I was waiting, with the pathetic expectancy of Pavlov’s dog, for the moment when she would bend her neck from side to side. But the signal never came, as if she too had become conscious of the power, the danger, of that cracking sound. I waited incredulously, and then almost feeling as if I’d been cheated, till the very last moment, but her neck, her lovely capricious neck, remained stubbornly still, and I had to let that day go.

The next morning was our last. When Luciana arrived and dropped her tiny bag down beside her, it seemed simply inconceivable that I might no longer have her with me and that all these little routines would disappear. The first two hours passed, exasperatingly. During a break Luciana went to the kitchen to make coffee. This too was happening for the last time. I followed her and remarked, half humorous, half dejected, that next week she would be back to taking dictation of good novels. I told her of Campari’s injunction when giving me her number, that I had to return her intact, and I added that to my regret I was complying. All this managed to draw from her was an uncomfortable smile. We went back to work. I only had a few pages of the epilogue left to dictate. I thought bitterly that we might even finish a little early that day. On one of the final pages there was a German street name and Luciana wanted me to check she’d spelled it correctly. I leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen, as I had done so many times in the past month, and once again I was enveloped in the scent of her hair. Then, just as I was about to move my hand from the back of the chair, like a belated call that I’d ceased to expect, she tilted her head to one side, almost touching me, then the other. I heard the crack and, as if it were a continuation of that first time, slid my hand beneath her hair until I found the gap between the vertebrae.