Thank you, Mrs Barrow! Miss Hahn repeated, tartly.

Mrs Barrow had temporarily left the room (She’s left the room! I told Miss Hahn, crossly) but then she suddenly reappeared in the doorway again holding out the Woolworth’s bag.

Thank you, Mrs Barrow! Miss Hahn sang.

‘What will you as have me do with this old bag?’ Mrs Barrow asked, wincing fastidiously. ‘It was left over by the bin. Is it meant for the rubbish, Mr Huff?’

‘N …’ I started off, and then, ‘Thank you, Mrs Barrow!’ I sang (incredibly heartfelt). ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Barrow,’ I repeated (just in case she hadn’t heard me the first time around).

Mrs Barrow grunted and exited (she isn’t in this for the thanks. D’you hear that, Miss Hahn? Eh? She isn’t in this for the thanks. Nope. And I knew that. I knew that. Mrs Barrow and I really have established quite a bond).

Miss Hahn emitted a sound which I can only really describe as a combination of a squeak and a growl.

I blithely ignored it and picked up my spoon again to try for another mouthful of the disgusting soup. This time, though, instead of just tipping it on to the pillow I somehow managed to … to knock my elbow into the bedside table so that the spoonful of soup flew … It flew. Quite literally. Straight into my face.

Gloop!

The inside of your head is so gloomy … Miss Hahn quietly mused, like a filthy old storeroom in a disused museum. Full of strange objects covered in brown paper and cracked display cases and ancient dust-cloths … It really does need a good …

I suddenly felt an unbearable tickling sensation in my sinuses.

‘Thank you very much, Mrs Barrow!’ I bellowed. Really, really loudly. Purely out of spite, I suppose.

Then I sneezed.

Then I smelled an incredibly strong blast of eucalyptus.

Then I … hic! I … hic! Then I … hic! … I hic! … I hic! … Then I hic! … I … hic! … Oh you … hic! … know … hic! … what I … hic! … don’t … hic! … don’t … hic! … don’t you?

38

Miss Carla Hahn

I walked into Rye. I didn’t have any money for the bus (my purse was in Fairlight. In the bungalow. Or not in the bungalow). I didn’t have anything, in fact. Only the piece of old newspaper, a nagging hunch and that inane grin which was still plastered right across my face. But it wasn’t a happy grin. Or even a cruel grin. It was a kind of a … a safety valve. A necessary release. It was the only thing holding all this … all this stuff in. Holding me together (that crazy tension – each side of my mouth). I suppose if (like, say, Mr Huff), you were given to bouts of chronic over-self-dramatization you might even call it a ‘deadly’ grin.

Because when I saw that piece of old newspaper (how old was it – a week?), I suddenly realized that it had all happened – all of it, every, little bit of it, even the rabbit – for a reason. Everything was interconnected. We were all chosen. We. Us. You know – the dregs. The pointless. The flawed. The unconvinced. The least worthy in many respects. Just like Sorcha had said. We were all chosen. Because majesty shines most brightly through … through frailty, I suppose. Through failure. Through weakness.