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was a scream, everyone said so. Only Mr Kasperl seemed impervious to his wit. The fat man would look at him blankly, in silence, and Felix would turn and tiptoe away, doubled up in soundless mirth, a hand clapped over his mouth and his eyebrows waggling.
    Aunt Philomena was captivated. Felix and Mr Kasperl were so different from the usual clientele at Black’s, the travelling salesmen and the fat-necked cattle-buyers, so coarse, so prosaic. This pair were like something she herself might have invented, for she was given to fantasies, and saw herself always at the centre of some impossible drama. She shared the family home in Queen Street with Uncle Ambrose. When she came to our house now she wore a look of triumph, as if with the arrival of Felix and the fat man all her wild flights had somehow, at last, been vindicated. She told us of Mr Kasperl’s little ways, how he liked his coffee strong and boiling hot, and how some days he would stir himself suddenly and call for a glass of brandy, and drink it off in one go, with a brisk snap of the head.
    – And that coat! she cried. And the galoshes!
    His English was not good, it was hard to understand him. His accent made the things he said seem at once profound and quaint, like ancient pronouncements. He was very educated, he had studied everything, philosophy, science, oh, everything! He had given up all that now, though. Saying this, she put on a tragic face, as if she too had renounced weighty things in her time, and knew all about it. I thought of Mr Kasperl sitting alone by the blazing window in Black’s, glooming out at the town like a decrepit god overseeing a world, weary of his own handiwork, but stuck with it.
    – What is he doing here, anyway? my mother said. What does he want?
    She did not like at all the thought of these people moving into Ashburn, her Ashburn. Aunt Philomena frowned, pursing her vermilion mouth.
    – I don’t know that he wants anything, she said with dignity. What would he want, here?
    No one could answer that. She cast an arch glance about her.
    – In fact, she said, he’s something to do with mining …
    Jack Kay snorted.
    – Foreigner, is he? he said. Some class of a jewboy, if you ask me.
    The subject had provoked in him a mysterious, smouldering rage. Aunt Philomena delicately ignored him.
    – An engineer, I believe, she said mildly.
    – Engineer, my arse! Jack Kay shouted, and struck his fist on the arm of his rocking-chair.
    He glared around him. A dribble of spit had run down his chin. He sucked it up angrily. There was silence. Aunt Philomena cleared her throat and lifted her eyebrows, touching a fingertip to her blue-black perm, to the hem of her skirt, to the mole on her humid upper lip.
    – Well! she said softly, expelling a breath, and rose haughtily, like a ship’s figurehead, and swept out of the house.

 
    I WENT OUT TO Ashburn day after day, and crouched in the little grove above the sunlit meadow. It was there that the girl found me, as I hoped, no, as I knew she would, came up behind me without a sound one afternoon and put her hand on my shoulder. I turned, I could feel my face grinning madly. She stood very close to me, examining me intently with her eager, lopsided smile, and made a sort of mewling sound at the back of her throat. I felt as if I had come face to face with a creature of the wild, a deer, perhaps, or a large, delicate, fearless bird. I started to say something, but she shook her head, and touched a finger lightly to her ear and lips, to show me she was deaf, and could not speak.
    She stepped away from me through the young trees, looking back and gesturing for me to follow. I hesitated, and she nodded vigorously, beckoning and smiling. She wore the same flowered skirt she was wearing the first time I saw her, and a white blouse damp-stained at the armpits. We walked up the meadow. The day was hot, with a listless breeze. Everything seemed to quiver faintly, the air, the grass, the very trunks of the