At the sound of her voice, the shadow operators unfolded themselves and streamed towards her from every corner of the room, to whirl about her head like ghosts, bats, scrap paper, smoke or old women clasping antique lockets of hair. They recognised privilege when they saw it.

"My dear," they whispered. "What beautiful hands."

"Is there anything we can do-"

"-Can we do anything, dear?"

"What lovely, lovely hands!"

Liv Hula looked amused. "They never talk like that for me," she admitted to the woman in the fur coat. Then she had a sudden vision of her own life as hard-won, dug out raw from nothing much even the few times it seemed to swoop or soar.

"You came for Vic, he's over there," she said.

She always pointed him out. After that she washed her hands of whatever happened. This time Vic was waiting. He was low on work, it was a slow year though you wouldn't guess that from the number of ships clustered in the tourist port. Vic accounted himself intelligent and determined; women, on the other hand, saw him as weak, conflicted and, reading this as a failed attempt to feminise himself, attractive. He had been caning it for weeks with Fat Antoyne and Liv Hula, but he still looked younger than his age. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, and the woman leaned towards him as if he was the only way she could get her bearings in the room. The closer she approached him the more uncertain she seemed. Like most of them, she wasn't sure how to broach things.

"I want you to take me in there," she said eventually.

Vic laid his finger on his lips. He could have wished for some statement less bald. "Not so loud," he suggested.

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged and said, "No problem."