Jack lay with his head slightly propped up against the gun cupboard. His eyes and his mouth were half open. I remember noticing how good looking he was, something I hadn't thought about for a long time. It's odd how trivial one's thoughts are at important moments in one's life. The gun room window was open and I reminded myself to close it before I went to bed in case of rain. There was a ringing in my ears, like the first silence after a loud, prolonged noise, a sort of interior singing. I felt extraordinarily calm. Then I saw there was something different about Jack's face. In the last few years he'd been drinking quite heavily and it had reddened his face a little. Now it was an unfamiliar yellowish white. On his chest the green wool of his gardening jersey was overlaid by a horrifying ugly rust-red stickiness.