marvels Riverman, holding his glass up to the late morning rays. I’ve bought him a pint, I’m on fizzy water. Just a social call, to see how you’re doing, got to get back to it, but he wants to nip to the pub. All the tiny things, he says. All so busy, dashing and colliding. The music of the spheres, billions of years old, just reaching us now and nudging a particle and we can detect it. And I thought it was a long way down to North Devon. He sips, cuts the foam from his lip with a square thumbnail. And you worried I’d washed away, rushing out here in a panic, far from it, lad, I’m sound as a pound and anchored. I say my laters, leave him smoothing a pub paper out on the oak.
