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period of time that went beyond being awkward, Susan White never once removed her rheumy eyes from the tall flat facade of the house.
    Kyle spoke to repress his urge to grin. ‘Hi Susan. Or do you prefer Sister Isis?’
    Her small brittle body turned and lurched at him, the head extended in rebuke. Crystals on thongs drooped from her scrawny neck and chimed together, their sound accompanied by wooden bracelets rattling on her thin wrists. ‘Never call me that!’
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    Kyle flinched. The elderly woman cast a wary glance back at the house, as if this sufficed to explain her reaction to the name the cult had given her. ‘Not here. Please. Susan is fine.’
    ‘Susan it is.’ Kyle took her cold hand. The skin papering it was transparent; black veins networked under livered flesh, but the skin was as smooth as lambskin against his fingers.
    He looked into her intense blue eyes. ‘This is Dan. My partner in crime.’ He nodded at Dan, who turned towards them at the mention of his name. His face was red and his eyes filled with water from suppressing laughter.
    ‘Can you feel it?’ she said, her attention again reclaimed by the house.
    Here we go . Trying too hard . He hoped she wouldn’t see his abject disappointment. It was a dull day on a West London street that recognized nothing but its own tranquil elegance in any season; a setting too incongruous for what Susan White already suggested. Her attempt to conjure an atmosphere of lingering presences and special psychic boundaries immediately wearied him. His estimation of Max’s ability to find suitable interviews also plummeted. Having a creature like Susan White in the film would undermine any credence of the surviving adepts’ mystical claims; the very sight of the woman encapsulated all that was ridiculous about the sixties.
    Kyle nodded at Dan; a cue to switch from the exterior shots they’d been shooting of the street and building to set up for the first close-ups of Sister Isis. ‘Feel what?’ His question was more abrupt than he’d intended.
    Silver earrings jingled against her pantomime cheeks when she shook her head. ‘I . . . I’ve not felt that way since 1969.
    Extraordinary.’ She closed her eyes and turned her head on 37
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    an angle, as if listening to distant music. Her face seemed more haggard in the skein of sunlight that found it, if that were possible. The harsh lines scoring her chin deepened as her mouth sagged. ‘This is the first time I’ve been back.’
    Kyle rolled his eyes. Dan smiled, and occupied himself with the light meter closer to the house, where Kyle wanted an establishing shot of Susan beside the front door. ‘And you live in Brighton.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Never fancied revisiting old times then?’
    ‘Could not bear to.’ Susan White now kept her eyes closed against the sight of the house. But tottered forward like a woman upon black ice. Quickly but carefully, Kyle put the boom and sound mixer down, and moved to her side. Susan clasped his forearm. ‘I’m not sure I can.’
    Dan peered over to see what Kyle wanted of him. But Kyle didn’t know whether it was appropriate to film her discomfort and frailty before a proper introduction, or even a semblance of familiarity had been established; probably not, though he wanted to. This was good footage: forty-two years after The Last Gathering fled the building and an ex-member was collapsing at the mere sight of the place.
    The light was fine, but they’d need to mic her up and do sound levels quickly if they were to get any of this. After catching Kyle’s eye, Dan hurriedly fitted the camera back on the tripod.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. The powder on her face looked ready to fall away in floury platelets.
    ‘You want some water?’ He looked up at Dan and
    mouthed hurry .
    ‘Please.’ Susan sat down upon the first of seven steps that 38
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    led up to the stone porch. She seemed to have sunk inside her dress, which now looked uncannily