‘She knew …?’

‘That in my heart I didn’t want her to pray for her. I was harbouring this deep hostility. But in my head I did want her to. Just to try and make up for … to give her something back after … after I’d taken so much from her. Almost to be … to be better than her … more generous. Than she had ever been. My whole, miserable life. To me. Her only daughter. Orla saw all that.’

‘So she prayed.’

I nodded.

‘And you didn’t try and stop her?’

‘I saw her lips moving. I didn’t do anything. That same day Kimberly told Lonely that she suspected I was having an affair with her husband.’

‘Who? With me?!’ Mr Huff started.

‘With Bran.’

‘Oh. Of course …’ Mr Huff shook his head. ‘But you weren’t, were you?’

‘Wasn’t I?’

I shrugged. ‘There was a connection – an intimacy … I was at the centre of everything. Suddenly. In the middle of everything. For the first time in my entire … Instead of being just …’

‘Stuck in the Approaches,’ Mr Huff murmured.

‘And I didn’t really know who this new person was. I wasn’t sure she was really qualified to … It was as if everything started to melt away inside me. To burn with this new energy. And the limits, the standards, that I had always lived by, that I had set myself previously, or been set by … by … I don’t know … Nothing felt absolute. For Orla everything was always absolute. But I didn’t have that. And I still don’t. And it’s a kind of …’ – I threw out my arm – ‘incredible torment. Not to be clean inside. Not to be good enough. Not to be better than I am. Because—’

‘I must interrupt you, Miss Hahn,’ Mr Huff suddenly murmured, ‘because there’s a bright crack of light – a chink of light – shining from the middle of your … your …’

He pointed at my chest.

‘Sorry?’

I looked down. Mr Huff was blinking, trying to turn away now, covering his eyes with his arm.

‘It’s blinding me, Miss Hahn!’ he gasped.

I put my hands up to my chest, terrified.

‘What is it?’ I asked, swinging around. ‘Stop that! Stop frightening me, Mr Huff!’

‘It feels horribly like … like love,’ he said, writhing, in agony. ‘It’s love, Miss Hahn. The most terrible … most burning … most … most devastating love. And it’s coming from you, Miss Hahn. It’s flooding from … it’s flooding out of …’

And I don’t know why, but I had a sudden, powerful image of myself – in that moment – as the stylus on a record player, swinging around, over the record – over the album – and the needle crashing, scratching, into the vinyl. Playing tiny fragments of voice and music, then lifting up, jumping, crashing down again. Scratching the vinyl, playing the vinyl. Such a curious image. Such a strange and haunting and inconclusive …