‘You are given your trousers, early too, and all you can say on this momentous day is: a little prickly. It’s not good enough, Clodius. You must try better.’

‘Yes, Granny. Sorry, Granny.’

Tic. Tic. Tic. Smack! Crash! A small book hit the window, as if it were a bird desperate to get in.

‘Pinalippy, Clodius. You have seen Pinalippy, I think.’

‘Yes, Granny. We have had our Sitting.’

‘I know you have, Clodius, I know everything about you. Just because I don’t see you doesn’t mean I’m not told. How was she? Pinalippy?’

‘Ah … very nice, Granny. Thank you.’

‘Very nice! Very nice, he says! She’s plain, Clodius, as plain as a mop. The skin is not pleasing. Hair on her lip, dark hair on the arms. The movements rather masculine. Tall too and thick with it. No grace. No music there at all!’

‘No, Granny.’

‘Well, you’re to marry her!’

‘Oh yes, Granny, I know.’

‘Rather you than me. But she’s loyal I think. And durable. She won’t die on you, Clodius. Things like that live long. She’ll outlast you.’

‘I’m very sure of that, Granny.’

Tic. Tic. Tic. Smack. Tinkle. Crack. Things were pelting against the window very often now, making me jumpy.

‘How’s your bath plug?’

‘My bath plug? Do you wish to see him? It, I mean.’

‘Don’t be disgusting. Of course I don’t wish to see such a thing. It was I, Clod, that picked that out for you. Especially so. There were a great many objects brought before me that I might have chosen. But I pointed out the bath plug for you.’

‘Yes, Granny, I thank you.’

‘It was a hard one. I thought over it a very long while.’

‘Did you, Granny? Thank you, Granny.’

‘Very tiresome.’

Tic. Tic. Tic. Crack. Crack. Crack. And then an almighty wallop as what appeared to be the remains of a cat smacked into the windows.

‘Fearful weather, isn’t it, Granny?’

‘Of course I was in no state to be choosing birth objects. Not so soon after Ayris’s death.’

I said nothing to that. Tic. Tic. Smack. Whoosh.

‘Some days I remember her so clearly that I can almost see her. She played here in this room. She was a little girl standing over there in that corner. I see her now, almost, leaning against my mantelpiece.’

Tic. Tic. Crack. Tic. Smack. Tic. Howl went the wind. I’d better speak, I thought, I’d better say something to that.

‘I’m very sorry I never knew her. My mother.’