‘If you want to write to Emma,’ said Rachaela, ‘just take some paper and an envelope from the cabinet.’ She had got them in specially. ‘There are plenty of stamps.’ Ruth said yes, she knew about the paper and the stamps. She did not use any.

After four months, Rachaela herself got a letter from Emma. Emma was in heaven, full of news of Liz, but she asked after Ruth. ‘Children are so bad at let ter-writing. I remember I used to be a horror.’ Rachaela answered the letter after a week. Ruth and she were well, nothing had happened, Ruth had a lot of homework just now. Ruth sent her love. Rachaela had not asked Ruth if she wished to send Emma her love. Probably Ruth did not. Emma was over.

This trite communication put an end to Emma’s overtures and she began to fade from their lives.

One day Rachaela found all the coloured letters from Emma to Ruth in the waste-bin under the sink.

In the very beginning she had sat down with Ruth at the small table.

‘I’m sorry about Emma having to go. It’s hard for you. But we’ll just have to do the best we can.’ Ruth had not replied, nor looked at her. She was making a drawing of a tall woman in flowing sleeves. ‘You know I can’t give you as much time as Emma. I’m at work. But if there are any problems, you’ll have to tell me, because Emma won’t be here. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Ruth after a gap.

Rachaela did not say she would leave the child alone as much as possible and that she in turn would expect to be left alone. It was tacitly agreed between them from long experience.

Rachaela thought that the mistake her own mother had made was in her brainwashed attempts to care for and become involved with a child she did not want.

Ruth and she had instead a disarmed neutrality.

They would never be friends, but by keeping a great distance, they might not become enemies.

Rachaela no longer hated Ruth. Ruth was now a sentient being, that could visit the lavatory alone, wash, feed and clothe itself, amuse itself without recourse to her.

Since Ruth had not cried, there had been no onus on Rachaela to extend a prosthesis of sympathy and warmth she could not feel.

For her part, Rachaela tried not to curb the child, but let her go her own wild, silent way.

Ruth never showed Rachaela anything—her art work, her homework or a book—but Rachaela gave her the use of the bookcase, overloaded now, and once or twice when money had been freer had bought Ruth books of fantastic art, Kay Nielsen, Vali Myers. Ruth took these gifts politely, but she pored over them in her burrow.