And stay away from my daughter. Do NOT try to contact her, or I really don’t know what I’ll do.

But don’t worry. I won’t report you to my father. I am even less inclined to have anything to do with him than I am with you.

It was acid. It was ice. It chilled me to the bone.

No wonder Bette had wailed.

The little insides of the music box still sat on the windowsill in front of me. The comb teeth sat waiting, the crank handle slot still empty. I stood slowly, numbly, like I was moving underwater. I picked up the tiny crank handle from the floor by the bed and, with my other hand, lifted the music box mechanism from the windowsill and fitted the handle into its slot. You can’t tell from looking, I thought, what song a music box will play. It needs a human touch to make it sing.

It was a beautiful thing, the inside of the music box. It wasn’t designed to be beautiful, it was designed to be hidden. But with its tiny gear at the side, its crank shaft handle at the ready, the nobbled roller, it was beautiful, like a delicate player-piano in miniature. Like the inner workings of a human, the beauty of a physical system, all ready to go, but simply waiting for an injection of energy, of life. Waiting for something or someone to make it go.

The two letters sat side by side on the desk, the first letter from Bette and Mum’s response. The piece of paper that had brought me here, and this new piece of paper to be reckoned with.

I picked up the music box and placed it on the letter from my mother. It was a paperweight full of tuneful promise, but I was reluctant to turn the handle.

I didn’t have it in me. That’s what I was feeling. I didn’t have it in me to reckon with this. I reached for understanding, but all I found was silence and still water and a boat that didn’t want to be rocked.

The house was quiet. Mum’s letter was loud. I reached out again and picked up the cool metal thing. With thumb and forefinger I turned the tiny handle and, like a singing insect, the mechanical beast began to perform.

At first I couldn’t make out the tune from the tinny jingling, and then slowly it formed in my mind, first into mere recognition, and then into words.

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques

Dormez vous? Dormez vous?

‘You’re up late.’ Hessel was at the door behind me and I dropped the music box back onto the desk – onto the letters. I slapped my hands down over the top of them all, but the music box sang on.

Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines

‘Yes, just studying,’ I managed to say. How had I not heard the car?

I watched my grandfather’s eyes move from the jingling music box to the letters underneath. If there was any recognition I couldn’t see it, but my heart beat faster anyway. ‘Is everything alright with Polly?’ I said.