‘James Henry Hayward!’ it seemed to giggle. I had never heard it laughing before. And as James Henry called out his name ever more speedily in sheer joy and happiness I became aware of another voice coming closer and that voice was saying in a cool whisper, ‘Geraldine Whitehead.’

Geraldine Whitehead I saw now was some metal implement with a long thin twisted snout, a strange skinny clamp of some sort. James Henry immediately shut up.

‘My plug!’ I called.

‘Hush now,’ Uncle Idwid said, smiling, ‘hush, it’s quite well, it’s just being looked after by my clippers a moment.’

‘Geraldine Whitehead,’ I said, ‘that’s its name.’

‘Yes indeed, what a clever one you are! I heard you hear all the names too!’ said Idwid. ‘Geraldine Whitehead is a pair of special clippers, designed for extracting nasal hair, ear hair too. Very fine and very helpful. Now let me see.’ He very gently held onto my plug with his Geraldine Whitehead, and then just as delicately released it and put the clippers away again, and James Henry said, ‘James Henry Hayward.’

‘Aliver,’ asked Uncle Idwid, ‘you have recently examined Clod?’

‘Yes, Governor, very recently.’

‘And there are positively no cracks upon him, you have checked?’

‘Indeed, Governor, none at all.’

‘And you have listened to him? And there is no hollowness?’

‘There is no hollowness, Governor, I have listened indeed.’

‘So then,’ said Idwid, quite content, ‘I was called in good time. It’s something exceptional, my dear Clod, to have a Listener. I’m a Listener and I became Governor Extraordinary of Birth Objects.’

‘I didn’t know there was anyone else. No one ever said.’

‘Clod, we shall keep each other company.’

‘I am very glad you are here, sir.’

‘We are meant for one another.’

‘Is there something wrong with James Henry?’ I asked.

‘Nothing in particular I shouldn’t think, but we shall keep an ear on him,’ said Idwid, grinning. ‘Tell me, young Clod, what have you been hearing? You’ve heard Victoria Hollest asking for Margaret? What else then. Tell me, please do.’

‘I do hear voices,’ I said. ‘I think I always have; objects calling out names, always names. I don’t know what it means exactly –’

‘It means you’re a very clever one.’

‘I just hear names, not everything has a name.’

‘To be sure.’

‘But some things do, some things whisper their names and some things shout their names, and many birth objects have names, but not all –’

‘Not all, you say? How interesting.’

‘And the fire bucket in the hall has a name, and a newel post to the marble stairs. All over the house different objects with different names.’