EPILOGUE
New York, Saturday 21 June 2008
4 A.M.
I wake in the night still, every night. Like all those before me who have loved and lost their love, I enjoy the split-second’s grace that is given to grievers when they open their eyes from sleep, a grace afforded to them in the unkindest of ways by the lapse of the conscious mind’s recollection of what has happened. As a slate that has been wiped entirely clean, there is for me at that moment no memory of my running towards the lake. Nor of my pausing and thinking there was nothing the matter after all. Nor of my standing then in the light of the moon and realising there was something odd about the position of Rachel’s body and starting to run again. Nor of my holding her head in my hands and feeling the weight of it.
Instead, I am all contentment as I turn in the deepness of the dark and stretch out my hand for a warmth that is not there.
A Note on Harry Gardner
As with all of the characters in this work of fiction, Harry is a fictional character.
I am glad that I was taught English A Level by Andrew Dobbin. I am glad also that I studied English Literature with, among others, Edward Wilson and Professor David Bradshaw at Worcester College, Oxford, and with Bernard O’Donoghue at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Those that know Edward, or know of him, will perhaps recognise him as a source from which I drew in creating Harry Gardner. I would like to note that, to the extent that Harry is a character drawn from life, all of the good in him comes from Edward, and from Andrew, David and Bernard. And if Harry can be said to be flawed, then all of his flaws are drawn from my imagination.