I saw the booklet that gave directions for use of an incandescent oil lamp – it gave sunshine at night through a red shade, one hundred and twenty candles – and I saw smoke over Scarborough, and further general scenes of that sea-side town in the hour before the lamps are lit: the funicular railway closed and not working; the locked gate at the entrance to the underground aquarium and holiday palace. I figured an orchestra locked inside there along with a troupe of tumblers, and a magician who was the wonder of the age but nevertheless troubled by a leaking kettle.

I saw the harbour of the town with the boats at all angles, as though they'd been dropped in only moments before, and were still struggling to right themselves.

I saw a public house with a ship's figurehead on the front, a marine stores, the sign reading 'All Kinds of Nets Sold' lashed by waves… and nobody about. I pictured the great hotel – I could not recall its name and knew it would cost me pain to try and do so. I saw the high, windowless wall to the side, streaked with rain – the place was a prison viewed from that angle. I heard a great roaring of water on the other side of that wall. Flags flew from what might have been flagpoles at the top or might have been masts, and in my mind's eye the monstrous building slid away from the Promenade, and began bucking about on the dark sea.

These scenes were mainly without colour, but then some colour came, and it was wrong, too bright, done by hand: a red baby in a sky-blue cot set in a yellow room. That baby was on a post card – that was its trouble, and at the thought my stomach lurched fruitlessly while the head-racking pain redoubled.