‘All’s he can do is eat soup and lie flat on his belly!’ Mrs Barrow called after me.

My nose (on account of my lips being so firmly sealed) emitted a fearful snort.

‘STOP LAUGHING, CARLA!’ Mrs Barrow boomed. ‘THERE’S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT A POOR MAN’S BUTTOCKS SEALING!’

It was at this moment – of course it was, yes, yes of course it was – that I apprehended a scowling, ghostly pale Mr Huff (strung between a panting Mr Barrow and an exhausted-seeming darling Alys), being half carried, half dragged up the hallway to his bed.

‘Carla! Thank God!’ Alys exclaimed (embarrassed and astonished). ‘Mr Barrow was just telling us …’

‘Yes. Alive.’ I nodded, wiping the mirthful tears from my cheeks with my flattened palms (but not my deranged grin, alas), then, ‘You have a telegram, Mr Huff,’ then, ‘Sorry,’ I added (as an afterthought), ‘for any, you know, distress caused.’ I shoved my hair behind my ears. ‘I always laugh when I’m terribly upset,’ I explained. ‘It’s just a … a nervous reaction, that’s all.’

‘I recently read how scientists believe the cockroach to be the only living creature capable of surviving the ravages of a nuclear holocaust,’ Mr Huff murmured, eyes blazing.

‘Yes. I read that too.’ I nodded. Then I grabbed the ball of rabbit paper from the bin, pushed past Mrs Barrow for a second time, and made as rapid an exit as I possibly could – still grinning, madly – through the back porch.

37

Mr Franklin D. Huff

What really worried me was the way that the voice in my head didn’t match with the real voice of Carla Hahn. They didn’t match because the voice in my head continued to tell me things even when the actual Carla Hahn was telling me something entirely at odds with them.

Okay, that wasn’t what really worried me. What really worried me was how incredibly hurt … how incredibly wounded … how incredibly emasculated I’d felt on finally entering my home – my home, yes? My retreat, my refuge! – after an incredibly fruitless and exhausting and confusing and disorientating and … and … traumatic interlude, only to hear Mrs Barrow yelling out … you know … and then to see her, her, Carla Hahn, just … just grinning hysterically like some big, ugly, red-cheeked blonde monkey. So undignified. So cruel. So utterly …

And she wasn’t even dead! Carla Hahn wasn’t dead. It was all just a vindictive lie! And I’d barely even had a chance to reconcile myself to the fact that …

You knew I wasn’t dead! Carla Hahn snorted. I told you I wasn’t dead, didn’t I?

Short pause.

And I’m very sorry that I laughed at you. But it is quite funny. In the abstract. For a person’s buttocks to seal. It really is quite funny. You know, just … just in the abstract.

‘Indestructible!’ I muttered. ‘She’s indestructible! Like a cockroach!’

‘Pardon me, Mr Huff?’ Mrs Barrow straightened up, one giant rubber-gloved hand slick and shiny with a thick coating of glossy emollient.