Sandra could hear his fingers tapping on the radio casing. Irritated she rolled over, put down her book and flicked off the lamp switch like she’d seen people do in films. But her life was no Doris Day movie and when the light went out it was not replaced by a mellow- moon luminosity but rather by a cold, steely blackness and a noise quieter than silence for them both to flounder in. They hid from the knowledge that this child, their son – on whom they’d blindly pinned their hopes, like the tail on the donkey – this real little boy, with his mirror-image imaginary one, was opening up a gulf that a whole team of specialists would struggle to bridge.