With both of them, lying was more than pretending or acting. All of the alcoholics lied in a deeper way, because every lie to someone else was birthed in a lie to themselves. Margaret needed Heidi to think it was not the same phone she’d seen twelve years ago – that Margaret had not held on to the phone for twelve years. So, in her mind and in her soul, she made it not the same phone. This was a new phone, given to her a few days ago by a paranoid client who wanted to communicate with her this way because the client was eccentric as well as paranoid. Margaret had not held on to the phone for years – this was a new phone. It was the truth now. It had never been different. She looked at the phone and it was at once genuine and for effect. She looked at it to cement the lie and then she looked at Heidi like she was really considering what she was about to say. She pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘No.’ She smiled. ‘No. The client just gave it to me last week.’ The best way to lie was not to tell too much. There was a temptation, when it was quiet, to fill in the gaps, but if she could wait it out it would be more effective. It was the truth, so she just looked Heidi in the eye and smiled and let the quietness sit.

‘Oh,’ Heidi said finally. ‘My mistake.’

‘Do you want a tea?’ Margaret said.

Everything was possible. It made perfect sense that Greta and Peggy would be here, and that Heidi would finally see the phone. The atmosphere was full of carbon and the sea was full of plastic. Everything was where it shouldn’t be. Whales had stomachs full of rice sacks and snack bags and tangles of nylon rope. There were orca in the harbour. When they tried to swim in the sea it was salp-thick. Everything was possible – it was infinitely replayable. She’d been stuck in it her whole life, maybe more than once, so surely there were broken-edged cases. It made perfect sense that Peggy and Greta would be gone and then here again and then gone. There were ghosts walking right beside her – showing her the way she’d come. Stakes were being driven up as she progressed further through the skill-tree. The world was ending. It was hotter than it should be. Margaret could almost feel it all as she watched the jug boil. It was unseen and yet it was all coming into sharp focus.