, but it wasn't a town you could call home. And yet, I felt oddly reassured by its very lack of affection: where there is no love, nor can there be disappointment.

I went for a long walk on my first afternoon, in excellent spirits. I had been worrying about the girl as I embarked on my holiday: her hold on my house was loosening, her visits growing increasingly irregular and her peculiar smell waning, and I was concerned that she would disappear entirely during my holiday; but as I checked into my hotel room I was pleased to discern that her aniseed smell had followed me, however faintly, and dared to hope that she might come to me that evening. And so, with that thought wafting through the recesses of my mind, I traced the routes of my past, marvelling at how small things seemed, how disconnected. I had no plan, but simply wandered, following my feet, following my senses. Before long, as I might have anticipated had I thought about it, I found myself on the edge of town, sauntering down a sharp hill which slid comfortably into open country and looking across crisp fields towards The Birches.

The Birches: my old home.

It was a fine house, a stone built mansion far grander than its setting, deposited between a cemetery and a weeping river. From its four storeys it stared haughtily over the lane and fields, woods and riverbank, giving the impression it would outlive them all. It had high wooden shutters to protect its windows from wind and rain and outside interference; I used to close mine when the world threatened to intervene, creating my cocoon, building my release. The house was indestructible, and so was I while I was in it. With my first glimpse in so many years I began to realise how much I had missed it, and how much I had craved to see it again.

My heart began to race as I walked towards it, along the rutted path beside the cemetery. The sun was behind it, low and shallow, throwing its front elevation into shadow. With each advancing step it loomed, every darker, before me and I felt as though I were treading towards my past, the path leading me back to another me. I knew this path so well, the way it skirted the shallow bank and bounded the cemetery, like a bridge between the known and the unknown. Images floated into my mind, refugees from my childhood, memories of summer and warmth and laughter, beguiling me with their gaucheness and crisp chromatism, gently guiding me backwards. And yet, despite my contentment as the past unfolded before me, subtle differences began to appear. The path, never well maintained, was being overrun by weeds and riven by potholes. To my left, in the distance, instead of the trees which had comprised my childhood adventure world, a gaggle of houses sat guiltily, occupying a space which wasn't theirs. And, before me The Birches, my refuge, my rock, was growing not as it should - more solid - but somehow less assured.

I stood before it, before the familiar door - still painted blue as it had been those years before - and looked up at windows through which my youth had unfolded: my mother's bedroom on the right and mine above, and the kitchen to the left, with grand staircase and giant landing occupying the middle. The sun was directly behind, making it difficult to see, but I craned my neck and peered through the massive staircase window, aware that I had all but stopped breathing. What I saw amazed me, instantly lifting and transporting me back to the days of my childhood: the wallpaper was ours, red-brown and gaudily patterned; and the carpet, too, was the same, black spirals on a bright red background, turning the stairs - I always fancied - into an evocation of the descent into hell. I stared, rooted to the spot, scarcely able to believe what I saw: the hall was completely untouched since I had lived there, twenty years before. Through the kitchen window I saw that it, too, was unchanged, the clinical blue walls casting an icy pallor across the aspect of the room. And likewise my mother's bedroom, high-walled and cream, a huge space - like a forest clearing, I used to think - untouched, unchanged.

My hands were shaking. The house was almost identical to how I last saw it: standing before it, peering into its shell, was like observing my own childhood. Nostalgia washed through my body, making it sing with joy. I laughed aloud, almost skipping with excitement. I pictured the Christmas tree on the first floor landing, ten feet high, parcels laden around its base, its smell infusing the house with the innocent anticipation of Christmas. The bathroom was behind it, to the right, and oh, how cold it was! Linoleum floor and a huge enamel bath which took half an hour to fill, but what pleasure to descend from the chill of the room into its silky warmth. The blue room, the special room, for visitors only, high days and celebrations, when the out-of-tune piano would be assaulted and Edelweiss would fill the house. Memories flooded through me; details, details I had forgotten, details which I should never lose again. Such an important thing, detail.

I was overtaken by my senses. I had to see it. Just once more. The unexpected opportunity to re-live my childhood overcame any notion of common-sense and I walked towards the door. The handle shook lazily in its latch, just as it always had, and for the first quarter turn it felt as though nothing were happening, before it caught and I felt the mechanism spring into life. The door swung open and I stood before the little hallway - dark and cold - which for so many years had been the entrance to my life. At the end, facing me, was a picture of a country landscape, ten feet wide and five feet high, and I began to cry. My mother had bought it thirty years before, but when she got it home she hated it so much it was banished to the bottom of the house where it would only be viewed in passing. It always struck me as the cruellest punishment for a piece of art to be relegated to a place of transit. In the corner of the picture was a little girl in a blue dress, picking flowers, a garland of daisies around her neck. I smiled. My little friend, my alter-ego, eternally happy, forever bathed in sunlight. I stroked my finger across her, as I had done ten thousand times before, and turned to the stairs.

