Iven slept until someone dropped a pan in the yard.
He woke with the conviction that the noise required him to be somewhere. Then he saw the pale morning light, the dry boots beside the bed and the little folded leaf he had put on the table.
Hold. Change. Return.
No one knocked.
He lay back.
For a few minutes he did nothing at all.
By half past eight, hunger had become more persuasive than the bed. He washed, dressed and went down to the shared meal room. Someone had saved the last of the previous night’s bread beneath a cloth. The new pot held porridge thick enough for a spoon to stand in it.
He ate both.
