As I lie in bed sick, I had a really unusual dream. It starts when I'm finishing some unfinished work by Schubert. I know what it is because it has a portrait of Schubert on the cover.

My mother says, Stop for a moment. There is someone we have to see. It is very important for funding.

We go for a walk. I open a wooden gate and we are crossing a grassy area and I am thinking: what about this program: Schubert 5, Beethoven 5, and Mozart 5? Will it sell? I remind myself that Trisdee would prefer Beethoven 6. Maybe I should do three sixes?

We reach an alley lined with curiously shaped houses on left and a wall on the right. The houses are weird and small, almost ot houses at all. "Who are we going to see?"

"It's your aunt," she says, "Lilly Sucharitkul." I have no Aunt by that name but instead I think of Lilith, the Ur-temptress.

We reach the last house on the left and open a rickety gate. We pass a succession of areas including a purple balcony populated only by a large Buddha image, (it's a white Buddha, seated with hands in blessing position, appears to be in Burmese style, and then we enter a house. Suddenly two children, twins, a boy and a girl, come giggling out of the house. First the girl starts jumping up and down and pulling my hand. We go down steep stairs, through level after level, basement after basement — there is a wooden bannister. The boy clambers onto me, clutching my waist and the steps get steeper and steeper, until it looks almost vertical like a ladder, and the boy holds onto me almost as though I am a parachute, and we glide down from step to step on this ladder-staircase … and then …

we come out on the deck of a yacht. There is open sea and a distant vista of cliffs. A blonde surfer-looking guy in a polo shirt and shorts welcomes me. "Oh, you've come to see Lilly? What's that you've brought?"

"Oh it's a Schubert symphony I am finishing."

I walk out on to this splendid deck. There is no trace of the long descent through the house. The air is warm and the sea is glittering. That's when I woke up and discovered it was already 1 pm.