“Okay. Now, may I call you Bridie?”

“Yes.”

“And do you want to play the yes-no game?”

She wags her head. This time the yes is more conditional.

I glance up at Terry and nod. With a murmur, she leaves us.

“Let’s start,” I say to Bridie Moore. “The thing you want to tell me. Is it about a person?”

“Yes.”

“Is the person here in Upton?”

A long pause before she simultaneously says, “Yes,” and slaps her knee.

“Yes and no?”

She points at me and then to a space beside me, and then she touches her chest. And says, “Yes.”

I’m at a loss. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Moore, I’m very slow on the uptake.”

She snorts. Telling me.

Then she makes a sort of rubbing-out motion in the air. I recognize it instantly as the gesture people make when playing charades. Forget that, it means. I’m trying another tack. This time she drags a pointing finger across her lap.

“A line?”

A reproving slap, this time, and a hiss. Hold your horses. She starts again.

The finger repeats the line, comes to a halt. I keep my mouth shut. Then it tracks backward toward her body, then sideways, and then, with a great deal of wavering, back to the start of the first line. She repeats the whole operation, this time trying to follow the tartan pattern on her skirt, as an aid to make all four sides equal.

“A square?”

A bold, triumphant, “Yes!”

She makes it once again, to ingrain it in my mind. After all, I am slow on the uptake. Then she pats the square, as if to say: There it is. She’s much calmer now, looking down at her creation with a certain amount of satisfaction.

“Hello, Mr. Acton.”

Philip has arrived bearing a tea tray. He sets it down and takes a seat next to his mother before offering her a child’s cup, the kind with a plastic lid and a teat, supporting her hand as she brings it to her mouth. She drinks eagerly.

“Your mother’s doing my brain a great deal of good, Philip,” I say. “Making it work so hard.” I address his mother again. “So there is someone beside me, and something to do with my chest. And now there’s a square.”

“A square?” Philip frowns.

“Your mother drew it for me.”

Mrs. Moore’s stare tells me this is no time to chat. She hasn’t finished. I watch her lever her good hand to her mouth, purse her lips and expel a puff of air. Enough air, it seems, to blow her hand away, because it falls down onto her lap. She repeats the gesture, raising her hand to her mouth: “Pfff,” she goes, as her hand flies down.

“Pfff,” I say. “Is that a word?”