43

Mr Franklin D. Huff

I had been trying to provoke her. I won’t even bother to pretend otherwise. I had been trying to … I don’t know … to get under her skin. Out of pique. Out of pure spite. Out of a feeling of immense … frustration – irritation – powerlessness. And I’m not remotely ashamed to admit this (in fact I’m happy to admit it – too happy, perhaps).

But when she picked up that child’s coat and cradled it in her arms, and her face …

It crumpled. Like a paper bag. It just crumpled. As if I’d … like I’d crushed the very … destroyed the very … scooped out her very soul with my two bare hands. And then her entire body was racked by these gigantic sobs. The most awful, desperate, heart-wrenching sobs.

Ah! Such terrible distress! Such unspeakable anguish! Like a wounded beast, trapped, fatally injured, insensible with pain (and its young, meanwhile, all back at the den – just waiting, patiently waiting – still expecting to be fed).

Even the imaginary Miss Hahn – generally difficult to knock off her perch – was reduced to silence by this most distressing of spectacles.

What have I done? I asked, tentatively. Very tentatively. In my head. Looking for reassurance.

You’ve gone too far, Mr Huff, the imaginary Miss Hahn whispered, that’s what you’ve done!

But … but she hid the dead shark under my bed, Miss Hahn! I wheedled.

‘How could you, Mr Huff?!’ The actual Miss Hahn lifted her face from the coat with an agonizing groan. ‘Orla’s little coat. Her coat. How could you, Mr Huff?’

Oh dear. And how might I adequately respond? What could I conceivably come up with to try and right such a dreadful ‘perceived’ wrong?

I think I … I probably just cobbled together some pathetic excuse straight off the cuff. Said Mrs Barrow had made a silly mistake. Tried to palm it off on her as best I could.

Miss Hahn shoved her distraught face back into the dense folds of the coat again.

She’s furious! Miss Hahn cautioned me. Incandescent! Listen to that!

I didn’t want to listen. It was unbearable! Miss Hahn was muttering and groaning and clenching her fists. She was in an ecstasy of rage. An ecstasy. And then – just as suddenly – it stopped. She stopped. Her fists unclenched. Her shoulders relaxed. Her breathing regulated. And she was … she was embracing and kissing and consoling the damn thing, muttering sweetly into it, nuzzling it, reassuring it.

It was very strange. I (meanwhile) was busy telling Miss Hahn (the actual Miss Hahn) – who I knew wasn’t listening – of my frustrations over suddenly, mysteriously, being designated the Clearys’ chief representative on earth. I mean I had taken on this role semi-voluntarily at first, although my motivations, at root, weren’t entirely honourable (I can’t – or won’t – be a hypocrite about it). But I hadn’t intended to become … I hadn’t wanted to become caught up … hog-tied … because I simply … I simply wasn’t equipped emotionally to … to cope.