She looked at us both.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Agree,’ Margaret Rose added.

‘Well, maybe then it was a, what do you call it, a dream, a …’

‘Fantasy,’ I said.

‘Yes. Fantastic … so to save me the stress of hacking at him, maybe I could have bought an axe.’

‘Jesus, fuck,’ I said. My stomach began to throb, and the sides of my face to flush. There was pressure between my thighs.

‘I have a good swing. But I’d never find him. I didn’t even know what he looked like. If I’d even one lousy Polaroid to go on, but New York City is a big place, plenty murdered there, isn’t it a shame we don’t have a telly here?’ she said, throwing her arms towards the window, where a TV would naturally plonk itself. ‘Great shows on the box from there, we’d have a great time, us girls,’ she smiled, and weight settled on the back of Jane’s shoulders as she dropped them slowly.

‘Ah, don’t worry, I wouldn’t have dared do it,’ she said. ‘It’d be impossible to get a good swing on an axe in New York, it’s so full up with people. People everywhere. Maybe I’d use a gun.’

Her eyes stared at the ceiling’s mould and up at the sickly tiles that sneezed on us each time the wind would lift one up and down. She clattered her false teeth into a pink froth in her mouth like one of those reduction things they whisk up and place over poached eggs and asparagus with a silver spoon on a fancy cooking programme.

‘I know exactly what’s up with Patrick. Poor boy. I could fix him, but it’s too late, it was too late the day he was born. He’s pretending not to recognise me,’ Jane said. ‘You see, I pretend I don’t recognise him too … you know the way …’

‘I think you should lie back into your own bed, Jane, get some rest, and leave it so – you’re very tired and we’re all drained and maybe if you slept?’ I said. ‘Then Mary will be in.’ I closed my eyes. I had pain everywhere. Throbbing. 10. Ten. Pressure. Stinging. Flushing. Pulsating.

‘She might come in today, and relax you, they could give you something to help you sleep? Do you take a sleeper?’ I said, arching my back forward to take the pressure off.

But there was no talking to Jane.

‘I’d never find him. You understand this, don’t you?’ She was flustered now with an anxious energy. We both nodded silently. She quieted down a little then, and began buttering and marmalading a wheatened cracker from her nightstand, and crunched down on the thick chunks of pale yellow butter and blobs of orange-rind marmalade heaped on it. Her thoughts were uncontrollable like daft pups. ‘Would you care for one, dear?’ she said, as she coughed, the crumbs going against her breath, coughing again. She offered me nibbles on the palm of her hand.