THE NIGHT sky loomed above Dora. A vast, black airiness that shimmered with pinpoints of light. A lively darkness that breathed and moved, that gently revealed itself as a massive human shape, curving and full. The night sky was an enormous black female figure, made of a softness that was powerful and buoyant. Majestically she bent forwards. She reached out her rounded black arms, lifted Dora like a baby to lie on her black knees. She held her loosely but securely.

A lucid state. Not a dream. Not a reverie. Dora was not asleep, though the people nearby seemed to think so. Their voices tugged at her. Wake up now, Dora. Time to wake up. Dora resisted, but the voices won.

From the recovery ward, two porters in green scrubs wheeled her towards a lift. How odd to be lying flat on a stretcher, rolling along like a delivery. Christmas afternoon party, when Dora and Rosa were seven, and Dad turned the tea trolley into a holly-wreathed sledge topped with a huge plywood snowball, coated in tufty cotton wool, full of presents. Dad, in red dressing gown and white beard, whipped up his twin prancers, Dora and Rosa, got up as reindeer sporting brown satin costumes and papier mâché antlers made by Mum. They drew the sledge into the front room, to the applause and laughter of the uncles and aunts.