I get the Victoria train back to London. I don’t know why. The nicer, cleaner, faster St. Pancras train was due to arrive just three minutes after. It feels, in a way, like a type of really minor self-harm. It’s not that I feel like I don’t deserve the nicer train, but it does feel like what I deserve is a long and uncomfortable journey on the dirty old train. The carriage is almost empty when I get on. I sit in a group of four seats that has a metal table in the middle. I wipe the tabletop with my sleeve and I lean back and close my eyes until the train starts moving. Then I watch the fields out of the window. We pass a few streams; I see some hares standing on the edges of partially flooded fields, a few churches, schools with kids in the playground at lunchtime. Then we go over a long bridge. I close my eyes again, relieved to think that there’s now a river between me and my mum.

Later, in the afternoon, I’m back at the gallery, cleaning labels off around fifty empty wine bottles to be used as candleholders for the opening of the exhibition, which is the day after tomorrow. I’m standing over an industrial sink in a room that looks, from the cleaning supplies in the corner, like it might be a storeroom, taking a break to send Dr. Kerr an email to update him on the morning and apologize for leaving without finding him. There’s a cloudy mirror in front of me with paint splattered on it here and there. I don’t spot Gideon, standing in the doorway behind me, in the mirror. His voice is the first thing that tells me he is there.

“Hello,” he says. I lock my phone and stuff it back in my pocket. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He is smiling.

“Do you need this room?” I start drying the bottles on the drying rack.

“No.” He steps into the room fully and closes the door. For a moment, I worry that he knows that I stole the puppet and has come to talk to me about it. But he says, “I’m checking in with everyone. Seeing how you’re all doing.”

“Oh, I’m doing fine.” I put the dishcloth down, and pick up one of the bottles that still has a label and drop it into the soap-water bath in the sink. “Thank you,” I add. He’s wearing similar clothes to the first time I saw him. A high-collared shirt, dark jacket and trousers. His shoes are shiny, brown and pointy. He seems, almost, like a different person, though. Everything about him feels more open and friendlier. “You’re Lydia, yes? Keep going,” he says, gesturing to the bottles. “Don’t mind me.”