… so confused … so confusing-ing-ing-ing and yet I could see the sense in it and the truth of it and we had all been a part of it and we were laughing-ing-ing-ing and so grate-ate-ate-ful-ull-ull-ull and we wanted the crowd to get bigger … we longed for-or-or-or the happiness to expand-dand-dand-dand-dand so that it might … so that everyone might-ight-ight join-oin-oin-oin the great light-ight-ight-ight …

… then my thoughts turned into symbols-ols-ols and there isn’t the … there isn’t the … the means-eans-eans-eans … the way of … to place it all … all down here-ear-ear.

If I could then I would … I would … I would show you-woo-woo-woo.

But I don’t have the …

I can’t …

Not like the others … with the … at least I … the big gulf-ulf-ulf-ulf … Not like them …

I don’t … I must turn now, and-dand-dand …

Head back to the van.

I must turn now, and-dand-dand …

I must turn now, and-dand-dand-dand …

Move past this great … this giant and strange and for ever echo-ho-ho-ho …

I must turn now, and-dand-dand-dand …

I must turn now, and-dand-dand-dand …

Head back to the …

I must turn now, and-dand-dand-dand-dand …

… and-dand-dand-dand …

… and-dand-dand-dand-dand …

God help me –

God help me –

go.

40

Miss Carla Hahn

It took the best part of an entire afternoon to salvage what I could from the bungalow, which in the broad light of day looked as if some cruel deity had just laid into it, willy-nilly, with a huge jackhammer. Or a monstrous shark had leapt from the sea’s depths and bitten a big chunk away. Or a passing giant had paused for a brief interlude during a beachside stroll, rested his elbow – unthinkingly – on the roof, gazed out to sea and debated whether or not to risk the short wade across to France.

There seemed no rhyme or reason to what was lost and what still remained: an untouched supper of sardines on toast, resting (knife and fork casually crossed across the plate) on half a kitchen counter, my copy of Andromeda lying open on the bedroom floor at the very page I left off reading it, but my bed – in which I happily lay to do so – and the wall the bed generally leaned up against, now mysteriously evaporated.

If I gazed down at the new rows of jagged mud and rubble terraces, I could see rugs and torn posters and incidental tables and the spare Baby Belling and the old lawnmower and my best bedspread (the old blue one with the rose pattern) poking out from the murky scree. There was the horrible avocado-coloured china bath and its matching hand-basin lying far below on the beach, the toilet (which completed the suite) and the ugly hammered-copper chimney-breast cover (from the living room) hovering twenty foot above. There was a door – still vertical and in its frame – repeatedly opening and closing in the wind, as if a series of ghostly inhabitants were appraising the suitability of this strangely airy new residence before retreating, unconvinced.