In the mirror, a stranger looks back at me. My face is burnt and scratched. My lips dark. I put my hand up and touch the gash in my head. Around it, my hair is a witch’s wig of dust and dried blood.

‘Still ain’t willing to say who did it to ya?’ Through the glass of the mirror, Nora’s eyes shine fierce.

Duval had told Milt and Nora very little. I figured he was right. Too many questions, too many implications. I shake my head, feeling suddenly very weak. It can wait, it can all wait. Wordlessly, I begin smoothing out the sepia news cuttings stuck into the frieze of the mirror. They’re all disaster headlines. Bhopal, Chernobyl, a mass grave in Serbia. ‘Shitty little world, ain’t it?’ Nora says, looking over my shoulder.

I muster a response, wanting to be left alone, but unwilling to hurt her feelings. There’s a squeak of springs as she slumps down on the bed behind me. ‘Top shelf of the closet, there’s a tote. You’ll have to reach it down yourself, I ain’t a giraffe like you, but don’t worry, the clothes’ll fit. They’re from a long time back.’

I have to stand on tiptoes to reach the container. I try to lever it out but inevitably the box tips and falls, spilling its contents onto the cupboard floor. I gather everything up and carry it to the bed. It’s the usual jumble, items kept for no good reason other than nostalgia, and all representing some regret or washed-out memory: T-shirts, bits of broken jewellery, jeans, snapshots, a checked summer dress. There’s even some kids’ stuff. A toy bear, limp and chewed, a heavily stained baby-gro.

‘Here, give me that.’ Nora rakes the kids’ stuff across the bedspread and balls the clothing up into the tote again. I pick up one of the photographs from the folds of the sheets and glance at it. A thinner, less time-ravaged Nora with a man, fine-featured and dark. I look closer then closer still. ‘Nora, is this . . . Chavez?’

Nora dips her head coyly. ‘Good-looking devil, weren’t he?’

I stare at the snapshot. ‘Were you two . . .?’

‘Listen, girl,’ Nora gives a pneumatic wheeze, ‘’bout that time at the rodeo. I’m sorry I pushed ya but I thought . . .’ The bed springs creak. ‘Well who cares what I thought . . . sometimes a person just acts stupid, you know.’

‘So you and he . . .’ I can’t quite get the words out. ‘You two were . . .?’

‘Gettin’ it on?’ She does a little jiggle with her hips. ‘Hey, spit it out if that’s what you’re trying to say . . .’ Then, seeing I’m incapable of saying anything at all, she sobers up. ‘Yeah, for a time but . . . well, hell, in the end it wasn’t to be.’