We were in the pub – the Green Female, apparently formerly a man – where the wake had been held after my parents’ funeral. The last of the other mourners had left a few minutes ago, probably concluding I might want to be alone with my feelings and my family, however temporarily reconstituted. In fact my emotions felt as if they’d been embalmed before I’d had a chance to experience them properly, and the spectacle of my parents packed in plush at the undertaker’s had only helped freeze my response. They had both looked so rejuvenated that I could almost have imagined someone had substituted flattering waxworks. Even their calm seemed unreal, a denial of the shock and injuries they must have suffered in the car crash. When I’d spoken from the lectern at the funeral I’d felt as though I was enumerating their merits rather than truly remembering my parents as they’d been while they had breath. I’d heard myself talking like a candidate for a job at Turnbill and Semple, exhibiting the qualities my parents would have wanted from a potential partner in their firm.

Perhaps my eulogy had grown arid because I was striving to be rational about other events in my life. What had I really experienced at Halfway Halt? Had I been so bent on seeing things from my aunt’s viewpoint that I’d turned the place into a deranged cartoon of itself? Perhaps at some time in my childhood I’d overheard her mentioning Magister Stellarum in connection with Halfway Halt. The notion seemed not too far from desperate, and there was too much that it failed to explain. Now I was additionally disconcerted by Bella’s comment – by feeling I’d been used as a defence, though I had no idea why she should feel defensive. “So,” Julia said, “is anybody going to let me into the secret?”

“It isn’t much of one,” Roy said.

“Then it shouldn’t take much keeping.”

Resentfully enough to be blaming me Roy said “Dad can say.”

I thought he should be blaming Bella for alerting Julia, but no doubt his girlfriend was exempt. “We’ve been visiting places that gave my aunt ideas,” I said.

“Are you trying to recapture memories?” Julia said.

“These aren’t memories.”

“Things to do with your family, then.” As though I’d rebuffed her sympathy she said “Trying to hold on to anything you can.”

“Anybody would,” Bella said. “It’s only human.”

We were letting Julia assume too much that wasn’t true, but I preferred this to arguing. When I didn’t speak she said “Where have you visited?”

“Places Thelma wrote down. I think she started after she met the character who took my uncle’s place.”

“You think that’s what he did,” Bella said.

“Gave my aunt ideas or helped to, yes, I believe so.”

“He didn’t try to be like your uncle, then.”