This was my lowest ebb. Baph had to get up. I couldn’t carry the water cans.

I had to remobilize. Venting was no use. I need a bath, I shouted, and Never do this again, but it was pro forma.

Then I impressed on myself that if I died there, no one in his right mind would regard it as a tragedy. I would be in the category of an aerialist falling to her death. Or I would be entitled to the species of commiseration people get who show up at parties on crutches but who got injured skiing at Gstaad or some other upper-middleclass earthly paradise. It would be sad but not that sad.