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fingers caressed by foraging mouths, the tickle of peacock tails against his palm.
    Cold reality shoved him briskly up the stairs, to cower all evening, a prisoner in his room. He could watch the feeding only in breathless secrecy, craning his neck and peering through the crack, rigid with terror that Miss Lineham’s eye might swivel in its socket and meet his own. It never did. She had eyes only for her angelfish; her concrete brow flushing and softening as they flicked their fins and flirted with her hands. Mr Chivers’ heartbeat almost cracked the walls. He could feel his supper singing through his veins; jam on the semolina centre of his soul. This was his finale, his golden climax to a sallow day, his after-dinner port, his nuts and wine.
    At 9.05 it was over. Gloom descended like a dust-sheet. Miss Lineham disappeared and was stiff and grey again by the time she re-emerged. Mr Chivers drooped in his room, dressing-gown atop his pinstripes. The one-bar fire was removed on March 1 and did not reappear until the last day of October.
    “Overheating the system can be dangerous, Mr Chivers.”
    “Yes, Miss Lineham.” Three inches of snow outside.
    Mr Chivers sat and read. (TV and radio were forbidden in the house.) He bought every aquarist magazine on the market and squandered his Christmas bonus on a Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Tropical Fish . Invariably he turned first to the angelfish, studying their breeding habits, learning their Latin names. He traced their showy outlines on sheets of greaseproof paper and coloured them in with a set of Woolworth’s crayons. And when at last he fell asleep, marbled bodies and gossamer tails plunged through the spaces in his purple candlewick nightmares and turned them into gleaming silver mesh.
     
    SILVER JUBILEE FESTIVAL OF ANGELFISH
    April 15-21
    Mr Chivers was reading in bed, his torch concealed beneath the blankets. (“Lights out at eleven, Mr Chivers. Electricity is not a gift from God.”) He peered more closely at the print: a full-page advertisement in the glossy new issue of Fishkeeper’s Weekly. Never before had so much money and attention been lavished on the species. An eccentric Yorkshire millionaire with a passion for Pterophyllum scalare was sponsoring a festival in Doncaster, devoted exclusively to angelfish: special breeds, rare specimens, unheard-of colours, generous prizes. All the local pet shops and aquaria had promised back-up displays and exhibitions for the week of the festival. Yorkshire would be awash in angelfish.
    Mr Chivers had never been up north. His Easter holiday was due; he was tired of Littlehampton. He placed the magazine underneath his pillow and lay back contentedly. He would book on Inter-City direct to Doncaster and spend an enchanted week among the angels.
    *
    April 22. Mr Chivers alighted at King’s Cross with an empty wallet and a suitcaseful of dirty shirts. His soul was still in Doncaster. On the tube he plunged through rocky clefts and tangled weed. His suburban train was packed with angelfish. Ghostly albinos plopped between the pages of his newspaper; aggressive all-blacks jostled his elbows and bumped against his knees; foamy lace angels swooped past the windows and swam along the rails. When he got off, water-snails were clinging to his suitcase, bubbles streaming from his nose.
    “I took the liberty, Mr Chivers, of moving you to a different room. A new gentleman lodger has arrived who particularly requested a location facing front.”
    He jumped. Her voice had startled the rare and fantastic Liu Keung angelfish, which he had just persuaded to nuzzle at his hand. “Yes, Miss Lineham,” he muttered automatically. He was admiring majestic marbled torsos, the damask splendour of stately tails.
    She ushered him into a cold cramped cubicle that looked out across the dustbins. He saw only verdant water-fern reflecting the light from darting silver fins.
    “As one of my longest-standing lodgers, Mr Chivers, I knew I could count on