He barks. I climb. The wind is making the wooden tongue sway. I’m holding close to the trunk. You won’t knock me off, Luca, not this time, not ever. I hear him laughing. A hand reaches out towards mine. I reach towards it and hold on as it pulls. I’m suspended in the air for a moment until the hand yanks and I’m thrown onto hard ground.

‘Are you all right?’ a man’s voice asks.

It is kind, the voice, and speaks English. I nod. Is this inside the belly of the beast, the end of it all, or is this just another part of the journey, another beginning? Everything goes black and I go under. The lid closes down.

22. Sammy

22

Sammy

‘They’re dissolvable.’ Nurse-Madame is referring to the stitches. On hearing my spike story, she insisted on having a look. ‘Ok?’ she says, when she’s finished. This woman doesn’t even know my name.

‘I’ll wait to get the results of your swabs and then we’ll be good to go in a few days. Now, how can we tell there won’t be a nationwide search for you?’

I’m not sure there won’t, to be honest, with Luce to the fore, rallying the troops: We must save her from herself. I don’t tell nurse this. Ratchet, Hatchet … can’t remember the name of that psychotic one from Cuckoo’s Nest. I decide on Hatchet. What worries me, Billy … is how your mother is going to take it … I feel a hysterical pressure building, and I can’t help myself, I burst with laughter, rude with laughter, blowing out my nose, my arse, my pursed lips. You seem to forget, Miss Flinn, that this is an institute for the insane …

She stares coldly beyond my eyes, her gaze resting on the tip of my right ear, which burns. ‘Are you quite finished?’

‘Yes, sorry, sorry,’ I say, wiping my eyes. ‘Honestly, I’ve spent more nights away from that house than in it. Ma wouldn’t notice anything different.’ Oops, first slip. Mam, Sammy, Mam.

She picks up a sheet of paper, looks down, scribbles some notes on it in silence. ‘I think it would be safer if we moved you on.’

Maybe this is it, maybe this is my chance to travel, go to exotic places, feel the sun on my face, lie under chandeliers. ‘Cool by me,’ and I tell her I want to be operating in an exclusive place where the men wear suits, smell nice and are stinking rich.

‘Doesn’t everyone. But in your case this may just be arranged.’