Maybe she’d keep them, as a memento.

On the table, a sheaf of paper was weighted down with a beautiful smooth rock – the kind of beach-treasure you picked up and carried home, kept for a while, then realised you had absolutely no use for and threw away. If she moved the pebble that would be snooping, but flicking through the pages was probably all right. She riffled furtively through.

Words and pictures. This must be Finn’s book. It was impossible to pick up the story, but she read the chapter titles. The children who were lost. The boy who went to find himself. The man in the paper cave. The girl who was caught between two worlds. The sleeping dog. The bloody compliment. The drawings were quirky and disturbing, people and creatures with heads slightly too big for their bodies and elongated limbs. Their fingers looked like talons. She didn’t like them, but she couldn’t look away. They were too frightening for kids, surely. She thought about her diary, the struggle to get six lines down on paper, and felt embarrassed to be judging someone else’s work.

“Need a hand?” Ava was standing in the doorway. Alicia felt herself turn hot and ashamed, but Ava didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with her guest looking through her papers. “That’s the latest draft. The story’s finished but he’s still working on the illustrations.”

“How long did it take to write?”

“A while,” said Ava, picking up the chair.

“Too long,” said Finn, trying to take the chair from Ava. Ava resisted. “No, come on, put it down. What’s the point of having me around if you’re going to do the heavy lifting?”

“I can manage,” said Ava.

“Yes I know, but I can manage better. Step away from the chair. Hands where I can see them.” Ava reluctantly let go of the chair. “Good. Now, I’m going to pick it up… easy, easy, no need to get upset… and keep moving… keep moving… out we go… and now sit down in your chair… perfect. Now you just keep sitting there… and I go back over here… and Alicia distracts you with wry observational stories of modern living while I put the kettle on.”

“We need a new gas bottle,” said Ava. “I put the spare one on this morning.”

“I’m on it like a knife. Alicia, get distracting, please, she’s going to try and say she’s going for it.”

“What shall I talk about?” Alicia asked.

“Tell her about that time you were busted for arms dealing coming back from Kazakhstan.”

“I’ve never been… ”

Finn pointed a long finger at her. “Kazakhstan. Go.”

“Okay,” said Alicia. “So, um… I was coming back through the airport, and I got to the check-in counter, and as well as the check-in lady there were these two soldiers with guns, and they said… no, it’s no good, I can’t think of anything.”

“No, that was going well,” said Finn, busy with the tin of teabags. Alicia’s dad kept the teabags in a ceramic jar that said “TEA”, but Finn and Ava had chosen a tall black tin with small people in wide trousers and coolie hats, dancing among dragons and cherry-blossoms. The tin was scratched and old, as if they’d had it for a very long time. Her dad would have said it was unhygienic and thrown it away. “Did they speak English? Or do you speak Kazakh?”