And it was all over, then. Very quickly. So quickly that it was almost (I’ll be honest with you) a slight anticlimax.

Miss Hahn was saying something about … Oh I don’t know. Because she had been terrified (‘Stop it, Mr Huff! You’re frightening me!’ Something of that order) but then the story started telling itself (because it would be told – it had its own momentum – irrelevant as it was) about how the life of Orla Nor Cleary was so much more beautiful and complicated and lovely and fragrant than she could ever give words to. Because words were just tiny lies. And she was a kitchen scrap. Just a kitchen scrap. But for once, just that once, in the presence of Orla, she had become … I don’t know. Fill this in as best you can.

Because I am exhausted. And I don’t really know how this will all turn out. And Miss Hahn is banging away at the window – the window of this story – asking to be let in again. And I shall let her in, soon enough. But first at least let me … let me relish this moment. At the start and the end of something. Let me take my time to decide what kind of carriage – car – receptacle I am inhabiting, and then push the door open – to welcome her. My dear Miss Hahn.

Perhaps I am simply inside my own heart, and I am steering this conversation from within. And the banging of Miss Hahn’s fist is the beating of that heart. I can’t say. All I can really be sure of, right now, is that she’s standing there. God bless her. (And so are you – God bless you, too.) Pounding and pounding and pounding and pounding.

Also by Nicola Barker

Love Your Enemies

Reversed Forecast

Small Holdings

Heading Inland

Wide Open

Five Miles from Outer Hope

Behindlings

Clear

Darkmans

Burley Cross Postbox Theft

The Yips

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