She gazes at him as though she is drawing the analogy out of his head, rather than hers. Takes a breath, then releases the words.

Say you were listening to someone talking on the radio. Then your dad comes in and smashes it up with a hammer.

Nice.

So it stops working. Does that mean it was generating the voice? Was the person you were listening to in the radio?

Of course not.

So when a radio breaks, is the broadcast still there?

He nods slowly. Each nod is the idea bouncing on the surface of his thinking. When it settles, she continues, And to hear that voice again, one would only have to get another radio and tune it in to that frequency.

Logan considers her meaning.

You’re tuning your brain to Flora’s frequency?

She smiles.

If the brain is a filter, let’s just say that since the process my filter is a little wider than it was. Increased bandwidth, if you want to think of it that way. When I’m tuned in to you, and clear of static, I can pick up on Flora. As though— She reads his face, choosing her expression carefully. Well, let’s say the broadcast is being beamed towards you, but it’s bouncing off.

Bouncing off what?

At a guess? Your grief. Your belief in loss and separation.

Logan picks up the whisky glass and turns it slowly in his hand.

My atheism?

The centre of caramel liquid revolves; the edges cling to the side.

Yes.

‌Lodger

Sometimes her husband murmurs her name in his sleep.

Jules?

A soft question thrown against the long darkness. She is glad it’s not some other woman’s name.

Yet it might as well be. For if she wakes him, thinking she’s needed, that he’s drowning, that her love is the rope he wants her to throw, he greets her with confusion. She has invaded his grief, yet again, unwanted. Yet some part of him, a part that wakes up alone in the dark, is asking for her. For that part of him, she stays. Opens the curtains, dusts the hall table, makes tea.

Months ago she dreamed they had welcomed a homeless street-drinker into their house. Out of pity, and just for the night. His name was Brian. But Brian wouldn’t leave, and she was too scared to ask him. Her husband was nowhere to be found, and the unwanted lodger festered in his room, drunk on the contents of their spirits cupboard. Raging and bearded, leaking anger, shouting at no one. Or maybe, at her. She tiptoed past Brian’s closed door, flinching at the smatterings of violent self-talk that might explode any moment into murder. She woke in tears, reviewed the dream, and knew: Finlay is Brian. I am married to Brian.