Then things became very different. We had always been an unusual household with Papa’s travelling and Mama’s scientific enthusiasms, but soon after the funeral Mama uprooted us and we moved to back to the North where she said there were ‘distinct possibilities’. Her chemical researches made her famous (‘a second Vera Popova’, said the Yorkshire Post) and she purchased the land necessary for the building of her ideal project after the former owner died in circumstances not dissimilar to my own poor father. There must have been something going around.

Professor Bywaters was replaced by an altogether harsher regime intended to school me in methods of navigating a world gone suddenly dark. Mama returned from a nocturnal expedition filled with a strange kind of enthusiasm. She had, she said, made the acquaintance of a new friend. A new friend who would, if we only managed things wisely, change our lives. And those of all our fellow beings. This new friend was a Mr Sweet. I said I looked forward to meeting him. And she gave a little laugh. It was not a pleasant sound.

The construction of Sweetville and with it Mama’s Grand Plan is not a matter for these cylinders.

And so it was, after yet another of the ghastly ‘dipping’ operations that I found myself charged with the disposal of those unfortunates who had not quite made the grade. And, in so doing and to my very great surprise, I found a friend.

I knelt down by the pile of corpses and stretched out my hand. There it was, the flutter of a heartbeat – and a strange echo? – beneath the stiffened cloth of male combinations. I leant closer and could hear his strained breathing, like the leathery lungs of a tubercular invalid. When I was sure that Mama and the Pilgrims had departed (I listened carefully for the sound of their footfalls to diminish), I helped my new friend to his feet. He was weak as a kitten.

‘Sometimes the preservation process goes wrong,’ I explained to him. ‘Only Mr Sweet knows why. And only Mama is allowed to talk to Mr Sweet.’

He didn’t reply. Was incapable of doing so, in fact. But I could feel the warmth of his presence by me. ‘But if you’re very good, you can stay here,’ I whispered. ‘You’ll be my secret.’

I put a finger to his lips. ‘My special Monster.’

And that’s what he became. My only friend. I talked to him and poured out my troubles and brought him food whenever I could. We were kindred spirits, you see.

‘You’re all I have, Monster,’ I told him. ‘But all will be well. Imperfect as we are, there be will room for us in the new Jerusalem!’