The chick squirms and peers up at the cavernous sky. And a problem: how to get to her feet?

This old woman’s body.

She pins the chick to the ground with her hand as she clambers to her knees. Heavy on all fours, she feels like a farm animal. An image flickers in her mind, of being mounted from behind. Her breasts swinging free. His hands on her hips. She tries to blink it away. She’s uncomfortably aware that it’s her son standing behind her, and she hears Gray chuckle. Imagines Gray chuckling.

The seedy old bugger.

She eases one foot beneath her, then the other, then presses herself up, feeling her joints mutter and pressing the chick into the sand all the while, crushing it beneath her weight. It stops screeching and lets out a gurgling little sigh, sounding almost like a content human infant. Orange krill vomit leaks from its beak and an acidic, fishy aroma cuts the air.

Finally on her feet, she realises that she’s pretty much killed it already, not that it matters. She gives it a flick, half for show, half for good measure. It’s not textbook, but the job’s done: its neck is broken and its head hangs loosely from its body.

‘Ooph,’ she wheezes. ‘I’m too old for this. You two’ll have to do the rest. You just grab a hold of them wherever you can, then pull ’em out and break their necks. Like I just did then’s real easy, otherwise, you can just pull or twist the head. Oh and watch the vomit. It’s real hard to get the smell outa your clothes.’

Lucy peers at the little body in Flo’s hands. ‘It’s so fat,’ she says. She reaches out and strokes the chick. ‘And so, well, soft. And young. Does it make you feel bad?’

‘A bit, but you can’t look at these things like that,’ Flo says matter-of-factly. ‘It’s not what it’s about.’

Lucy nods slowly. ‘Okay,’ she decides. ‘I’ll try.’

She tests a burrow with the length of wire, and when she’s rewarded with a squawk, she lies down, flat on her tummy, in front of the mouth and reaches in.

‘Oh my god, this feels so counter-intuitive,’ she says, face glazed in concentration as she fossicks around in the burrow. ‘Argh! I touched it!’

‘What did you expect?’ Harry asks, smiling.

She grins up at him sheepishly, then looks at Flo. ‘What do I do? Just grab it?’

‘Yep. Wherever you can get a hold.’

‘It’s pecking me!’

‘Course it is. Wouldn’t you? Just grab it!’

Lucy bites her lower lip and furrows her brow, then yelps: ‘I’ve got it!’ Triumphantly, she pulls it out, squirming and squawking, by its webbed and rubbery little feet.

‘Flick it, flick it, flick it,’ Flo chants, hopping from one foot to the other.

Lucy grins frenziedly from Flo to Harry and then, for some reason, raises the writhing bird above her head and flicks it down like she’s a starter at a school athletics carnival. A ribbon of vomit arcs from the bird’s beak and sloshes its way down the length of her body.