‘The grass was bending in the wind, showing its shiny side underneath, glinting in the light. And the pines. The pines were poking out of the mist by the river, sticking their heads up like they wanted to see the sun.

‘It was so beautiful, and I felt it was being beautiful for me, kind of saying goodbye to me. ’Cause I didn’t care what Moses did to me no more. I’d made my mind up I wasn’t going to run. I pushed the door open and it was dark like it always was, but this time much darker. Took me an age to let my eyes see. But when I got used to it I saw that Moses was kneeling in the middle of the floor, and there were blankets nailed over the windows.

‘He was butt-naked and he’d cleared all his stuff, all the bits of old table and chairs, the magazines and rugs, all pushed up to the walls. He was just kneeling there, staring up at me like he’d been expecting me, and I stared back at him like he was a mad animal but he didn’t get up to run at me or anything, just knelt there like a crazy man. Then I saw he was in a ring. A ring like you used to make of blessed herbs.

‘Except this was just grain or tea or cereal or something. Yeah. That’s what it was. I can see it now. There was a carton of tea lying spilled in the doorway to the kitchen. The stupid old shit. I could see he was drunk. There was booze spilled all round the pile of his clothes and one of those stinking jars on its side. He made me sick, but I was confused. I never saw him doing anything crazy like this. Usually, like you know, he just got mean. He never got crazy. But here he was, kneeling in a ring of tea-leaves in the dark, the oil-drum stove going like it was February, even though the sun outside was already splitting rocks.

‘All he had on was Eden’s amulet round his scrawny neck. The Isksaksin. He was clutching it in both hands and he had an erection. He was like a totem of a dog spirit, an ugly shrivelled demon with its charm held in its claws for protection, and he was staring at me like we were both made of wood.

‘I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run for a minute. Then I remembered why I’d come home and I did what seems crazy considering it was Moses in that room. I just put my hands on my hips and I laughed. I laughed at him and pointed at his prick, tears running down my cheeks like I’d never laughed before, and even though I could see him getting ready to go nuclear I just kept on laughing.