‘Well a memory chip is sort of like the computer’s brain. It’s very tiny – the size of your smallest fingernail – but incredibly powerful. You’ll find one at the heart of everything and anything digital: super-computers, data-centres, communications products …’

She suddenly smiled. ‘You know I was actually very … very struck by something that you said to me the other day, Miss Hahn.’

‘Something I said?’ I echoed, slightly bemused.

‘Yes. When I mentioned my half-finished Ph.D. in Undecidable Problems. And you said, “But why don’t you simply concentrate on the problems that you can make a decision about?”’

‘I said that?’

‘Yes. And at the time I just thought, What an idiot – she doesn’t even grasp what an Undecidable Problem is, but then later …’ – she grinned – ‘when I was under the misguided impression that you’d toppled into the sea, and I was dissecting the conversation we’d had previously in much greater detail – imbuing it with so much more significance on account of your being … you know … dead, I thought, She’s right. Why always focus on the things that can’t be decided? That’s always been my problem – my Achilles heel. Emotionally, intellectually. Focusing on the undecidable – love, chemistry, loss, attraction – when in fact there are all these … these eminently decidable problems out there. Problems that need solving. Questions that can and should be answered. By me.’

‘Well I’m delighted if the thought of my untimely death spurred you into …’ I shrugged.

‘Art is undecidable,’ she sighed, ‘and that’s why I’m a useless poet, Miss Hahn. I lack conviction. In fact that’s why all poetry is useless. Because there’s no certainty.’

‘All poetry?’ I echoed, slightly worried now.

‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’

She handed me back the piece of newspaper.

‘I hope I managed to clarify things for you.’ She smiled.

‘You did. Thank you.’ I nodded.

‘Why exactly are you so concerned about it?’ she wondered. ‘A twelve-year-old computer chip? On the day after your bungalow fell into the sea?’

‘Because Orla – Orla – Orla Nor Cleary the … you know …’

She nodded.

‘Orla was always scribbling those four digits down after praying, or muttering them in her sleep, or scratching them into the sand on the beach with a stick, or—’

‘4004 BC is when Ussher claimed the world was born,’ Mrs Meadows interrupted.

‘Ussher?’

‘He was the Archbishop of Ireland in the seventeenth century. Of course the date was biblically sourced. And nobody takes it seriously any more.’

‘The birth of the world,’ I mused, pushing my hair behind my ear.

‘And I suppose with the Intel 4004 another kind of world was born,’ Mrs Meadows expanded, ‘a new world. A digital world … Here. Hold on a second …’

She suddenly reached up to her hair, felt around blindly for a moment, withdrew a small, eminently tasteful, antiqued brass and pearl filigree hair-clip, leaned forward and deftly pinned my fringe back with it. She then paused for a moment to inspect her handiwork, grimaced, removed the clip and quickly readjusted the positioning slightly.