Art is not cosy and it is not mocked. Art tells the only truth that ultimately matters. It is the light by which human things can be mended. And after art there is, let me assure you all, nothing.

And now she had run into an emptiness more final than any words of rejection. He was gone and would make himself a stranger to her for ever.

The only cure here was death. They were both gone out of my life.

It was too late to go back. There was a hand which could never, in grace and healing, be laid upon him now.

But the spark vanished, there was no longed-for recognition, no dawning sign of recovery. The love she had learnt in tending him was an enclosed love, muted and maimed, already mourning. They would never communicate now.

She felt intense disappointment, even a kind of guilt, as if she had missed something, perhaps forever. He had been there, she could have spoken to him. Could she call out now, cry his name? It was impossible.

Moy thought, I shall make no more masks, something is over forever. Anyway, she thought, this time next year I shall probably be dead.

He felt as if something had been completed and he would never see any of those people again.

The calmness was the final tone of despair.