Ten past seven.

Ten past seven?!

Even the library won’t be open yet! What an idiot! After several minutes of pointless indecision I wander down to the quay and sit there for a while watching the gulls promenading up and down angling for food scraps, the boats bobbing, my healing hands clenched – all the while – into defensive fists, thrust deep, deep inside my pockets.

Please don’t do this to me, Orla! I stamp my feet – perform a little seated tap-dance of anxiety on the tarmac. Yes, I’ve made my mistakes, I’ve been weak – sullen, petulant – but I’ve tried my best to set things straight, so please, please don’t do this to me, Orla! Don’t draw me in again! No more of the pyrotechnics, the miracles, the wonders. Because I’m not a spiritual person, Orla – remember? Not remotely. You know that. I find it hard enough to understand this world – the sticky mess of it, the strangeness – let alone trying to factor in the darkly hollow and woolly hereafter; all those awful consequences beyond awful consequences. No. No. There’s no space in my cramped, lonely little life for faith, for the straitjacket of religion. I’m already a square peg in a round hole: a crazy mishmash, an outsider, conceived in war, born out of misery. I was always – always – a troublesome imposition, a ‘darling mistake’, always dependent on the kindness, the forbearance of others. Nothing was ever unconditional. Or maybe it was, but I never felt like it was. To be so deeply alien and yet not free … never free to … to be as good or as bad as I longed to be. Nothing was ever unconditional. Nothing. Except … well, except your love, Orla, I suppose.

And then I had to go and destroy that.

Inevitably.

Oh Orla – please, please. Can’t you see? There’s barely enough room for me here as it is. It’s all so … so boxed-in, so close and airless, so cramped. Take pity on me! Leave me as I am: quiet, plain, decent (as I possibly can be). Unobtrusive. Repentant. I paid the price, didn’t I? Last time around? And I kept my mouth shut. I made the necessary adjustment. So please, please don’t stir everything up again – just for the sake of it, just because you can – don’t do this to me, Orla!

Urgh.

I shove a stray strand of hair behind my ear and focus – ferociously – on the boats! Yes! The gulls! Yes! But … but here is the evidence, surely? I glance down at my lap. Right here, in my hands. Here is the evidence made concrete in my very flesh. Is this miraculous? I hold the hands out, horrified. No! No! No more miracles! I’ve no time for miracles! Because I’ve learned, from hard experience, that when something is given, then something bigger, something momentous, is also – invariably – extracted. And what else do I honestly have left to give?