For LifeAfter I swim, I watch an osprey hanging in mid air. If those who came before really do dissolve and dissipate, and if their cells really are all around us, then that bird is held there by Mum and Peter and billions of others of the long dead. The osprey is kept aloft by absences. Perhaps I am too. When her husband doesn't answer his phone, Ailsa Piper knows something is wrong. She calls their neighbour, and minutes later, he rings back. 'Oh, Ailsa.