As his footsteps crunched behind me, I tried to imagine how it would feel, to move forcefully enough to snap bone. As though propelled by this thought, my hands moved to the animal’s neck. They were hovering above – they had not even touched it; the creature would barely have been able to sense my fingers at the edges of its fur. But it made a sound, a sort of terrible, revolted growl, and jerked itself heavily to its feet, the dirt and debris falling as it bounded away, bounded straight into the scrub as fast as it could.

Was I relieved or disappointed that the boy’s resolve would not be tested? There was no time to consider; I heard the slam of the car door.

Soon gravel was spraying from under the tyres. I watched the car vanish, and I thought: This is what it’s like to watch me drive away. I thought of my mother, peering through her window, dropping the curtain back in place after I was gone.

So there I was, in the near dark. No knife. No claws. Instead of a cock, my old pudenda. You have your phone, I thought. You could call Leonard. You could call the police.

I switched the phone off.

I could not muster up any unease at the thought that Leonard’s paintings were gone. I imagined him finding out what had happened and turning red beneath his sparse blond hair. I imagined him trying to tell the old couple, trying to arrange the words.

I wondered whether the boy would risk selling them, or whether he’d hang them on the wall of whatever dank flophouse or squat he lived in. Perhaps he’d give them to his mother.

What I like to think happened is that he lit a cigarette and burned their eyes out, wife then husband. If I concentrate, I can smell the toxic smoulder of oil paint and varnish, hear the hiss as the thing is extinguished.

One night, a long time ago, I waited until Leonard was drunk and asleep in the bed we were sharing. He stank of whiskey and gilt. I picked up his sketchbook and flipped to the last page he’d used. There was his version of our teacher’s test: a box, and a skinny Leonard in the lower left corner, making the space seem vast. I smiled.

My box? I’d filled it with a pillowy, marshmallowy rendering of my body, a body that looked as though it were still expanding and might never stop. I filled every corner. I thought I looked like a baby who’d stayed too long in the womb. A baby who’d open his eyes in there and realise he could be trapped forever; who’d grope downwards, trying to distinguish the limits of this new universe, and trying to fight his way out of it.