Alys is speaking, but I hardly hear her, I am so preoccupied by that image of Orla and her little hands; struggling to press those little palms together in prayer.

Why would God design her in such a way that the one thing she longed to do more than any other was physically impossible for her? So that in order to worship him ‘properly’ she should experience only a sense of pain and failure?

‘To purify my heart,’ she had answered my question herself, quite effortlessly, ‘to purify my heart, Carla! “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”’

And then she had smiled. And that smile was glorious. Glorious but completely … well … demented, surely?

Alys repeats herself.

‘Your hands, Carla!’ she is saying, putting down her cup and walking around the table towards me. ‘Why didn’t I notice them before? Look! They’re healed – completely healed!’

She takes a hold of my hands.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Oh, uh …’ I struggle to concentrate. ‘Because it only just happened. Last night. I woke up this morning and …’

‘They just healed themselves? Overnight?’

Alys is astonished.

I wait, steeling myself, for Alys to proclaim this ‘a miracle’.

‘I heard an allergy specialist on the radio the other day,’ she muses, scowling, turning my hands over and inspecting them, front and back, ‘saying that one proven way of treating an allergy is to familiarize the body with the allergen by subjecting it to tiny, tiny amounts of the toxic substance over a long period of time until the body is gradually able to build up its own natural immunity; or, more accurately, stop its natural – but illogical – overreaction to the so-called “toxic” element …’

I decide not to tell her about the dream.

‘Didn’t you say there was a small pool of eucalyptus oil at the bottom of your cupboard?’ she asks.

I nod (No. I will definitely not tell her about the dream).

‘Well isn’t it possible that it’s been slowly dripping down on to your clothes for days, weeks, months, even, and you’ve been wearing them without knowing, perfectly oblivious to the fact that you’re building up a gradual immunity?’

I consider this scientific explanation for a moment.

‘I suppose that isn’t the craziest idea in the world …’ I concede, heartened.

(Should I actually mention the dream after all?)

‘A miracle!’ she exclaims. ‘It’s a miracle!’

‘But I thought you …?’ I start off, bemused.

‘That the bottle should corrode!’ she gasps. ‘That bottle, in that cupboard! And for your hands to be healed now, at this time, virtually on the eve of Orla’s birthday anniversary!’

Oh dear, oh dear.

Praise be!

Alys sings, applauding ecstatically.

Praise be!

Praise be!

Glory, glory, glory Hallelujah!

28

Mr Franklin D. Huff

Mr Barrow very kindly loaned me ten pounds. This was to be my fuel. I spent it on cans of pop (I drank from streams when best I could – spent two hours bent double and vomiting so violently my throat bled, copiously, just due north of Crawley), meat and potato pies and chocolate bars. Energy food.