They rose straight for about a dozen steps until they reached the huge central window, then turned through one hundred and eighty degrees towards the first floor landing. I had forgotten that the red carpet did not extend across the entire width of the stairs, but rather occupied only the middle, with a painted border framing either side. As the stairs turned, the left-hand border grew until, at its extent, it was wider than the carpeted area. It seemed so clear now, but I knew I would have described it wrongly: I was pleased to have my memory corrected. Gripping the banister - sound oak, with intricately shaped metal ornamentation beneath - I began to climb.

It was disconcerting to see the way my past mingled with someone else's present. There were differences: a sideboard sat where the telephone table should be; a hideous standard lamp impeded access to the blue room; and the central lampshade was different - smaller and, in truth, far nicer than ours had been. Yet other details remained - the mirror on the far wall was the same and still hung as crookedly as it had those years ago. Its silver had worn in the right corner, tarnished almost black, and I realised the damage was getting worse, the extent of the tarnish far greater. The carpet, too, was worn and frayed, long strands of nylon underlay streaming down the stairs like seaweed across a rocky outcrop. My emotions twisted and turned, veering from delight to curiosity, from surprise to alarm, and finally to vague despondency.

I had thought I was going back. As I entered my old house - unchanged from when I had lived there - I felt a surge of excitement, as though I were tricking time, reclaiming my childhood. But standing in the hallway, inspecting the casual neglect and the evidence of years, it became clear that I wasn't. Stepping into the kitchen, I exclaimed as I saw the old benching against the wall, just as it had been, except the formica cover was worn and thin, the paintwork dishevelled, handles hanging loose. The house was careworn, the wallpaper peeling, the paintwork cracked. My poor house, I thought, what have they done to you? Why can't they look after you properly?

"What the fuck are you doing?"

I was startled out of my reverie by a voice, barking and strident. I turned and saw a woman, her eyes angry, posture threatening. She was short and fat, her complexion red, her hair unkempt, and she was not pleased to see me. "Who are you?" she shouted.

"I'm sorry," I explained. "I didn't mean any harm." She continued to stare and I stumbled on. "It's just - I used to live here, years ago."

The woman snorted dismissively. I wasn't sure whether she believed me or not, but even if she did she was not interested. "Well, you don't live here now. Fuck off out of my house before I call the police."

She moved towards me threateningly and I raced past her into the hallway. I galloped down the stairs, past my mother's unloved picture, down the entrance hall and into the street. Without looking back, I walked away from the house. It may once have been mine, it may have represented my past but, I finally realised, tears forming in my eyes, the past was past.

5. A far-off skeleton

The next morning was meek, a nothing day at the end of the year, too tired for sun, too slow for rain. A heavy fog hung in pockets around the town and even the clear areas seemed overcome by weariness. I had the strangest feeling - I'll never forget it, though I wish I could. Something was going to happen, a climax was coming, and I think I knew what it would be. Yes, I think I knew.

I walked that day. Straight after breakfast I left the hotel and headed out along the Landry Road towards the quarry. It was a favourite walk. From back then, from days gone by, another world. It had changed so much - blighted by houses and development where once had been my trees and hedges, fields and meadows. Mock Tudor and charmless, the houses were blisters on the land, scabs covering my memory. There had been a brace of apple trees at the end of the lane: when I was thirteen I got stuck in them while stealing apples and was caught by Mr Jackson. I got into such trouble for that. It was gone now. And beside it had been a dirt track where Jackie and I used to ride our bikes, especially when it was wet and we could skid messily through the puddles. Gone, gone.

I smiled as I cried. Each memory was harder to recall, dwindling, fading: I've always prided myself in my good memory, but it is a fitful thing, dimming as the days draw by. I used to worry, concerned that if I lost my memories - any of them, however trivial - I would lose myself, and obsessively tried to catalogue the history of my life. But organising the past leaves little time for negotiating the present. I walked past the scene of my youth and told myself it didn't matter that it no longer existed. Ideas were swooning around my head, and they were not especially palatable. It occurred to me that I was happier with the past than the present: I would rather have already experienced something than undergo the experience itself. I preferred my days to pass quickly so I could contemplate them at leisure: I had lived my life second hand, like tourists who view their holidays through the lens of a video camera and only appreciate what they saw when they return home. Before, I would have been upset to see my childhood world disturbed like this, but a change was coming over me. I felt sanguine, resigned.

Finally reaching the end of the new town, I headed into the woods which led to the quarry, breathing a sigh of relief as I soughed from myself the bane of the present: the past was becoming a stranger to me, but I was still unprepared for the present, and the quiet shade of the woods, untouched in decades, was a gentle balm. Pockets of fog lingered in the hollows and whispered alongside the stream, and morning dew still dressed the wood avens and cow parsley and slowly rotting vegetation. A spider's web, etched silver with ghostly dew, hung between a pair of cleavers, like the frame of an upturned umbrella, its dewy weight collapsing it in on itself. The woodland smells, firm and fresh - real compared to the diesel and grime of the town - began to assert themselves, filling my thoughts and freeing my mind.

