One of the girls switched off the lights in the toilet passage, and the Manor House Girl and her friends queued in the dark, in a small huddle. The ceiling creaked whenever Dad or Auntie Annu moved about upstairs. The Manor House Girl and her friends shrieked and laughed but they all did their weeing in the dark.

Then one day, Dad decided that we were going to move back to Sawdust House. For many years, he hadn’t even glanced in the direction of the house whenever we had driven past, but all of a sudden, it was back to being an ordinary wooden house with breathing structures and the basics in order. All of a sudden, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Mum or her missing head or the hole in the veranda. Except that that, too, had been repaired. All of a sudden, Dad began talking about Mum in the past tense; all of a sudden, he was actually talking about Mum. All of a sudden, Dad began to build a patio, though earlier, he had said one wouldn’t go with the Forties style.

No one had the sense to call a ghost hunter. ‘The basic things are in order,’ Dad assured me, and banged on his patio. How could he have known Mum had stayed on in Sawdust House, lying in wait? How could he have noticed such a thing, having talked Mum into the past tense?

And so Krista moved into Sawdust House, bringing her white furniture and clinking things with her. The clinking things included a beaded curtain, a glass jar filled with seashells, a porcelain angel, Chinese stress balls and a collection of glass bowls for tea lights.

Krista had only ever lived on her own, so all her things were women’s things. She had a white sofa, a white table, an armchair and lots of decorative cushions with English slogans on them. She put up small, hand-painted signs above the towels in the bathroom, saying, Hands, Guests and Bunnykins. She enjoyed doing things like laying the table really nicely, lighting a candle, serving up the food and then taking a photo of the whole thing.

‘Well, Saara, what does it feel like to move back into your own home?’ Krista asked on moving day.

‘Extra Great Manor was my home, too,’ Manor House Girl replied.

‘But, you know,’ Krista went on, ‘a person can have lots of different homes during the course of her life. I’ve had five as an adult. No, six, I mean.’

‘Why did you have a double bed if you’ve always lived by yourself ?’ I asked.

‘Saara,’ Dad said, looking at me sternly.

‘I was only asking.’

‘We’ll talk about it sometime later,’ Dad said, which was his standard way of dealing with things he didn’t want to talk about later.