I run out of words, so I finish my slice of pie and then hack off another chunk. I eat this one, too.

Miss Hahn says nothing. After a minute or so she cuts herself a thin slice of pie and carries it through to the little sitting room. She stands by the window and peers out of it as she eats. I wonder what it is that she’s staring at out there. A cat regally defecating down by the cut? A bus disgorging its occupants over on the main road? The black shadow of a giant tanker on the far horizon? I suddenly feel a slight pang of … what? Guilt? Empathy? Nausea?

‘That was good,’ she finally observes, brightly, on completing her last mouthful. ‘So what about the book?’

‘The book?’

The book?! Is this any time to be talking about books?

‘Well I guess I’m off the hook.’ I shrug.

‘Oh – you were on a hook?’ She looks surprised. ‘I didn’t realize.’

‘Yes. No. Uh.’

Arrgh. You know what? I wish I could just … I wish I could just put all these feelings I have inside me – this mass of tiny peppery black dots which march around in my stomach, behind my eyelids, over my shoulders, like … like ants – into coherent sentences. I wish I could just print them out on to clean, little slips of paper – in neat, densely printed lines – like a till receipt. Then take that damn receipt, screw it up and throw it into a wastepaper basket. Dispose of it. Dispose of them. Responsibly. Then calmly move on (machismo – pride – still abundantly intact). Yes. I wish I could just … I wish I could just stop saying things and doing things and then not knowing why I did them or why I said them. Or knowing really – underneath – and wishing that I didn’t. Yes. Wishing I could just graciously accept what I know. But I can’t. Because what would be left of me, then? How might I be expected to drag myself out of bed in the morning? Look in the mirror? Blanch? Look again? Pluck the odd stray hair from inside my nostril? Apply shaving foam?

‘Will you be returning home for the funeral?’

Miss Hahn has returned to the kitchen again. I find her gaze very intimidating, all of a sudden.

‘Kim lived in Canada. My flight was to Monterrey.’

‘You couldn’t change it?’

I just … I just wish I could be slightly more in control of this entire … I wish I was more in control of my entire wretched, tilting, wonky self. If only my feelings – my impulses – my actions were an orchestra which I – me – was able to conduct. They are an orchestra, to all intents and purposes – but my conducting? A disaster! Chaos! A deafening cacophony! Horns parping! The percussionist rolling around on his back, legs in the air, having a riot on the maracas! Violas being plucked by teeth instead of fingers! A chronic excess of flugelhorn!