I walk to the side of the house where a gate leads into the back garden, unlatch it with a hand that is shaking. I stumble through the gate, into the back garden where the air is heavy with scent and the light of the moon pours through the branches of the fig trees. But I don’t notice the cool, scented air or the light of the moon.

I am shaking.

It feels like every feeling I have ever had is rampaging inside me, hurling against the walls of my body, trying to get out. I can’t work out how I feel.

I am shaking.

I feel maddened. Like a bull in a ring with the first of the matador’s swords sunk in the solid ridge of its shoulders. I want to shout. Scream even. Shout and scream until my throat is sore and my voice runs out and there is nothing else to say. Nothing left to shout. My breath comes in shaky bursts, as if I have run a marathon, which I have never done and never will because I don’t do anything.

I don’t do anything. I never do anything.

I don’t know what the point of me is. I thought I could help.

I always think I can help. I can’t help.

Iris is going to die.

Iris is going to end her life.

She is going to kill herself and there’s nothing I can do because I don’t do anything because I never do anything because I can’t do anything because nothing I do will make any difference.

The thoughts go around and around. A blur of thoughts.

I am dizzy with them.

The need to do something—anything—is solid. A brick wall of need with no beginning and no ending.

And then I see the cage that Monsieur Lalouette calls an aviary but which is really a cage. Inside, the pigeons sleep, their heads tucked into the finery of their plumage, their dreams innocent of the carnage of their fate.

I run towards the cage, wrench back the bolt, and fling the door open.

The pigeons lift their heads from their breasts and fix me with their beady black eyes.

Other than that, nothing happens.

“Go on,” I tell them, and even my voice is shaking. I point to the sky. “You’re free,” I tell them.

The birds shuffle on their various perches and one of them emits a low coo, but, other than that, nothing happens.

I storm inside the cage and the smell is physical, like an assault. I breathe through my mouth. Now I can taste the smell. I point at the open cage door. “Go on,” I tell them again as if, perhaps, they hadn’t heard me the first time. “Get out. I’m freeing you.”

The pigeons make a dreadful racket now, and those on the upper perches seek refuge on the lower ones, cowering together as if there is safety in numbers.

“I’m trying to help you,” I tell them, stabbing my finger in the air, towards the door.