‘Clod, you clot!’ he said in a passion. ‘You should have told me right away. I’d better have a look at your birth object.’

This happened but once or twice a year and Uncle Aliver made it very clear it was not something he enjoyed doing, there were other doctors for birth objects. I brought my plug out and placed it on top of his opened hand, the chain stretched out as far as it would go. He took a magnifying glass from a pocket and used it to observe my plug most fully, he put the magnifying glass away, he took out a pair of tweezers, he turned the plug over. ‘Breathe in,’ he said, I did, ‘Breathe out,’ he said and I did.

He tapped my plug lightly with his fingers, it made me very anxious.

‘Is anything the matter with my James Henry?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think so, but you may need to see someone else.’

He gave me back my plug.

‘How do you feel?’

‘Quite well, Uncle.’

‘I want to hear what you hear, Clod, about the house.’

The Talking House

Up marble stairs down iron ones we went. Into small cupboards, into great halls, turning here and there at random, trying to hear the door handle Alice Higgs calling out, somewhere those two words picked out from all the cacophony of the building. How to catch it amongst all those other rumblings? The house talked and gabbed, it whispered, it bellowed, it sang and warbled, croaked, cracked, spat, tittered, flapped, panted, tooted and groaned. Young voices, high and lively, old voices, cracked and shaking, women’s, men’s, so many, many voices and not a one of those from a person, but all from the things of the talking house, here and there a curtain rod, a bird cage, a paperweight, ink bottle, floorboard, banister, lampshade, bell pull, tea tray, hairbrush, door, nightstand, basin bowl, shaving brush, cigar clippers, darning mushroom, mat and carpet. I did come upon a talking doorknob but this one was of Whitby jet and opened the door into the Mourning Room – where dead Iremongers are cleaned and dressed after dying, a room originally part of a mortician’s house in Whitechapel – and that doorknob said Marjorie Clarke. We did visit Victoria Hollest, site of yesterday’s Pinalippy encounter, but the room was empty now save for the sofa which was indeed still wondering in whispers, ‘Where’s Margaret?’

‘Is that all?’ asked Aliver.

‘Yes, Uncle, and “Victoria Hollest”, those four words.’

‘Then perhaps any future Sittings must be delayed. I’d say we should replace the sofa but it has been sat upon for over a hundred years, and, besides, we have only your word on it.’