‘Sure. And it’s true you know,’ she adds with a cheeky grin as we make our way down the street. ‘You do look good – for your age.’

Chapter Thirty-Three

Wednesday, November 13

As arranged, Nick comes over while Izzy is at Brownies, and we run through our publicity plan in more detail. I have already drafted a press release and sent it over to Hannah for approval. Last night, Spencer’s joiner friends and I dropped into the museum where the boys measured up in order to put together a plan for a basic runway. As it’s in aid of the museum – and word has travelled about the trashing of the taxidermy – suppliers are apparently willing to offer materials at knock-down prices. For an institution that no one seems to visit very much, it certainly seems to hold a place in people’s hearts. In some ways, in creating a bit of storm in the local press, the stoat-liberating maniac did the place a favour.

So it feels as if things are starting to come together, although I suspect it’s something of a miracle that anything is happening at all. Isla and Hannah aside, the museum staff seem to be a particularly ponderous bunch, gliding around in a haze; they appear to operate on ‘museum time’. While I’m hardly the fastest-moving individual on earth, I found myself gritting my teeth and digging my nails in my palms while the kindly white-bearded man explained, so slooowly I could feel the final traces of collagen draining from my face, that the rear south wing will be the site of the exhibition. Forty-five minutes, it took, to explain something that could have been explained in fewer than thirty words.

Maybe it’s me who’s out of kilter, and I’ve just become too accustomed to the self-consciously dynamic, rather shouty atmosphere that pervades Flaxico’s headquarters these days. I fill Nick in on all of this, and find myself enjoying myself immensely, sharing all the details with him. His is an attentive listener, chuckling and smiling and chipping in.

‘It’ll be announced online soon,’ I remind him. ‘We’ll have to tell Penny before that happens.’ I’ve stopped all that ‘your mum’ nonsense; it felt ridiculous, and he is a bona fide adult after all.

‘Yep, we just need to pick the right time,’ he says, ‘and I think you should be the one to do it, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’ I muster a smile. ‘She is going to be okay about this, isn’t she?’

‘I’m sure she will be. She’ll be more than fine …’