I held Yvette in my arms in bed as she fed him. While he suckled he clung on to her little finger, opening just a slit of one eye to give me a beady look. She’s mine now, and don’t you forget it. My arms were around her forming a perimeter defense in which she could cradle him. She moved in bed and hissed at the pain, cursed. Not since the Battle of Bréville. A dam and her cub, and my job was to feed her and thereby feed him. I did so; she wanted porridge, so we both had some. A midwife came early in the morning and tutted. Mrs. Acton had not bathed the baby.

“She hasn’t bathed him yet,” I said.

“Mr. Acton, please compose yourself and take away those dishes,” said the midwife. “Your wife and I have business together.”

I had thought that I was composed but on my way downstairs I touched my face and it was wet with tears that had brimmed over.

—

I cross out the previous lines about the little cedarwood chest. I’m not going to send this letter, it’s such a sorry effort, but I write down the question anyway.

Dear Tom,

Is there another notebook?

Do you know what happened?

A familiar sound outside. The squeak of brake blocks on the rim of a wheel. I put down my pen, peer out of the window. A child on a bicycle is pedaling round and round in the farmyard. The rider, in gumboots and an anorak with the hood up, is trying to make the circle smaller with each revolution. That will only work up to a certain point. Beyond that, your machine will stall. There we go, momentum lost: the rider skids on one foot over the concrete yard, parks the bike against the rusty gate, which is always propped open. Saunters up to the kitchen door. Rat-a-tat-tat.

What can this young person want?

She begins to sing, her voice high and mournful. A certain Major Tom, I gather, is not responding to Ground Control. Is this a message for me? If it is, I haven’t got the right codes.

“Come in,” I call. “It’s open.”

The door opens, the child pulls back the hood, reveals short tufts of hair. A girl of about eleven or twelve. “Hello. Are you Mr. Acton? I’m Penny Lacey. How do you do.”

“How do you do, Penny Lacey.”

She grins, bends sideways like a reed in the wind for no discernible reason, straightens up again. “Ellen wants to know if you’re up to visitors. She says that if not it doesn’t matter, we’ll go straight on by. The last thing we want to be is de trop. That means ‘too much.’ She thinks we might be too much for you. Because of your accident, I’m guessing, but she didn’t say so.”