Last night a name appeared on my window. Steam blushed across the glass and there it was – Ellen.

 There’s no escaping a wind like this, it has your name on it, it has your number. It looks you up and searches you out, whistling through streets and houses, ruffling up rivers and streams, racing litter and leaves. A wind like this finds and chills you.

 I’m standing in a car park looking out over a demented sea. I should be joining the others climbing aboard a coach a little distance off but I’m making no effort to. A fine spray hangs in the air, the waves pounding the sea-break, but I can just make them out in their wind-cheaters and rucksacks the colour of highlighter pens. They each look across as they step up, wondering whether I’ll follow; one or two half raise a hand to wave but don’t. I have no idea who they are or where they’re going.

 I turn away and they’re forgotten. There’s a girl sitting on the back of a bench, her bumpers on the seat. I don’t recognise her but I know her. I step forward and folding my arms across her knees look into her face. She’s startled.

 “Let me see you tonight,” I say.

 She laughs, throwing her head backwards, shaking her hair loose of her hood.

 She’s standing in front of me. Stepping forward she holds her face close to mine and I can smell the chilled, fresh wetness of her skin. She kisses me softly.

 “Let me see you tonight.”

 The wind whips her hair across her face as she steps back, laughing still.

 Pushing down the duvet, I climb out of bed and peel back the curtain. In front of the house, wheelie-bins and refuse have been dumped below a street lamp ready for collection. In and amongst it all is the shape of someone sitting on a log; Huckleberry Finn fishing a curve of the Mississippi. I look closer and see old carpet remnants and a bicycle frame.

 It’s not the first time. Right now I feel her, the soft brush of her cheek against mine, the soft pluck of her lips on my lips. I’ll pray that God will let me fall back into the same dream but He won’t; He’ll have me sleep without dreaming and jolt at a sudden and harsh alarm. I’ll feel it against my skin at breakfast and drag it around with me all morning, like an infant weighed down by an adult’s winter coat.

 In the bathroom the tap water is ice-cold; winter’s hanging on forever this year.

 As I climb back into bed there’s a tickle of tyres on the wet cobbles outside followed by the clunk of a handbrake. A door opens and closes and a bubble of Dinah Washington escapes wobbling into the night. I picture Frances in a fug thick with cigarettes and alcohol stepping uncertainly across to her gate.

 I pull the duvet back up and close my eyes.

 “How do you get to sleep without a drink?” Frances asked.

 I remember the tricks I used: a familiar journey I’d trace in my mind; a story about a chance meeting on a busy street or a telephone call out of the blue.

 “Hi it’s Annabelle (or Elaine or Kim), how are you?”

 “Annabelle? (or Elaine? Or Kim?), oh! Hi. How are you?”

 I no longer do those things. I welcome the darkness.

 “How do you do, I’m Vincent. Come on in.”