But young as I was, I suspected that a God who allows such cruelty wouldn’t have cared about bringing it to an end. I.

Moving closer to the edge, I peered down. The water was glassy green, extraordinarily clear. I experienced the feeling I sometimes get when I’m on a bridge or a railway platform. Rationally, you know that you’ve no intention of stepping off the bridge or the platform – or this ice floe – but you’re aware that you could, and that the only thing stopping you is your will.

I wondered what it must be like to be so handsome. Surely it would affect the behavior of everyone around you, always?

The reeds stood tall and dead: I had the oddest feeling they wanted me gone. The light was failing. I caught a swampy smell of decay. Behind me something rustled and I saw the reeds part for some unseen creature. I thought: No wonder Maud’s mad. All her life in a place like this?

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. She was right, old Marie Curie.

Yesterday, I was in Hatchards, and I saw a photograph of it, the usual view from Darjeeling. Everything flooded back. The cold. The silence. The dread. It was so overwhelming that I staggered outside and vomited in the gutter. People thought I was drunk.

If it can be described, it can be understood. If it can be understood, it need not be feared.

DEATH freezes everything. Whatever you did or didn’t do, whatever you said or left unsaid: none of that is ever going to change. You have no more chances to say sorry or make things right. No more chances for anything except regret.

Fear of the dark. Until I came here, I thought that was for children; that you grew out of it. But it never really goes away. It’s always there underneath. The oldest fear of all.

Fear of the dark. Until I came here, I thought that was for children; that you grew out of it. But it never really goes away. It’s always there underneath. The oldest fear of all. What’s at the back of the cave? Eriksson was right. One mustn’t think too much. Keep busy, walk every day, that’s what he said. I’ve got to follow that to the letter. Especially the walks.