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looking down over the banister under the lamp. Then she went slowly back down the stairs, past Mrs Ellis in the kitchen, who was busy chopping something and hadn’t noticed her run past before and looked up too late to see her go by now.
    She found Mr Vishwanath sitting on his chair outside the back door in his faded red shirt and old brown trousers.
    Amelia hesitated, still standing. Mr Vishwanath didn’t say anything. Didn’t look at her.
    Amelia sat down beside him.
    The minutes passed. Slowly. Awkwardly. Amelia kept glancing at Mr Vishwanath. She wished he would say something. But he just kept gazing at the garden.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Vishwanath,’ said Amelia at last.
    Mr Vishwanath didn’t speak.
    Amelia waited. Then she said it again. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Vishwanath. I really am. I don’t know what came over me. It’s just the door was open and . . . well, I just wanted to see. I asked you before what the old lady did when she came to you, and you wouldn’t say, so I . . . I . . .’ Amelia stopped. That was no excuse. ‘I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, Mr Vishwanath. I’m really, really sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done what I did. How can I make it up to you?’
    Now, at last, Mr Vishwanath looked at her. ‘To me?’ he said, in his soft voice, like the gentle thrumming of a drum. ‘Do you think you have injured me?’
    Amelia frowned.
    ‘It’s not me you have injured, Amelia. It’s not me you have to make it up to.’
    Who was it? A horrible thought crossed Amelia’s mind. Not the old lady! She didn’t want to make anything up to her .
    But it wasn’t the old lady. Suddenly Amelia understood. Something in the way Mr Vishwanath was watching her made it clear. It wasn’t himself he was talking about, and it wasn’t the old lady either.
    ‘The things we do that we wish we have not done, the one we injure most is ourself,’ said Mr Vishwanath.
    Amelia frowned. She wasn’t sure about that. ‘What if you kill someone?’
    ‘You kill yourself as well. The other person dies physically, but you yourself die in a different way.’
    ‘But at least you’re not dead!’
    ‘True,’ said Mr Vishwanath, but he said it in such a tone that Amelia knew he meant it was true in one way, but not in another.
    Amelia thought about it. Mr Vishwanath was right. Stealing into his studio like that hadn’t really hurt Mr Vishwanath. But it had left her with a sense of guilt and shame that almost made her hate herself. All she wanted now was a chance to prove herself again.
    ‘Mr Vishwanath, have you ever done things you wished you hadn’t?’
    Mr Vishwanath didn’t answer. After a moment there was a slight smile on his lips.
    Of course not, thought Amelia. Stupid question. He had never done anything bad, not Mr Vishwanath.
    ‘In my youth,’ he murmured, ‘I was quite a terror.’
    Amelia looked at him doubtfully. A terror? Mr Vishwanath?
    The smile lingered a moment longer, then was gone. Mr Vishwanath’s expression was perfectly serious again. ‘Every day it is a new battle, to do what we should. And if we have been successful yesterday, it doesn’t mean that the battle today is going to be any less hard.’
    ‘But you hardly ever go out of your house, Mr Vishwanath! How hard can it be for you?’
    Mr Vishwanath nodded. Amelia didn’t know exactly what that meant.
    They sat in silence, staring at the sculptures in the garden.
    ‘So you’re not angry with me?’ asked Amelia eventually.
    ‘Only as angry as you are with yourself,’ said Mr Vishwanath.
    Amelia frowned. ‘I bet the old lady was angry!’
    Mr Vishwanath didn’t reply.
    ‘I bet she’s angry with everybody! She looks so sour. And do you see what she does to that man who drives the car for her? She’s so mean! She makes him sit there all the time that . . .’
    Amelia stopped. Mr Vishwanath was looking at her.
    ‘Why do you teach her, Mr Vishwanath?’ Amelia thought of the stories about the people Mr Vishwanath refused to teach,