I felt an unwonted calm, but turning the corner I stopped dead, my body instantly chilled. A sweep of dread descended over my arms and legs and my heart shuddered in my chest. As I passed the corner my senses had been overtaken by the overwhelming smell of aniseed - the smell of the girl - sweet and cloying, aromatic and evocative. I immediately realised what it was - the backdrop to my childhood, the smell of my past. It was a memory which had evaded me all these years - and what delicious irony that was - but now it hurtled towards me with bleak clarity: the aroma I associated with the girl was merely the smell of sweet cicely by the river bank. I had known it all my life and I understood then that the girl was a mirage; my heart sinking, I knew I would never see her again. Bending over, I picked a frond of sweet cicely, taking care not to damage its fragile teeth, bristling as they were like miniature christmas trees on either sides of the stem. I raised it to my nose and inhaled, and it was as though the girl were by my side once more. My comrade, my housemistress, and the more I smelled her through the plant the further she receded from me. The past was transplanted by the present. I rubbed the leaf, transferring its aniseed perfume to my fingers and, dropping it on the woodland floor, walked on. I wanted to look back, but I knew there would be no-one there.

From the quarry to the top of Colme Hill was a steep climb. Twenty years before I would have taken it in my stride, but I was quickly out of breath and had to make frequent stops. Each time I did I smelled my fingers, but less and less the fragrance remained. It took an hour, but finally I reached the summit, my favourite place, my quiet retreat. The top of Colme Hill, seven hundred feet in height, afforded a view over the entire Straughton valley, with the Landon Hills stretching across the south, bounding the valley like a row of protective giants. As a child, I came here every week, sun or snow, wind or rain. I fell in love with Ben Cruachan, to the west, the biggest and most majestic of my giants. Its entire expanse had been home to a mere three houses, all white and many miles apart. Twenty years on, I was pleased to see there were still only the three, all puffing smoke happily from their chimneys, settled in the wildness of the heather moors and rough grazing lands. I felt the same pang of envy I always had when I contemplated the owners of those wonderful, lonely homes. The land was dormant, brown and faded purple, fallow while it regenerated and prepared for the coming year. Strips and patches, bounded by skeletal hedges, shaped the lower hillside, the scars of man's occupation, but the high land, heathered and unhindered, stretched carelessly towards the skies.

The town, nestled beneath me to the east, was shrouded in fog, completely invisible. I liked that. The town represented order, the grind of life, the pain of now; it promised little and delivered less. It deserved to be obliterated. Instead, I gorged myself on the beauty of the landscape, the freedom of nature. There was a horse grazing beneath me, its head stretched awkwardly over the fence bounding its field, stubbornly pursuing the fresher pastures outside its own narrow world. A couple of blackbirds winged by, resting in trees and swooping to the ground, chasing meagre winter offerings. It was cold, the air deliciously sharp in my mouth and chest. Ahead of me, small slivers of fog, vague and insubstantial, floated past, driven by the breeze. They were almost close enough to touch - or so it seemed - tantalising and insubstantial. Following them were larger pockets, denser, combining to conceal the land beyond them, and behind them larger ones still, and I finally realised that the fog was moving, inexorably and unhappily, to the west. I lowered my eyes to the ground, defeated: what would happen next was inevitable. I looked up again proudly, stubbornly, drinking in the view of Ben Cruachan across the valley, across the divide of time. My climax had arrived, and I was ready. I knew the truth: only now would I accept it. It was time to step into the present.

I sank to the ground, ignoring the dampness, feeling tears well up inside me. Gradually, the fog base slid sideways, breaking over the edge of town and across the valley until it was directly in front of me. The complicit coldness I had enjoyed was replaced by an enervating chill as the fog began to sidle around me, grey and cold. I could still see Ben Cruachan, but I knew that within minutes it would be lost to me as the fog crept seditiously by. For as long as I could, I watched the hillside opposite, drank its hope, lived its history; but finally the first whispers of fog reached it, blotting out the lowest of the three little houses; and then more, and then more, until the hill was lost, my comrade now a far-off skeleton, dimming in the mists of the day.

And as it did, the town emerged from its blanket, slow and ponderous, as though breaking free of a malign force. I hated the sight of it, but knew I could not deny it. I didn't want to go there, but nor was I destined to live longer on my hillside. The town sat, cruel and quiet, content in the knowledge that, however deep my desire, my goal was now shrouded in mist, quite lost. The present will always defeat the past: the future sees to that. I raised my fingers to my nose one last time, but the smell of sweet cicely was gone. Alone, I rose to my feet and walked slowly back into town.