It is the long still moment of dreamy suspended passion before the spinning clutching descent.

. . . a meadow which David had known before the coming of the motorway, where he had searched for mushrooms in previous autumns, in lost quiet golden hazes.

. . . where an iron bedstead was wrapped in stillness.

Was it here, after all, that everything broke down and descended into a roaring shaft of shattered masks and crumpled rose petals and bloody feathers?

Only the house was still desolate and the day had a livid ruined atmosphere, time had been damaged in some deep way, like on a day of bereavement or frightful national disaster.