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Already she felt less fear about the question of her re-entry into the vociferous, the astronomical present. And she was pleased about everyone being queer. Mary looked up. The corpulent beings of the middle-air were hanging around again, rolling slowly on to their backs to enjoy the sun. She wondered with interest what Sharon had in mind for her.
    Tuck!' said Sharon suddenly. She halted and placed a hand on Mary's shoulder. 'Scuse my French.' She crooked a leg and groped downwards. ''Hate walking on the grass in these heels.' Her heels did indeed look particularly vicious, curved on to a thin prong and secured to her ankles with metal clamps. 'God, we've got to get you some shoes as well, girl. I generally keep, you know, a little wardrobe down here but... You must be fucking freez ing. Whoops!' She straightened up with a grunt. 'It's lucky the weather's turned.'
    They walked on. The weather had turned. It was lucky. Everything was coming right. Mary now felt inclined to dismiss or at least extenuate the insidious burden of what had happened to her while she slept. Because something had. Boy, something certainly had. Something had come at her in the night, something had mangled her, something had turned her inside out. Whatever it was had hated her life, had wanted to murder her soul. Was this how the past got back at you? Perhaps. It made sense, in a way, for the past to wait until you were asleep before sneaking up on you like that. And the worst thing was that she had wanted that violence done to her. She had brought it about. And she had wanted more.
    'You know, Mary,' said Sharon, 'I'm buggered if I— sorry—if I know why I keep coming back here. I don't know for the life of me why I still do. Only for Impy I suppose, soppy old fool that I am. I'm not accustomed to this sort of circle at all really. I'm not like them. But, you know, get a couple down you and, you know ... When I wake up I never know how I got here. But we all do it, don't we? Silly really, isn't it?'
    'Yes,' said Mary, 'I suppose it is.'
    Mary walked the streets again, but with purpose now. Accordingly they seemed rather less effusive to her eye. Sharon knew the way: her progress was bold, even brazen, and yet she saw nothing. The streets did not strike her, nor did the other people and their storms offortunes.
    They walked quickly and Mary was always trying to catch up. The streets Sharon led her down varied in size and demeanour. Some were owned by the raucous cars: these were given over to movement, so that the very air seemed to shoo the people along in its gusts and backwash. When enough people massed on a corner the cars would arrest themselves and wait in lines, rumbling with impatience. Occasionally a man whirled hectically out to dodge across the precipitate passageways, while the snouty cars stuck with menace to their tracks. Other streets were owned, collectively and with civic pride, by their buildings, the houses: these were in the interests of quiet, and their air was still. You hardly ever saw anyone going into the houses and you practically never saw anyone coming out. Anxious to divine the laws of life, Mary assumed that once you got inside you stayed there, avoiding the streets and all their chances. Here, cars nosed about with diffidence or had already come completely to rest, and people could cross more or less as they pleased.
    'Money money money money money money money money,' said Sharon. 'You haven't got any, have you?'
    'What?'
    'Money!'
    'I'm not really sure.'
    'Let's have a look then ... You must have had a skinful last night, my girl.'
    Sharon delved expertly into Mary's black bag, while Mary looked on in wonder. She hadn't given it a thought—and yet the bag had remained at her side, its straps still clinging to her shoulder. Mary almost lost her balance as Sharon's movements suddenly grew driven and frantic, her hands working deeper downwards.
    'Hello-ello-ello, what have we here?' In her trembling fingers Sharon held up