I said, “Well, I don’t want to be the fly in the dancing tights, but nothing would surprise me about Cain Hinchcliff after what he did.”

Vaisey was still keen on the icicle idea. “How do you do the icicle thing, Lullah?”

I said without really thinking it through, “Well, I did sort of try the icicle thing on Cain Hinchcliff, but he’s not really a boy, he’s an animal in trousers.”

Flossie said, “Yum yum, an animal in trousers. They’re handsome, though, the Hinchcliffs—mean, moody, and magnificent. Yum yum, animals in trousers.”

We all looked at her.

“Well, you said Cain was like an animal in trousers. Seth’s his brother so he must be an animal in trousers as well. Goodie.”

I said, “Er, I didn’t mean that being an animal in trousers was a good thing … and also they have destroyed a lavatory.”

Flossie was floating about in the deep dark South in her mind. She did her drawl.

“Now, I know that Seth he dun no good. He’s no good, y’all, and I kinda know he done wrong, but I can’t help myself, he’s got animal magnetism.”

I said, “Well, it’s probably the ferrets he keeps down his trousers.”

Jo wasn’t interested in ferrets. She said, “So what happened when you tried this icicle thing on Cain?”

Damn.

They were all looking at me, so I finished my tuna surprise and I improvised. I had to share the hailstone thing with the Tree Sisters.

“Well, I will tell you how it happened. It was like this. The day you all arrived on the bus from Skipley, I was on my way to meet you. An icy, cruel wind was blowing in from Grimbottom. Savage and cold, the kind that freezes socks and underpants on lines. Wild creatures scuttled to their dark lairs; sheep stood cross-eyed in hedges, looking at their noses. And that was when I saw him. Him. As it began to hail, he was standing by the fence like a heathen rusty crow.”

Hmmm, I must remember to put this in my performance notebook. A heathen rusty crow.

Vaisey spoiled it of course. I think she must have been an egghead, or an elephant, in a previous life.

She said, “A rusty crow? Do you mean, that he was like a metal crow that had been out in the rain and …”

Jo said, “Yeah, what’s a ‘heathen’ crow? Is that a crow that doesn’t go to church?”

I went on, before they all got into the crow business.

“When he saw me, he said in his cruel broad accent, ‘So, it’s the soft Southern lass back again.’ He was taunting me like he always did. But this time was different. I had changed. I had grown.”

Flossie said, “Are you talking corker-wise?”

I ignored her and trod on her foot as I continued.

“I looked into his black, tainted eyes and felt courage stir in my breast.”

Flossie said, “Good, good. I’m a bit worried about the one breast though. Shouldn’t you say, ‘stirred in my breasts’?”