There were tears in her eyes. And then, for a moment, I thought it might be all right after all, but then I heard the sigh, ‘A bath plug.’

And I decided it probably wouldn’t. As I stood up I heard the sofa say something, it said, ‘Victoria Hollest.’

Well, I thought, so the sofa is called Victoria Hollest, there was nothing especially remarkable about that. There was a newel post downstairs called Victoria Amelia Broughton and I once heard a candlestick call itself Victoria Macleod and there was a croquet mallet in the games room called Vicky Morton. Very well, another Victoria, so be it. But then Victoria Hollest, the small red sofa, said, ‘Where’s Margaret?’

And that was something else wasn’t it? That was something very big. No object had ever spoken anything but a name to me before now. It was so strange and uncomforting, this new and sudden communication, that all my insides felt wrong and I thought I might be sick there and then on the sofa, or worse still upon Pinalippy and her Gloria Emma, but I kept it in. What was happening? What was happening to me? Was I going mad? Would my heart, like Father’s, suddenly stop? I staggered to the door. I promised myself that as soon as I could I would come and listen to Victoria Hollest again, but for now I must leave it alone, for Uncle Timfy was not famous for his patience.

My Head and a Coal Scuttle

We were supposed to position ourselves somewhere separately and think of our futures together for the rest of the day, Pinalippy and I. I was to go and sit in the Elephant Room, and Pinalippy was to sit in the White Room. Just sit, sit and think of our lives together, our cold lunches waiting for us on a tray. I should stay put for several hours. So I sat trying not to panic about the talking sofa and not to think of where or who Margaret might be, and so for a while I did think about Pinalippy and for some of the time I did try to concentrate on the feel of her doily, but that sofa kept calling to me in my head and so I wandered about the room, worrying, trying to distract myself. It was dusk when I heard Albert Powling coming and Timfy at last sent me packing.

‘Run along, Clod, and behave yourself; no time for your mishaps today, we’re all at hackles up.’