Hannah left him there on the floor and walked from the kitchen, down to her bedroom where she locked herself in. Then she sat down on the bed, and stared at the wall. She started to shake. In some distant place, she could hear her pa hammering on the door, pleading with her to let him in, begging for forgiveness. He would stop drinking, he said. He would never raise his hand to her again. He wept and implored as she sat in the suffocating little bedroom, mute and disbelieving, until she heard him go back down the passage. He was mumbling to himself, and after a few moments there was the crunch and clink of his attempts to clear up the broken glass. Later still, she heard the screen door creak open and shut, and then silence.

She stood up, opened the door quietly, and went into the bathroom. Even after she had washed her face, it seemed the print of his hand still flared out at her in her reflection in the mirror. The back of her head where she had struck the sink throbbed painfully. She went to the cupboard, took out a suitcase and packed a few clothes. In the kitchen, she opened the bottom drawer of the dresser, and removed Lottie’s tin box. Inside was a bundle of notes, tied in a rubber band. She counted it out carefully, put it into her purse and left the house, closing the screen door behind her.

The bus to Salisbury crawled down the escarpment, and Hannah stared out the window without seeing anything. At the airport she bought a ticket to Nairobi and sat waiting for her flight to be announced, terrified that her name would suddenly be called out on the loudspeakers, that Lottie would guess where she had gone, that she would not be able to escape. She tried to focus her thoughts on the garden at Langani, painstakingly remembering every flower and bush and tree, dwelling on their colour and shape, their place in the landscape. She would not look yet at the house. To look at the house would be to remember people, and she did not want to remember anyone. When the plane took off at last, she refused the meal service, closed her eyes and slept.