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swaying again.
    ‘Please, Alexa.’
    She lifted her left arm slowly. He bent, pulled her arm over his back, pulled her up and out. She was unsteady. He shuffled through the gate with her, up onto the veranda. Inside he struggled to find the light switch, then he helped her slowly up the stairs. Her other sandal came off, rolled down two steps. They shuffled down the passage, into her room. He sat her down on the bed. She toppled sideways, her head on the bedspread. He switched on the bedside light, stood a moment undecided.
    He had to fetch her bag, in the car. Had to lock the vehicle.
    Her lips moved, she murmured something.
    ‘Alexa …’
    He brought his head close, so he could hear what she said. But she didn’t speak. She sang. The song that had made her famous. ‘Soetwater’, Sweet Water. Softly, nearly inaudible, but perfect, in tune, in her unique, rich voice.
    A small glass of sunlight
,
    A goblet of rain
    Pour sweet water
    A small sip of worship
,
    A mouthful of pain
    Drink sweet water
.
    ‘I’m just going to lock the car,’ he said.
    No response.
    He walked fast. On the way down the stairs he remembered she had tried to commit suicide, the last time she had been drunk. When her husband had died.
    He would have to stay here tonight.
    He fetched the handbag, her cigarettes and lighter, then the stack of files, locked the car, and jogged back.
    With her clumsy assistance he got both big earrings off and put them on the bedside cupboard. ‘Try to sleep a little,’ he said.
    She looked at him with new focus and control. Her lips opened slightly. She put her hands behind his head and pulled him closer and kissed him, her mouth open and wet, he tasted alcohol on her. She pulled him down, to the bed.
    He put his hands carefully on her shoulders, pushed her away gently.
    She wept. ‘You don’t want me either.’
    ‘I do,’ he said. ‘But not like this.’
    Eventually she lay back against the cushions. He picked up her legs, put them on the bed. She turned her back to him. He walked around the bed, found the edge of the bedspread and folded it over her.
    Then he stood there, for ten minutes, and listened as her breathing slowed. Until she slept.
    He looked at his watch. It was ten past twelve. Sunday morning.

DAY 2
Sunday

6
    He worked on the case file until nearly half past three.
    In the bedroom beside Alexa’s he hung his jacket on a hook behind the door, unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He sat down on a stool at the dressing table, picked up the fat folder and began to work through it. For a long time he struggled to concentrate because his mind was on Alexa.
They saw through me
. How could she think that? He had seen her, tonight, at the cocktail party, her grace, her presence, how easy and at home she had been there.
    The damage, he thought. Of self doubt, of a lifetime of insecurity and desire for success with music, the damage of a man who cheated on her, the damage of his death. But above all the damage of drink. If you gave in, if you threw four months of sobriety in the water, if you had to look your own weakness in the eye, realise once more you were not strong enough. To get up again …
    She lay on the bed and sang ‘Soetwater’ and it burned through him, because there was a searching in her voice, a longing for a moment in her past when everything had been good and right. And he knew – you never get that back, no matter how hard you try. That was why he had felt like weeping with her at that moment.
    You can never repair the damage.
    And the taste of alcohol in her mouth. Lord, he could taste it still. When she had kissed him, he hadn’t thought of lovemaking, he had had a sudden and violent longing for the bottle. And for the place where she was, that soft nebulous world of drunkenness where everything was round and harmless, no edges and corners to hurt you.
    An alarm went off in the back of his mind: this was the road to trouble.
    Careful, Benny, you haven’t been