And I could see them then, the Peas, behind her. A gleam of green on the table, still in the white dish he’d put them in with the sprig of mint on top, like some sort of offering, and all I can tell you is that it must have seemed a big thing to him, what had happened.

All I can say is that it must have seemed to him, somehow, like the end of the world.

Precious

Precious

FROM THE MOMENT I arrived, they loved me.

They loved my funny accent, the way I had ketchup with everything. They loved my black socks and my brown sandals; they loved my flesh-coloured money-belt, my grey wheeled suitcase with its retractable handle. Most of all though, they loved the way I sweated in the heat, the way the hot sun made the pale dome of my head glow like a light-bulb. They loved the sight of it, and when they touched it, it brought a smile to all their faces.

Within a week the mayor had installed me in an apartment on the top floor of his mansion and employed an extra cook and a housekeeper to look after me; queues formed every morning at first light outside the mansion’s tall iron gates, and throughout the day the townspeople came to touch my head. It was extraordinary, the pleasure it gave them, the way it made them smile. Little by little they began expressing their appreciation with gifts – home-made bread and custard flans, bottles of wine, sausage, cash; it wasn’t long before they began requesting my presence at important events: birthdays and retirement parties and the unveiling of a new fountain in the market square, at baby showers and at weddings. They even wanted me at their funerals to stand by the open coffin of the deceased when they came to say their good-byes. It cheered them up, they said, to be able to touch my head after kissing the body for the very last time. By the end of the summer there was hardly a single public occasion that took place without me and I – well, I had begun to feel slightly uncomfortable with the situation.

It bothered me that they thought so much of me, and while I tried to remind myself that I had never once claimed to be anyone special, I couldn’t help feeling, as the months passed and they took me ever more passionately to their hearts, that I was moving, slowly but surely, towards some kind of frightful unmasking or exposé; that each day was bringing me closer and closer to my own humiliating demise.

I decided I’d better leave, before things got out of hand.